[Cover photo credit to Sean Dunn]
Georgia-based rapper, linguist, activist, parent, and politician Mariah Parker (they/them), who performs as Linqua Franqa, has shared their new single, “Coming for Ours.” The release comes in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Fight for $15 and the November 19th launch of Union of Southern Service Workers, where Parker now organizes.
The upbeat song seeks to “uplift and empower – stressing the importance of fair wages, collective struggle, and respect for the working class”. Earlier this year, Linqua Franqa also released their album Bellringer via Ernest Jenning Record Co.
Parker says:
I wrote the song back in the spring and had the opportunity to attend a worker convening in DC and help emcee an AB257 rally in California, experiences which really opened my eyes to the beauty and resiliency of this movement, influencing my decision to join the struggle directly.
The Fight for $15 movement started on November 29, 2012, when over 100 workers from fast food restaurants across New York City went on strike for higher wages, better working conditions and the right to form a union without retaliation from management, and the movement continues today.
Parker adds:
Liberation struggle, like work life itself, can be lonely, gruelingly slow, and fraught with uncertainty with fear, but I hope this song dares folks to embrace working class status defiantly and with it the collective power we have as the folks who make everything run.
