Seasoned actor/rapper Page Kennedy has been relatively quiet over the last couple of years—at least on the rap front. After releasing Page in 2021, Kennedy focused on his acting, appearing in The Upshaws and Snowfall while shooting a summer blockbuster film that’s expected to arrive on August 4. He returned with Front Page in 2022 and, lo and behold, managed to complete another album, A Book of Pages, which is also scheduled for release on August 4 (although a version of it is currently available on Bandcamp).
Ahead of the album’s arrival, Kennedy has shared “Giving Up,” a harrowing single about some of the recent struggles he’s faced. From the Writer’s Guild of America/SAG-AFTRA strike and depression to the pressures of Hollywood and financial strife, Kennedy lays it all out on the table.
“I made this song because I was going down a dark cavern,” Kennedy tells AllHipHop. “I started having thoughts of not being here anymore. It was a cavalcade of incommodious turmoil and exigent expectations on me. I don’t drink or smoke or do drugs. My only therapy is my writing. I can listen to ‘Giving Up’ over and over again to feel better.”
Kennedy echoes Ice-T sentiments about Hollywood at one point in the song—not everybody is rich just because they’re in the entertainment industry.
“It’s smoke and mirrors, when you think, ’cause you see me on TV, that I’m gettin’ all of this dough,” he raps. “What you don’t know is I did two seasons in a row, and they don’t wanna pay me mo’/I made all this money on this movie, but I only get a third of what I gross/Taxes and ya team take the most, social media, the highlight reel/What you post only way you get clout is when you boast, let’s look close/It’s 100 and 20K a year, and that’s on bills alone/So that means it takes 10,000 bucks a month, and I don’t even own my own home.”
Like hundreds of others, Page Kennedy is feeling the impact of the strike, and his pain is palpable throughout the song. He raps: “Now there’s an actors strike, now we tossed in the gutter/What the f### you mean I cant promote my own movie I almost drowned filming/Cancelling premieres, it’s all down hill man/Spent 10K on a publicist, now what?/I can’t do The Breakfast Club with out getting ousted.”
He continues, “Been waiting for this moment since childhood and they got the power to take away my glorious hour/How often you get a blockbuster and these c###suckers who do not love us make us fight for the rights that they block from us.”
“Giving Up” will be included on A Book of Pages once it’s up on streaming services. Listen to it above.