Pussy Riot‘s first song in English is dedicated to the passing of Eric Garner, the unarmed Staten Island man killed by police this past summer. Questioned by patrolmen on suspicion of selling single, untaxed cigarettes on the street, Garner was put into a chock-hold by police, and after repeating “I can’t breathe” eleven times, the forty-three year old African American man died while in their custody. This past December a grand jury decided not to indict the officer in question, sparking numerous rallies and marches nationwide.
Recorded during the demonstrations in NYC that month, “I Can’t Breathe” was the result of an all-night session with a number of like-minded artists from the US and Russia. Featuring Richard Hell delivering a chilling monologue of Eric Garner’s final interaction with the police, Pussy Riot is also joined on the track by: “Nick Zinner, Andrew Wyatt, Shahzad Ismaily (The Ceramic Dog) and Russian bands Jack Wood and Scofferlane“.
The video, here, is directed by Pussy Riot, and it finds band members Masha Alyokhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova wearing Russian riot gear while they are buried alive in a shallow grave. While “I Can’t Breathe” carries quite the visual impact, the video also has a strong symbolic narrative–as explained by Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova in this excellent Pitchfork interview. It’s an essential read, with potent details about the video–like the fact that the cigarettes shown in the opening shot, Russian Spring, are an actual brand that has sprung up in support of the countries increasingly militarized stance against the Ukraine. Now, that’s a reactionary smoke!
