Empyreal Blue

Nyakim Gatwech at the 2018 Emmys

Boots Riley’s Dystopian Satire “Sorry to Bother You” Is an Anti-Capitalist Rallying Cry for Workers

An evil telemarketing company, a corporation making millions off of slave labor, and one Oakland man at the center of it all who discovers a secret that threatens all of humankind. Boots Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You” is the dystopian social satire being hailed as one of the best movies of the summer. On Tuesday we sat down with with Riley, the poet, rapper, songwriter, producer, screenwriter, humorist, political organizer, community activist, lecturer and public speaker—best known as the lead vocalist of The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club.

He talked about the power work stoppages and strikes in the film:

I believe that since the beginning of the New Left, progressives and radicals have turned more to spectacle and gone away from actually organizing at the actual point of contradiction in capitalism, which is the explication of labor, which is also where the working class has its power. And we’ve gone in favor of demonstrations, that don’t necessarily have teeth, but they show where our head is at. And I feel like we have to put—give these demonstrations more teeth, by being able to affect the bottom line and say, you know—and say, “You can make no money today, or you can make less money and give us what we want.”