‘Hang ‘Em Up High at Sundown’: Pro-Trump Rapper and Country Singer Spark Outrage with New Song About Bringing Back Lynching
A white rapper and country singer drew swift and intense backlash online with the release of their new song that promotes reviving public lynchings.
The newly released song, “Good and Evil,” features country singer JJ Lawhorn and MAGA rapper Forgiato Blow, who went viral in 2024 after releasing a pro-Trump music video that included model and TV personality Amber Rose at the Republican National Convention.
In “Good and Evil,” the chorus is anything but subtle.
“We need a big, tall tree and a short piece of rope. Hang ’em up high at sundown,” Lawhorn belts in an apparent reference to “sundown towns” where violent measures were enforced to maintain racial segregation against Black Americans.
“Leave ’em swinging so the folks all know you don’t mess around in our town,” Lawhorn sings.
In Forgiato’s verse, he raps, “Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not kill. But if you do, b***h we’ll hang you in a f***ing field.”
He then references the deaths of Austin Metcalf, Laken Riley, and Iryna Zarutska, whose alleged killers were Black and Latino, and specifically raps that Zarutska was killed by a “n****r.”
Later, Lawhorn is heard singing, “We ought to do it like they did it way back in the day because grandaddy’s way works best.”
In a post on Instagram, where Forgiato Blow calls himself the “Mayor of Magaville,” the rapper pledged to preserve Charlie Kirk’s beliefs in light of the right-wing outrage and grief tied to the conservative commentator’s assassination.
“I’m done being silent in my faith!” the rapper wrote in a caption under the music video. “Im done being a silent conservative, I’m no longer concerned that truth may hurt your feelings. Jesus is coming back and we are all part of his mission! I am Charlie Kirk!”
While some MAGA supporters praised the song, others online were as scathing in their criticisms as the country-rap duo was in their lyrics.
“‘Though shall not kill,’ proceeds to write song about mob justice and lynching. Lord, make it make sense!” one Instagram user wrote.
“You and this trash a** music encouraging lynching are abhorrent
,” an X user commented.
The song dropped just days before the body of a Black college student was found hanging from a tree at Delta State University in Mississippi. News of 21-year-old DeMartravion “Trey” Reed’s death quickly spread online and sparked widespread concerns that he might have been lynched.
Local authorities released a statement that their preliminary investigation ruled out foul play. Still, Reed’s family is calling for an independent autopsy to confirm the cause and manner of his death.
According to the Equal Justice Initiative, more than 6,500 documented racial terror lynchings took place in the United States between 1865 and 1950.
The 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, which was an inflection point in the 20th-century civil rights movement, inspired anti-lynching legislation that makes lynching a federal hate crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison. The bill was signed into law by former President Joe Biden in 2022.
In the wake of Kirk’s death, President Donald Trump has threatened to crack down on the “radical left,” stating that left-wing pundits have “compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis.”
“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now,” he said. “My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.”
The Department of Justice recently removed a study on its website, revealing that violence committed by far-right extremists far outpaces “all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.” That study can still be viewed as an archived post on the Wayback Machine.