Pussy Riot members have released a video for their first-ever English-language song. It is dedicated to Eric Garner, the man who was choked to death in Staten Island by an NYPD officer last year.
The track called “I Can’t Breathe” — the last words said by Garner while he was being choked — was recorded in December in New York and features Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, The Ceramic Dog’s Shahzad Ismaily, Andrew Wyatt and the Russian bands Jack Wood and Scofferlane.
Punk icon Richard Hell is also featured, repeatedly saying Garner’s final words during his conflict with the officer.
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In the video, directed by Mikhail Vihrov, Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova are shown being buried alive, sporting Russian riot police uniforms, while singing “It’s getting dark in New York City, I need to catch my breath.”
When Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were released from a Russian prison in Dec. 2013, they originally said they no longer had anything to do with Pussy Riot and should not in any way be associated with the band.
However, they later didn’t object to being identified as Pussy Riot members as the band’s anonymous members and one known member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, who was released from jail earlier, have remained mostly inactive. The recent video, along with a few earlier ones, was released on YouTube channel PussyRiotVideo.
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A year ago, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina found themselves at the center of a controversy during the Sochi Olympics while filming a video near an Olympic venue. They were whipped by members of Cossack militia, although later there were reports on Russian social media that the whipping was staged.
In December, they released another video, calling on people to take to the streets of Moscow to protest the sentencing of prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother.
