A light rail train on the move over a Kuala Lumpur street left empty by Malaysia’s lockdown (Simon Roughneen)
KUALA LUMPUR — A Malaysian father-daughter duet cover of “Killing In The Name,” a 1992 Rage Against The Machine moshpit churner with an instantly-recognizable riff and bass line, has been given a thumbs-up by Tom Morello, the guitar virtuoso who composed the tune.
Morello posted the clip on his Instagram account – which has over 1.1 million followers – early on Wednesday, dubbing it “Quite possibly the hardest cover of this song ever.”
The original Youtube clip of the cover – which was posted by Ujang Ijon and featured him plucking on an acoustic guitar while daughter Audrey piped some of the song’s lyrics into the camera – had garnered 113,000 views at time of writing.
“If only my own video could have views like this,” Ujang joked on his Facebook account, reacting to his surprise viral hit.
The Malaysian father-daughter cover combo are, like the rest of the country’s 32 million population, abiding by a government-imposed lockdown since March 18.
The restrictions – which require people to stay at home unless commuting to work, buying food or seeking medical assistance – are aimed, the government said, at stopping the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
The original “Killing In The Name,” which famously winds up with singer Zach de la Rocha repeatedly screaming “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me,” was released in late 1992 – the first single from the then-unheralded band’s eponymous debut album.
With Morello’s soon-to-be-iconic guitar mastery overshadowing de la Rocha’s stridently-political lyrics, Rage Against The Machine shot to immediate fame and were filling stadia across the United States and beyond within months.
