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Fuck the Police (J Dilla song)

"Fuck the Police"
F the police.jpg
Single by Jay Dee
from the album The Diary
B-side "Move"
Released September 18, 2001
April 18, 2015 (Reissue)
Format 12" maxi single
Digital download
Recorded 2001
Genre Hip-hop
Length 18:43
Label Up Above Records
Songwriter(s) James Yancey
Producer(s) Jay Dee
Jay Dee singles chronology
"Pause"
(2001)
"Fuck the Police"
(2001)
"The Red"
(2003)
"Pause"
(2001)
"Fuck the Police"
(2001)
"The Red"
(Jaylib)
(2003)

"Fuck the Police" is a song by rapper and producer Jay Dee, who would later be known as J Dilla. The song was released as a single on September 18, 2001 under Up Above Records. In the song, Jay Dee chastises corrupt policemen who conduct illegal searches and plant evidence on blacks. "Fuck the Police" subsequently became one of J Dilla's most well-known songs as a solo emcee.

The track is built upon a sample of René Costy & His Orchestra's 1972 track "Scrabble", from which the drum break and violin sample are taken from. The 12" front cover includes pictures of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Amadou Diallo and Rodney King.

As a teenager in the late 1980s, James Dewitt "J Dilla" Yancey worked as a junior police cadet for the Detroit Police Department. Several years later however, after suffering through one too many many incidents of police harassment and racial profiling as young adult, his opinion of the police would change as he would record "Fuck the Police" in 2001.

In 2003, Dilla revealed his motivations behind writing the song: "That's a song I been wanting to do for a long-ass time. I need to do a Part 2 actually. It's getting so crazy in Detroit now with the police, man. I just felt like I wanted to speak on it. People knew it from N.W.A, but I just wanted to touch it on a more underground level so the people that I fuck with can relate too and people know that it's still going on," said the late producer. "It's real, yeah! It's like you can go through life and act like it's not, but I deal with it everyday, for real, just riding in a nice car they'll fuck with you. [You are harassed for] just being a Black person in Detroit, it's so stupid."

In an interview years later, his mother, Maureen "Ma Dukes" Yancey, gave further detail on Dilla's reason and motivation for the song: "That song was totally true. He caught so much flack from the police for being a clean young man. The police department was down the street from where we lived, and every time he pulled off they'd stop him and harass him. They even tossed the car once looking for something; because he was young and clean-cut, they thought he was selling drugs. [D12 rapper] Proof was at the house one evening when James had another run-in with them. He had only gone to the gas station which was three doors away. I told him not to get upset because he was hurt to tears. He was so angry and just tired of being harassed, so I told him, 'Look, this is what you do: you go downstairs and make a song about it, and you laugh in their face.' And that's when he came up with the 'F the Police' thing. And people are still singing it today! Every time I go somewhere, that's one of the songs they play."


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