Scene and Heard – CCCLXXVI : Strapped Up – Carolina Ty  (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

America might be starting to have a conversation about problems with guns, in schools, in white middle class communities and patting itself on the back for making progress but in some parts of society the problems go much deeper and this is what lies at the heart of Carolina Ty’s message. What if guns have become a necessary evil? What if, for some, they have become something upon which your very survival is based? What if the system is against you and the only way to feel safe is to cross the line into a place which invites more danger than it protects against. That is the dichotomy, the battle that is going on in the song.

Musically Strapped Up references those 90’s hip-hop pioneers who were willing to present such debates to a national audience, to comment on the rot and inconsistency in society and do it via confident and challenging raps. It moves with the times too, employing skittering trap percussion and shimmering electronica but the real issue here is that whilst the music that carries the message may have changed to some degree, it’s the same conversation that we have been having, or actually not having, for decades. But Carolina Ty knows that just because nothing seems to be changing, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t keep raising the questions and what better way than via vibrant and powerful music.