What happens when you take one of the most iconic hip-hop tracks of the ’90s—De La Soul’s Stakes Is High—and repurpose it into a lyrical firebomb aimed at hypocrisy, censorship, Zionism, corporate corruption, and constitutional decay?

You get Mistakes Is High.
A parody. A protest. A warning shot.

I wrote this track as part of the multimedia campaign for my upcoming book about free speech, the First Amendment, and the beautiful, burning wreckage that is American democracy. The book is angry. The song is worse.

Why De La Soul?

Because Stakes Is High was one of the first hip-hop tracks that didn’t just spit bars—it interrogated them. It questioned the culture, the industry, the state of the world. I wanted to do the same—but updated for 2025, a time where fascism isn’t knocking at the door; it’s live-streaming from your Ring camera.

This parody is built from the bones of that track. But I tore it open, injected it with bile, facts, and unfiltered satire, and stitched it back together with barbed wire.

What’s in the Track?

• Surveillance capitalism
• Weaponized disinformation
• Performative Zionism and genocide hypocrisy
• Shadowbanning and Big Tech censorship
• The collapse of constitutional accountability
• The rise of American authoritarianism dressed in red, white, and blue

It’s not subtle. It’s not safe. And it’s not meant to be. This is protest rap for people who read law review articles and scream into pillows.

The Book Connection

This song isn’t just a standalone rant—it’s a preview. My book dives into the legal infrastructure behind what the song spits. Think of this track as the beat-driven summary of a 300-page argument that the First Amendment is being strangled while the crowd claps.

If you like the song, you’ll love the book. Or hate it. Either way, you’ll feel something, and that’s more than most political discourse offers these days.

Watch It Now

👉 Share it. Save it. Rage-comment on it.
👉 Send it to someone who still thinks freedom of speech is just a talking point.

Final Words

Make no mistake. Fight fascism now.

Because the stakes aren’t just high anymore—they’ve been dropped, set on fire, and sold to a billionaire pretending to be a patriot.

Let’s talk about it. Let’s rhyme about it. Let’s burn some lies down.