July 8, 2018
Creative Life Support Records
"#BigBrotherIsTrending" is the latest single release from the upcoming album by Social Justice Disco, "Songs To Fight Fascists By", a collaboration between Phat Man Dee (voted Best Jazz Performer in Pittsburgh City Paper 2016 Readers' Poll) and Liz Berlin (founding member of triple-platinum selling band Rusted Root). The lyrics describe modern events that demonstrate widespread racial injustice, excessive police violence, environmental injustice, and how all media is manipulated to control the narrative in a generally successful attempt to obfuscate the truth. Inspired by George Orwell's classic novel "1984", this song recounts the murders of innocent people of color by describing them as "un-persons" in the eyes of the law. It also references the struggle of the Native American peoples against the pipelines which are being built against the laws of yet more broken treaties with the line: "won't hear 'newspeak' in their (the Lakota people at Standing Rock) songs". "#BigBrotherIsTrending" proclaims that what's going down is "some double plus un-good news" and asks its listeners to answer the question "what's more important, lives or pride?" With solid harmonies between Pittsburgh artivist power divas Phat Man Dee and Liz Berlin, tight horn parts by Reggie Watkins and Steeltown Horns, searing guitar solos, and featuring guest rapper Big Jus, "#BigBrotherIsTrending" is an audio opus of dark disco and industrial funk about how "alternative facts" and "fake news" are truly insidious "double speak" threatening to undermine our distressingly fragile democracy.