Talib Kweli is never afraid to address real issues in his music, and his latest release comes in support of one brave young girl in particular. Produced by Oh No, “She’s My Hero” is dedicated to Bresha Meadows, the 16-year-old Ohio girl who shot and killed her abusive father last summer after she and her family had suffered an “unending cycle of domestic abuse” for years.
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This May, Meadows accepted a plea deal in which she pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and is expected to be released from the mental health facility where she’s currently being held in January 2018.
“I see my own children in Bresha’s young face, and I want to uplift their voices as much as I possibly can,” Talib says. “My hope is that this song inspires us as a community to more closely examine the dysfunction within our own families, so that we can create solutions before young people like Bresha feel like they must take matters into their own hands.”
Talib isn’t the only one who’s come to Bresha’s defence; a GoFundMe page has raised more than $150,000 to help pay for her mental health treatment while a separate petition gathered more than 30,000 signatures calling for Bresha’s charges to be dropped.
Listen to “She’s My Hero” and read Talib’s full message below.
“Spending time engaging with fans on social media has allowed me to spread information about causes and events ignored by the mainstream media. It has also made me aware of important cultural events and connected me with brilliant people who make me a better human being. It was on social media that I first learned about the story of Bresha Meadows. On July 28th, 2016, Bresha Meadows shot and killed her reportedly abusive father. She was 14 years old at the time.
The first thing that struck me about Bresha was how much she physically reminded me of my own daughter. I had a similar experience when George Zimmerman killed 17 year old Trayvon Martin, who reminded me of my son. I instantly felt drawn to these children and I felt compelled to dive deeper into their lives. Leading up to shooting her father, Bresha’s grades were slipping in school, she had run away from home and had repeatedly told relatives and authorities that her father was beating up her mom and threatening to kill the whole family.
Back in 2011, Bresha’s mother, Brandi Meadows, stated in court papers that she had been cut, suffered broken ribs, a broken nose and black eyes, and that she is 100 percent sure she will be killed. She later reconciled with Bresha’s father, which is a common occurrence in abusive relationships. To this day, the father’s relatives insist he was not nearly as abusive as he was made out to be.
Bresha obviously had a different perspective, telling authorities that the gun she killed her father with was the very gun he used to threaten the family with. After sitting in juvenile detention for 9 months and facing at the very least a very lengthy prison sentence, Bresha accepted a plea deal that will allow her to be released to a residential treatment center for 6 months and then to her family. What struck me about this case was Bresha’s age. I express myself lyrically, so a lyric popped in my head while thinking about it –
“Do you kill yourself or kill the monster thats making you suicidal, decisions to heavy for the mind of a child.”
Regardless of how you feel about this particular case, whether you feel it’s a self defense issue, a domestic abuse issue, a mental health issue or all of the above, the take away for me is that we must do a better job of taking care of and protecting our children. Our children should never feel they have to make these kinds of decisions. I see my own children in Bresha’s young face, and I want to uplift their voices as much as I possibly can. Brandi Meadows has said of her daughter –
“She is my hero. I wasn’t strong enough to get out and help us all.”
That statement got me thinking about what a hero truly is, and made me want to write a song about Bresha. My hope is that this song inspires us as a community to more closely examine the dysfunction within our own families, so that we can create solutions before young people like Bresha feel like they must take matters into their own hands. I present She’s my Hero.
