Riz Ahmed’s Spoken Word Performance After Charlottesville Will Give You Chills

Perfect angel Riz Ahmed (ie Riz MC) used his guest spot on last night’s The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to speak out about extremism in the wake of the Charlottesville riots. Ahmed performed a spoken-word version of his song, ‘Sour Times’, which he also performed earlier this year during his duo Swet Shop Boys’ Glastonbury set.

The performance, which is highly affecting and tender with Ahmed’s obvious anguish and confusion, stopped Fallon’s show in its tracks. Ahmed performed the verse unaccompanied, just him and a mic taking on the Tonight Show stage.

After a more lighthearted conversation, nevertheless dampened by the sombre events at Charlottesville over the weekend, Fallon asked if actor/rapper Ahmed would perform. Ahmed opted to do ‘Sour Times’, a song he wrote over ten years ago. He told Fallon, “I keep hoping it will become irrelevant, but it seems to become more and more relevant, sadly.”

“It just seems like we’re living in really, really divided times,” Ahmed told Fallon. “And it hurts.” Ahmed prefaced his performance of the powerful piece by calling it his “attempt to get behind the headlines and work out where all this extremism is coming from”.

The song’s epic hook, “In these sour times/Please allow me to vouch for mine/Bitter taste in my mouth, spit it out with a rhyme/I’m losing my religion to tomorrow’s headlines” became Ahmed’s haunting spoken-word refrain as he used the song to grapple with extremism (in all its forms) in contemporary life.

Thanks @FallonTonight for letting me share my thoughts with America in these Sour Times. Time we all gotta speak up. https://t.co/f3oRje49as pic.twitter.com/ALuuUcmUIm

— Riz Ahmed (@rizmc) August 15, 2017

Ahmed’s powerful performance came during the same episode where an emotional Fallon used his opening monologue to denounce Trump, the events at Charlottesville and America’s crawl back to fear and white nationalism.

Fallon, who has previously received criticism for his part in softening the image of Donald Trump during the presidential race, appeared close to tears as he described how seeing “Nazi flags and torches and white supremacists” made him “sick to my stomach”.

“We cannot do this,” Fallon said, so emotional he almost whispered, “We can’t go backward”. He went on, “We all need to stand against what is wrong, acknowledge that racism exists, and stand up for what is right and civil and kind.”