Open Letter (To a Landlord)

Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid wrote this song with the poet Tracie Morris, who helped him compose the lyric. The song takes on the gentrification of New York City's East Village, as old building were being demolished and longtime residents forced out. Morris told us in 2015: "At the time we were talking about tenements and other buildings being torn down for buildings that would be inhabited by 'Yuppies.' I remember a great deal of alarm in the BRC (Black Rock Coalition) when The Gap first opened up a store on St. Marks' Place. We saw the downtown/boho lifestyle changing before our eyes. The song focused on the displacement of residencies of course, but I think we were considering how entire neighborhoods were beginning to shift. The idea of landlords and slumlords getting tenants out to reap financial rewards isn't new, especially in New York. We certainly felt at the time that much of the motivation behind the riots was to gentrify the East Village. Now of course we hear about gentrification at a more extreme level taking place all over NYC, not just in Manhattan but all over Brooklyn and all the boroughs. In some ways, 'Open Letter' was a precursor to the wholesale expunging of the regular people that have made New York City great since the beginning."

Vernon Reid co-founded the Black Rock Coalition in 1985, an organization dedicated to "creating an atmosphere conducive to the maximum development, exposure and acceptance of Black alternative music." Tracie Morris was a part of the organization. She explained: "Vernon contacted me to help him work on the song. (I met Vernon through the Black Rock Coalition - he actually gave me directions to the first party they had at JAM Gallery in Soho around 1986 - and I became one of their founding members.) Vernon was a bit stuck at a certain point in writing the lyrics to the song. I was very politically active during that time. So between being a poet and an activist, I guess he figured I could help out with song lyrics on a political topic. I wrote a couple of stanzas for him, he selected what he wanted and that was it. Pretty straightforward. It was quite lovely to hear Corey sing my words. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. It was also a bit... unnerving to hear my own writing in someone else's voice, especially at the time because I was terrified of just reading my own writing in public. (Obviously I've "worked through" that issue...) It was fun hanging out with those guys back in the day. It was very nice to be involved with the project, even in a small way."

This was the second Living Colour single released in America, following "Cult of Personality." The song runs 5:32, which is very long for a single, but it was not edited down. Released in June 1989, the song peaked at #82 on July 22, five weeks before the group embarked on the Steel Wheels tour as the Rolling Stones opening act.