It's not your fault 'Killing In The Name' has devolved from a protest song to the tune they play after last call at Paddy O'Herlihey's. Why should you use the deplorable Capitalist machine to broadcast your position to millions when you can do the technological equivalent of handing out fliers? The thirty-two people who heard the song were moved. went into war in Iraq based on sketchy intelligence and utter ignorance of the inherent religious and ethnic conflicts that could arise during an ensuing occupation? That Web-only release of March of Death was more than adequate. It's cool, I mean, Linkin Park was holding it down for you - they did a record with Jay-Z!Īnd when the U.S. I'm sure you were probably preparing a scathing hard-rock screed about the foreign policy blunders that led to Al Qaeda's ascendancy just as Congress was signing off on the Patriot Act. Everybody gets a little subjective amnesia about those heady, Lee Greenwood-fueled days after the Twin Towers blew up. After spending seven years sending your fans into street fights with Howitzers, you left them unarmed on D-Day. Then September 11 went down, Clear Channel yanked Rage songs off the air, and you? Nothing. just as the Bush administration came into power. After a summer spent flipping off cops and raising a ruckus at the 2000 party conventions, you totally bailed. (Dude, remember those epic battles against the Parents Music Resource Center? How about that Mumia Abu-Jamal guy, huh? Oh, and Leonard Peltier, too!) You were totally changing the world every day - Che Guevara didn't even have his own T-shirt before you guys got to him! Thinking back on that time feels like flipping through old photos from college. This week, it's been really nice to look back on your career with Rage, when you and Tom Morello provided the perfect soundtrack for angst during the prosperous Clinton Era.

But, hey, nobody's bitter about the last seven plus years - it's not like anything of consequence happened while you were gone.

Welcome back, buddy! Until you did that reunion gig at Coachella, I had forgotten all about you! And how you abandoned Rage Against the Machine, its rabid fanbase and those left-leaning political ideals to go wank off with DJ Shadow on a solo record that has still never seen the light of day.

Illustration by Eric Gillin, Photograph by WireImage Dear Zack de la Rocha,

What happened to zach de la rocha