PODCAST: Chicago Artist Azizz Reflects On His Experience at George Floyd Protests

Written by Vocalo Radio on June 1, 2020

Our Midday Host Bekoe spoke to R&B singer Azizz on this weekend’s George Floyd protests.

The Chicago musician (you who might recognize from our April “In Rotation”) was downtown this weekend as protests erupted across the country. He spoke about problems leaving the downtown area, his standpoint on the looting, and how the energy of these protests felt different.

What was it like at the protests?

“Stepping off the train and just walking into the crowd…the energy was like, intense.”

Azizz brought up the power dynamic that was clear at the protests and compared it to the Stanford Prison Experiment. “When people are put in charge of people [and] given some type of title or power, they try to treat people like they’re beneath them. There’s just too much of that going on,” he said.

To him, this weekend’s protests felt different, perhaps because of the added fears of the coronavirus pandemic.

His standpoint on this weekend’s looting:

To Azizz, violence isn’t always the answer, but when peaceful protests haven’t been working, the way to grab attention and make societal change is by impacting people’s pockets. It’s just a shame that it had to spread to Chicago’s black communities who have already been hard hit.

“The only bad thing about all of this…when you unleash this type of rage it’s hard to curb and control it.”

Were there problems leaving the protest?

When the CTA shut down and he had to take an uber to work downtown, he didn’t realize it would continue for several days. He says that once the CTA stopped and the curfew was in place, many people were trapped, leading to several arrests he witnessed right in front of him.

Listen to the full interview here: