Revolutionary Rhymes

With their eyes glowing a piercing red, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahyu and American President Joe Biden convene in the oval office, eating blood-soaked ice cream cones and raining wads of cash down while they kick their feet back and watch as the world burns behind them. 

It’s a blunt and potent image, conjured by Toronto rapper Cee Reality and director and visual artist Kizmet for Cee Reality’s latest music video, “Fuck the Colonizers,” which is taken from the new album of the same name. The album channels all the rage, frustration and hope that Cee has felt welling up in the last year since Oct. 7 and Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians, a year of atrocities, inaction, normalization, and the manufacturing of consent. It’s his strongest work yet, speaking to not only the strength in his artistry, but community as well. 

“It’s an interesting juxtaposition of feelings [to be] really happy to share the record with the world, but also at the same time the pain and horror that it came out of is just constantly heartbreaking to me,” he explains over the phone. 

Songs like “War Pigs,” which references a certain heavy-metal anti-war anthem from the 1970s, find the tension in such juxtapositions. On one hand, there’s a bitter sadness to the fact that the song is just as relevant over fifty years later, and on the other, there’s a kind of unbridled jubilation thanks to a beat so good that Cee Reality’s entire crew had to show up to rap on it. 

The similarly swine-themed “Oink Oink” is sharp in its critiques of policing, and is built on a taunting and playful sample of a chant sung by Columbia University students calling for their university to divest from companies with ties to Israel. The song is hooky and hypnotic, and one of the record’s finest moments. 

“Having played plenty of shows and protests over the years, having elements that I feel are like chants, like anthems, can really build a strong energy and catharsis for people to share like those in those feelings,” he explains. 

If this urgent set of songs sound as though they are connected to the movement work born on the streets of this city, it’s because they are. Cee Reality has been involved in organizing spaces in Toronto for decades, with his activism often working hand-in-hand with his music. Recent shows have directed funds to World Beyond War and also the Community Defense Fund for folks arrested during protests. 

Like many folks who came up during the George W. Bush administration, 9/11 and the ensuing war in Iraq became a moment of political awakening for the young Cee Reality, one that was then guided by the music of Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, and Dead Prez. He says those artists were the catalysts for learning about Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and the Black Liberation Army, and anarchism — leading him down the path to connect with local anarchist organizers in Toronto, and also begin channeling his own consciousness into music. 

It’s through that work that he began linking up with other like minded artists like D-Liberate, becoming the rap duo known as Test Their Logik in the late 2000s. Shortly into their career, the two were arrested during the 2010 G20 protests and charged with conspiracy, counselling others to commit an indictable offence and wearing a mask with intent. As a bail condition, they were also prevented from associating with one another in any way. 

“We started doing fundraisers for people that had been arrested and who had charges [at the G20]. We were doing that in different capacities ’cause we couldn’t see each other or tour together.” Though the charges were later staid by the government, by 2013 Test Their Logik formed an anarchist collective called RHYMETHiNK with Hamilton rapper Lee Reed, which has grown to include Kay the Aquanaut, Tarek Funk and Praxis Life from across the country. 

In trying to isolate them, the federal government’s orders actually strengthened RHYMETHiNK collective’s resolve to resist, bringing together a wider network of artists who not only show up for each other and their wider communities, but feature prominently on each other’s artistic output.

Since then, their network has only grown, with the album’s artwork (shot by photojournalist Joshua Best) and the aforementioned music video (directed by Kizmet) coming together thanks to a group chat dedicated to supporting pro-Palestinian advocates. “We’ve all been trying to have mutual aid networks to support each other,” Cee Reality says. 

“It’s not only horrific to witness all the horrors that Israel’s inflicting upon Gaza, but oftentimes we’re being fed propaganda to make us believe that this is okay somehow. A lot of people in their work, family, and just life in general have various levels of people justifying it or making them feel like they’re the people that are morally bankrupt.”

Reflecting on the level of solidarity that’s behind his art, Cee Reality believes it’s also what makes enduring these struggles possible, and points to a way forward. “The horror is deep. Very, very deep. But the silver lining is that more and more people are seeing the system and the roots of the system for what it is. Like the mask is like coming completely off, and as messed up as it is, there are layers of silver linings of being able to connect with more comrades through that.”

This article appeared in the 2024 Oct/Nov issue.