“All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us,” the refrain, a ghetto street chant, goes, but what is it saying? That upper class white people (“they”) are generally apathetic toward (“us”) blacks? Michael Jackson, who one could jokingly say went from the latter to the former, suggests so.

“I’m tired of being the victim of hate,” The King Of Pop declares, “You’re raping me of my pride… for God’s sake.” The best bit is the one about Martin Luther King, which is harmonized to perfection before the final chorus section, where this anthem starts to sound like another Michael Jackson classic.

It could’ve been just that, but the guitar break, which serves as a bridge, is jarring. Not to say there shouldn’t be a guitar break; there absolutely should; just that there should be a better, or at least more fitting, one. The song also goes on for too long at the end. It should end at about the 04:10 mark.

my rating : 4 of 5

1995