Freedom

When you dive into Freedom by Rage Against the Machine, you encounter a piece that goes beyond music. The video accompanying this song, released in December 1993, is not just a visual accompaniment but focuses entirely on the case of Leonard Peltier, a key figure of the American Indian Movement. Throughout the footage, the band is shown playing in an intimate setting, while images of Peltier's legal proceedings are interspersed, along with other AIM members. It even recreates what happened at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, using material from Michael Apted's 1992 documentary, Incident at Oglala. What's interesting is that, while all this is happening, quotes from Sitting Bull and data about the AIM, extracted from Peter Matthiessen's 1983 study, *In the Spirit of Crazy Horse*, appear at the bottom of the screen. The video's ending is a direct call for Peltier's release, showing his image in prison and the forceful phrase "justice has not been served." More than thirty years later, in January 2025, President Joe Biden commuted his sentence.

Musically, Freedom is presented as a 6-minute and 6-second single, with a genre blend that fuses funk and rap metal, part of the self-titled debut album by Rage Against the Machine released in 1992. The composition is credited to Tim Commerford, Zack de la Rocha, Tom Morello, and Brad Wilk. Production was handled by Garth Richardson and the band itself, with mixing done by Andy Wallace. The Epic label was responsible for its distribution. The band's style, a fusion of hip hop, funk, and heavy metal, was notable for Tom Morello's guitar solos, which emulated DJ effects, and Zack de la Rocha's aggressive vocals.