Radio Free Brooklyn is the lead track on Pete Miser's album of the same name, released on Feburary 15th, 2003. The song is a science fiction story of a nuclear attack on New York City, and is an obvious metaphorical retelling of the World Trade Center attacks. It is rapped by Pete Miser, with help from a rapper named Blackout and a chorus sung by Farrah Burns.
The song is interesting in the different narrative tricks it plays during its 5 minute length. It begins with the sounds of birds chirping, followed by a cacophony, after which Pete starts rapping about surviving a nuclear war because he was in the subway when the bomb hit. After this, an annoying, cheerful news announcer announces "whoa Nelly...thats what we in the industry call a nuclear blast...looks like the schools are going to be closed".. Followed by a gospel music style chorus, along with teh sound of crows chirping in the background, along with a dense mixture of muffled sampled voices.
Rapper blowout takes over the next two verses, making the only clear references to the actual attacks "dodging anthrax and suicide bombers". After Blowout's two verses, an old gospel style voice intones: "I have to help some folks who are so less fortunate than me" after which the song ends.
Besides the always ear catching apocalyptic imagery, the point of the song seems to be that in a time of crises, free speech and communication are even more neccesary than in times of peace. This is especially clear in Blowout's concluding words, where he describes dying of radiation poisoning, but still having the energy to take a radio set off of a dead man's charred corpse to find out news of the world, and his statement that even when he is feeling the world about to end, he still has to communicate with people "through this radio vent called Free Brooklyn".
An excellent combination of narrative, imagery and message. And the beat rocks too. It can be (legally) downloaded at http://www.petemiser.com/mp3/radio_free_brooklyn.mp3