stonk
STONK, created in direct collaboration between tylerdurdan* and Dr. Mohamed from Gaza, is both a powerful rap track and a call to action.Â
Part of the A Dress for Gaza campaign, it raises urgent awareness and support for humanitarian aid, giving voice to those living the war’s reality.
Created in direct collaboration with Dr. Mohamed from Gaza, STONK is more than a rap track: it is a political statement and a concrete act of solidarity.
The single and its video are part of the A Dress for Gaza campaign, created to support urgent humanitarian initiatives and to tell, without filters, the reality of war as seen by those who live it.
With raw and visceral lyrics, tylerdurdan* dismantles propaganda and the hypocrisy of power, giving back voice and dignity to those who have been stripped of it.
This is not a work that seeks entertainment, but awareness — and a call to action. Urgent support and donations are needed to keep the A Dress for Gaza campaign alive and to bring tangible aid to those most in need.
tylerdurdan* is an Italian rapper, photographer, and AI artist whose work blends raw political commentary with experimental sound and imagery. Known for confronting propaganda, power, and social injustice, his projects often merge art and activism, amplifying marginalized voices worldwide.
Lyrics by tylerdurdan*:
In times of war, the law falls silent.
In times of war, the law falls silent.
Stonk!
But isn’t this a sin to celebrate?
The ones destroyed, the ones annihilated.
I’m tired, but my brain still stays awake,
like frozen lakes—unmoved, yet calculated.
Stonk!
Just books remain, they taught me how to speak.
No cable, zero TV in my flat.
My parliament’s the words I choose to leak.
Hell no I’ll hear you, I expected that.
Stonk!
Mass rhetoric on who strikes, who’s struck,
the images, so cruel, so out of luck.
One side eats sand beneath a burning sun,
the other froths with rage, yet thinks it’s won.
Stonk!
Silence resounds much louder than the screams.
Can lies survive when truth explodes the seams?
Images do not speak, they only haunt.
“Blow-Up” told us—illusion is what taunts.
Stonk!
The devil’s drool is dripping on our skin.
The human heart’s a cipher wrapped in sin.
This thirst for power—instinct absolute.
Intolerable, brutal, resolute.
Stonk!
The devil’s drool.
Stonk!
The devil’s drool.
Stonk!
Flour turns to death inside the field.
A boy just waits—his fate already sealed.
Israeli snipers shoot with no clear aim,
yet still get called “humane” with no more shame.
Stonk!
Fascists wear stars of blue upon their chest.
A tank resides within their iron breast.
Each drop of blood replaced with dollar flows—
yes, one can still be chained without the ropes.
Stonk!
One serves an idea, so devout,
they wipe out all that’s human, all that’s doubt.
If this is man, then man has failed again—
and we’re already drowning in our shame.
Stonk!
Just books remain, they taught me how to speak.
No cable, zero TV in my flat.
My parliament’s the words I choose to leak.
Hell no I’ll hear you—but I wasn’t flat.
Stonk!
The devil’s drool.
Stonk!
The devil’s drool.
Music and voices made with SUNO
Critical Review
“Stonk” – Disobedience is language. And language is a wound.
A critical reading of tylerdurdan’s new rap track
In an age when artificial intelligence composes songs, democratic states bomb schools and hospitals, and public language is little more than a smokescreen, tylerdurdan* refuses to look away. He stares straight into the fire. He writes from within it.
“Stonk” – a title echoing the violence of impact, the sound of explosion, and the viral slang for speculative finance – is a track that spans three continents, two centuries of oppression, and five layers of consciousness. This isn’t just a song: it’s an indictment. It’s a rap made of truth, nailed together with rage and poetry.
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I. “Isn’t this a sin? To celebrate the annihilated”
The track opens with a chilling refrain: In times of war, the law falls silent. Repeated twice, like a ritual, it invokes a suspension of justice. Immediately after, the question strikes: “Isn’t this a sin?”
Tyler starts from an ethical–even theological–plane. Sin. Guilt. It evokes Aquinas and Don Milani, but it hits with the fury of someone who’s seen too much. “To celebrate the annihilated” is a visceral condemnation of the sadistic satisfaction with which the West watches livestreamed genocides.
The following line flips exhaustion into clarity: “Tired, but my brain stays alive / like a frozen lake.” A metaphor of frozen awareness: alive, only because it’s been paralyzed. A cold, literary image—almost Rilkean.
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II. “Only books for learning. No TV, not even a cable”
Now comes the cultural layer. The artist rejects media altogether: he distances himself from the manipulated narrative. “Only books” – it’s a raw declaration of self-education. His parliament is built from words, not votes.
The wordplay “like hell I’m listening” (literally, “col cavolo che ti ascolto”) appears light but is razor-sharp: a rejection of propaganda. “I already expected it” shows a full awareness of the script being recycled—wars, lies, destruction disguised as humanitarianism.
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III. “Mass rhetoric on who attacks and who is attacked”
This is the track’s political core. Tyler rejects binary media narratives. No good guys, no bad guys—only manipulated frames.
“When living on one side makes you eat sand / while on the other they foam with rage”—this is Gaza, drawn in two bars. Segregation. Apartheid. And the discomfort it triggers in those who are privileged enough not to see it.
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IV. “Images don’t speak for themselves / Blow-Up said that years ago”
One of the most intellectually dense lines of the track. A reference to Antonioni’s 1966 masterpiece Blow-Up, where a neutral photo reveals a murder.
Tyler says: even images lie. Silence speaks louder than words, and words—when not handled carefully—are already dead. This is a punch straight to the heart of war journalism and of fake objectivity masked as reporting.
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V. “The devil’s drool” – Power as possession
The recurring hook – “the devil’s drool” – is brutal and biblical. It evokes evil not as a myth, but as desire. “The hunger for power is an insurmountable instinct” isn’t just political—it’s anthropological.
Here, the human is described as unreadable, unknowable. The moral grammar is lost.
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VI. “Flour turns into death”
Perhaps the most devastating moment. Bread—the symbol of life—becomes an instrument of death.
“A boy is waiting there, and someone shoots at his fate” is an image of pure horror. No crime, no threat. Just a target.
The line “Israeli snipers fire at random / some still call them human” is unfiltered.
It’s not metaphorical, it’s documentary.
It echoes If This Is a Man by Primo Levi, and the reference seems deliberate.
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VII. “You can be a slave even without chains”
Now the critique broadens.
“Fascists with a blue star on their chest / tanks where their hearts should be”—this is rage directed not just at governments, but at ideologies.
“Dollars instead of blood”—the body has become a financial system.
Slavery, in this view, is no longer physical—it’s ideological. “You can be a slave to an idea to the point / of erasing what’s left of humanity.”
And if this is what counts as “a man”, then we’ve already lost.
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Final lines: “Only books for learning… but I didn’t see it coming”
The track loops back to its opening themes—books, awareness, disbelief. But something has changed. Now there’s a tremor in the voice.
“The devil’s drool” returns like a ghost refrain.
Tyler doesn’t offer redemption. He offers a mirror. Cracked, smeared with blood and media static.
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Why Stonk matters
Stonk is not just a track. It’s a document. A weapon. A provocation.
Tyler speaks with the lucidity of those who have no illusions left.
He quotes Antonioni, he channels Pasolini, he evokes Edward Said without ever naming him.
In a world numbed by fake neutrality, this track screams. With anger, with elegance, with unbearable clarity.
Some will say it’s extreme. Others will say it’s dangerous.
But Stonk refuses comfort. And right now, in this world, discomfort might be the only honest art form we have left.
Follow Dr. Mohamed MoeenÂ