Lyricist-rapper Cameron McCloud couldn’t stomach the violence anymore after hearing of the deaths of innocent black men Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. The violence even spilled into his hometown of Dallas, Texas, when five police officers were fatally shot during a Black Lives Matter protest.
The following night, he and his fellow musicians in the group Cure For Paranoia took the stage at the bar Drugstore Cowboy, where they debuted a song, “We Matter.” McCloud and his bandmates wrote the song, which called for the black community and police to come together, after the officers in Dallas were killed.
Listen to “We Matter” below and keep scrolling for the rest of the story.
“I haven’t had any quarrels with the police personally,” McCloud told HuffPost. “That’s really what we wanted the song to be about ― that it’s not about blacks versus police. There’s something wrong going on right now, and it needs to be addressed.”
But McCloud also understands it’s black Americans who are killed by police at higher rates disproportionate to their percentage of the U.S. population.
“We support police, but we don’t support people dying for the wrong reasons,” McCloud said. “That’s our stance.”
Cure For Paranoia, which started nearly a year ago by McCloud, vocalists Stanley Mongaras and Jonathan Thomas, and composer Tomahawk Jonez (real name Jeremy Rodriguez), have been working on an album they hope to release in the fall. Check out more of Cure For Paranoia’s songs on their Soundcloud page.
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