It had been four years since he had expressed himself in the media. Legendary musician Bob Dylan said in a rare interview with The New York Times on Friday that he was "sick" when he saw the video of the death of George Floyd, asphyxiated on May 25 by a white police officer in his home state of Minnesota.
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"It made me sick to see him tortured like this," said the musician in his first real interview since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. "It goes beyond horror. Hopefully justice will soon be done for the Floyd family and the country, ” he added.
At 79, the folk legend, including songs like Hurricane (1976) denouncing police violence against the black minority, is preparing to release his first album of original songs in eight years, Rough and Rowdy Days, next Friday .
"The day before annihilation"
In late March, as the pandemic began to hit the United States, Bob Dylan released his first song in eight years, Murder Most Foul , a 17-minute ballad devoted to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In the interview published Friday, conducted by phone from his home in Malibu, California, he is pessimistic about the future of the world and the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. “Extreme arrogance can lead to disastrous sanctions. Perhaps we are on the verge of annihilation, " he says, brushing aside any notion of " biblical " warning .
He says he is not thinking about his own death. "I am thinking of the death of the human race," he says. “The long and strange journey of the naked monkey (...) Every human being, as strong and powerful as it is, is fragile in the face of death. I think about it in general, not personal terms . ”
Before the pandemic, Bob Dylan regularly performed in concert. He had notably planned a series of concerts in April in Japan and in June in the United States, all canceled.