It’s 2020 and Jacob Banks is exhausted.

The burden of another protest, another unjustified killing, and the looming certainty that more of both will follow weighs on his soul.

“If you look at the world, it shouldn’t be that difficult… People are saying, Please don’t kill us. That’s a very simple request. It’s not asking much,” he insisted. “Take women, for example. They’re saying, We want to be treated equally. They’re not saying they need to be treated as more than. No one’s asking for more. They’re just saying, We’ll have the same thing you’re having. People are saying, I want to love who I love. These things shouldn’t be a conversation for more than twenty seconds.”

And yet, it’s a conversation Black people, and women, and LGBTQIA+ people have ad nauseum.

In “Parade,” Jacob reclaims the narrative that’s made Black people targets for centuries through the power of music.

The music video opens full of ripe symbolism plucked from history and current events. In a shipping container yard, a Black man — musician & artist Kojey Radical — lies in the mud, surrounded by 4 others as helpless onlookers. Kojey slowly regains his feet and raises a fist in defiance. It’s a clear historical thread that Jacob (who directed this, and many more of his own music videos) has drawn between the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the continued disenfranchisement of Codes Noir and Jim Crow, multiple moments of the Civil Rights Movement, the cultural comfort with seeing Black people murdered on camera, and how despite it all, we keep rising up.

With centuries of context laid in just a few seconds, Jacob strikes fast with a few choice words that tear into stereotypes directly linked to our current circumstances.

“Is it the way I move? That’s why you think I’m bulletproof. Or is it in my cool? You think I’ll put a spell on you.”

Dancers, ballers, and track stars. Witches, mediums and voodoo queens. When people are good for nothing but entertaining, it’s easy to consider them playthings and property to be disposed of at will. Black music, Black style, Black culture, and Black slang are globally appropriated. Everybody wants the artifacts of Blackness, but not the experience of being so “supernatural” that doctors think you don’t feel pain, that your mere presence terrifies armed men, and that everything you own must have been given, stolen or obtained through voodoo.

Being Black in the US & UK is a visceral experience every single day, and Jacob and Kojey don’t back down from the gory details. As Jacob belts out “Let it rain,” Kojey spits blood. Keep listening closely and you’ll hear why: the entire chorus is backed by a drum machine simulating gun fire in direct reference to “raining bullets.” Amidst it all, Kojey never ceases marching. His dance is joyous, magnetic, tribal, and the very definition of existence as a form of protest.

When the system’s stacked against you, even small victories are always short-lived though. A very New Orleans Second Line-inspired brass band signals a tone shift and the song’s tense bridge. Visually, a man in Black dressed as a cross between modern-day police special forces and the KKK (in the words of the cinematic masterpiece “Don’t Be a Menace…”: MESSAGE) rides into the scene on horseback. The mismatched power dynamic between the mounted man and Kojey is glaring, and despite the rhythm laid down by the horns section, you’ll hold your breath like you did at the end of “Get Out.” Experience has taught us all too well how this showdown ends.

But instead of a bloody shootout, Jacob offers a resolution that better reflects the bigger picture of us vs. them: “No matter how hard it gets for the oppressed, civilization still doesn’t move without our consent,” he explains.

“Society requires those who stand up on the front line and march. It needs all of the marginalized and disenfranchised groups, so get on board or get used to it.”

Understanding that context is key to how “Parade” was born as both rallying cry and meditation mantra. Justice may be far on the horizon, but that doesn’t mean there’s no peace of mind. Even the worst storms eventually give way.

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(Ed. Note: If you’re loving Jacob, may I also recommend his beautiful cover of A Great Big World’s Say Something?)

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