"Killing Is Out, School Is In", titled "School Is In" on its

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

version, is a song recorded by

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...

with additional vocals by Bobby Byrd and

Tomi Rae Hynie Tomi Rae Hynie (born May 21, 1969) is an American singer who claimed to be the fourth and last wife of James Brown. Singing career Brown worked as a sound alike Janis Joplin impersonator in Las Vegas, Nevada and as a backup singer in the James Br ...

. It was released in 2001 as a

CD single A CD single (sometimes abbreviated to CDS) is a music single in the form of a compact disc. The standard in the Red Book for the term ''CD single'' is an 8 cm (3-inch) CD (or Mini CD). It now refers to any single recorded onto a CD of any si ...

but failed to

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

. It was Brown's last single and also appeared as the closing track on his 2002 album '' The Next Step''.

Background

Its lyrics have an anti-violence message. In an interview Brown said of the song, "Killing seems to be a way of life in school. And what we're trying to tell 'em is that a lack of knowledge and a little bit of drugs will make you blow your cool. So we put it right there where you can hear it. We don't try and dress it up and do it like the system would do it - where it might miss the kids. We want to put it to 'em back on the street, in the same language."

Critical reception

Music writer Jake Austen described it as "surprisingly funky, though absurdly didactic".

References

James Brown songs Songs written by James Brown Songs written by Bobby Byrd 2001 singles 2001 songs {{2000s-R&B-song-stub