Shooting of Amadou Diallo’s Biography, Net Worth, Fact, Career, Awards and Life Story
Music
The Diallo shooting has been referenced in the music of rapper 88-Keys; Bruce Springsteen’s song “American Skin (41 Shots)”; the Ziggy Marley song “I Know You Don’t Care About Me”; the Trivium song “Contempt Breeds Contamination”; The Spooks song “Things I’ve Seen”; the song “What Would You Do?” by Paris; the Blitz the Ambassador song “Uhuru”; “Feb. 4 ’99 (For All Those Killed By Cops)” by Mike Ladd; the song “Diallo” by Wyclef Jean; and the song “Lament For The Late AD” by Terry Callier. Lauryn Hill’s song “I Find It Hard to Say (Rebel)” on her album MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 was a response to Diallo’s killing. Robotrash mentions Diallo on their track “Just Talkin’ To My Mirror”. Pharoahe Monch’s cover of the Public Enemy (band) song “Welcome to the Terrordome” includes a reference to Diallo as well as Sean Bell and Timothy Stansbury in the introduction.
Electro pop band Le Tigre, formed by Kathleen Hanna (formerly of Bikini Kill), lamented the Diallo shooting in their song “Bang! Bang!”, which ends with a vocal chorus counting numbers that ends with 41, the number of shots fired. In his song “The other white meat”, which deals with police brutality and racism, New York rapper Immortal Technique tells the police “I got 41 reasons to tell you to suck a dick” and “Guns don’t look like wallets”, clearly referencing the shooting and counting every bullet fired as a reason. It was also referenced in the song, “So You Wanna Be a Cop” by the Crack Rocksteady 7, in the lyric: “and after 41 shots, you’re grinning in the donut shop”. “One Dead Cop”, by the related band Leftöver Crack, references the incident in the lyric “Bragging how you blasted gunshot 41.” The incident was briefly mentioned by rapper Heems in his song “WOYY”: “Diallo got shot when he said the block was hot.”
The piece “Amadou Diallo”, included in the album Ethnic Stew and Brew by jazz trumpeter Roy Campbell, Jr., was inspired by the shooting, ending with a rapid burst of notes replicating the 41 gunshots. The incident also served as the basis for Erykah Badu’s track “A.D. 2000” (the abbreviation standing for Diallo’s initials), from the album Mama’s Gun. Rather than singing a condemnation of the NYPD, as had most other artists who were incensed by the event, Badu chose to sing an elegy which, while noting the tragedy of Diallo’s killing, also observes the furor over the circumstances, which she viewed as likely to be temporary: “No you won’t be namin’ no buildings after me/To go down dilapidated ooh/No you won’t be namin’ no buildings after me/My name will be misstated, surely”. In his album The Beautiful Struggle, Talib Kweli speaks of “Brother Amadou as […] a modern day martyr.” Kweli makes further reference to the shooting in his song “The Proud”: “It’s in they job description to terminate the threat/So 41 shots to the body is what he can expect”.
Hip-hop group M.O.P.’s song “Ante Up” references Diallo in its opening segment with a shout of “Amadou!” This was later sampled by Tha Trademarc for the song “My Time is Now” used as professional wrestler John Cena’s entrance theme.
Folk Punk outfit Mischief Brew wrote “Thanks Bastards” which references the Diallo shooting in the lyrics “41 bullets, there’s 41,000 thorns in your side” “Found a wallet, not a gun, and mothers wiping tears from her eyes.”
Late Brooklyn MC Sean Price also referenced the shooting in the song “Lighters In The Air (Funeral Song)”. “Wop babaloo bop-da-wop bam-boom, cops got a few glocks and popped Amadou! Put’cha lighters up…”
Fiction
Amadou Diallo appears as a character in Alfredo Vea’s novel The Mexican Flyboy (U Oklahoma Press, 2016).
Film
In 2000, a group of human rights organizations completed “The Day After Diallo,” a short video about police violence against people of color in the context of the killing of Amadou Diallo. The video was co-produced by WITNESS, New York City PoliceWatch and The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.
Theater
In 2002, Playwright Rhonda Robbins wrote and produced “The Fourth of February, a Play?” that explored the cultural ramifications of the Diallo shooting.
