Mr Bruce and Tom Oliver get hyperactive in the latest chapter of the forthcoming film OK Mr Bruce (accompanying the debut album OK). 

The singer-songwriter endeavours to protect his flowers as they experience the polycrises in the dancehall-meets-hyperpop banger Empathy Is A Weapon, featuring rapper and visual artist HAM. He faces a relentless series of catastrophes - fire, ice and rain - that destroy his flowers.

Mr Bruce is constantly moving between floors of a building, repeatedly returning to HAM, who plays the role of the basement-dwelling florist, and gifts fresh flowers after each disaster. He also provides the grounded voice of reason on the track in response to Mr Bruce's excited vocal. 

“I wrote Empathy Is A Weapon in response to Elon Musk’s bizarre proclamation that empathy is a 'fundamental weakness of Western civilisation…weaponized empathy'," comments Mr Bruce. "For the Musk and his cohort of broligarchs they see empathy as a threat to the pursuit of wealth at all costs. To explore this idea I asked HAM to come on board. We met through a collective called Hard Art that runs at Brian Eno’s studio where many of these ideas were being discussed.

"His cool calm bars contrast nicely with my slightly unhinged delivery. All this on top of any absolute banger produced by Angus Kemp, it’s got the beat structure of dancehall with a hyperpop aesthetic creating a kind of anthemic protest song designed for the dancefloor.”