High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "Wake Up" is a song by American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine. It is the seventh track from their self-titled debut album. While never released as a single, it remains a staple of their live shows and is usually played as the last song before the encore. Some of its popularity can be traced to its use in the feature film The Matrix.The lyrics discuss racism within the American government and the counter-intelligence programs of the FBI; a spoken portion of the song is taken from an actual FBI memo in which its director J. Edgar Hoover suggests targets for the suppression of the black nationalist movement.