Cadence Weapon, the moniker of Toronto-based rapper, producer, writer, and poet Rollie Pemberton, recently announced his return with the upcoming LP Parallel World (eOne Music), out April 30th. Cadence’s most politically charged album, the songs on Parallel World touch on themes of systemic racism, structural inequality, police profiling, gentrification, the internet’s pervasive effects on our lives, and the surveillance state that disproportionately punishes Black people. Using elements of trap, drill, grime, and acid house, Parallel World is the soundtrack for the dystopian future we’ve somehow found ourselves in, with everyone dealing with their own realities relating to these issues. The new album is Cadence distilling these experiences for us all.

Today Cadence dives into some of the deeper themes of the album and society at large with the new single and video for “Eye To Eye”, out today. Over a swirling beat from Toronto producer Audioopera as a backdrop for Cadence’s trademark flow, Cadence’s new track was written in response to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and D’Andre Campbell, the assault of Dafonte Miller by an off-duty police officer, and his brother, and the Amy Cooper / Chris Cooper incident in Central Park. “I was inspired by the writing of Desmond Cole as well as W. E. B. Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness,” he describes. “How I perceive myself and how I’m seen by others as a black man and the conflict between those two perceptions.”