Old City

Old City teams with War On Women's Shawna Potter on rap/punk collab "Class Act" (video)

Old City is “veteran punk rock curator and producer” Justin Mayer, who’s built up a reputation for merging the worlds of hardcore punk and hip hop ever since releasing the Black Bastards EP in 2017, a mashup of the late MF DOOM with the UK crust punk band Doom. He’s since continued to work alongside Buffalo rapper Tr38cho and released such original songs as “Sixers” (which samples Black Flag and features MURS) and “Jump Off” (which samples Dead Kennedys). Now, Old City is back with a new song, “Class Act,” which samples Pennywise‘s “Society” and features War On Women’s Shawna Potter — along with backing vocals from Melissa ‘Winter’ Hurley (BadXMouth, Pissbath) and Nastya Pavlov (Messed Up!) — and is a tribute to women in punk rock.

“I have always cringed over the lack of ease in the way men have tried to express either the centrality or the influence of women in art,” said Tr38cho. “More often than not, women have to dig through the nuance or ambiguity of what is being said about them in art and, even then, sex becomes the driving force if it isn’t about their mother or sister. In writing ‘Class Act,’ I wanted the song to evoke, if nothing else, the feeling of idolizing the likes of Poly Styrene, Grace Jones or Kathleen Hanna. My mother was a firefighter for twenty-six years, my sister is in the Navy, my job is woman-owned and led, my wife is the smartest person I know and the toughest of all of my friends are women so, generally speaking, women are quite literally the source of my strength.”

The song comes with a video featuring live footage of several punk bands with women, including War On Women. Check it out…

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