From N.W.A to M.I.A, Lauryn Hill to
Lupe Fiasco, hip hop has long been one of contemporary music's most politicized
genres. But in a landscape once littered with prominent socio-political
thinkers like Public Enemy, Mos Def and Dead Prez, in recent years, rappers
have stayed a little too late and a little too long in the club. In the wake of
the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Gardner and Michael Brown, the times,
though, are finally a changing; Game, Common, J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar are
beginning to make their voices heard… As Chuck once said, It's time to fight
the power!
I also wondered if, at the time, he'd
had any idea how important that three-minute video would become. Eric Garner's
last moments echoed the fate of Trayvon Martin, another unarmed black teen,
killed two years earlier. The Garner video was filmed just a month before
Michael Brown and Tamir Rice would also lose their lives at the hands of the
police. Ferguson, the town name now synonymous with these injustices, has
sparked international outcry. At demonstrations in Chicago, Toronto and London
- 4,000 miles from Ferguson - you'll see the same thing; Eric Garner's haunting
last words written on placards and clothing: "I Can't Breathe".
As well as protests, there's been a
massive creative outpouring - from poetry to documentaries, photography to
podcasts - this kind of commentary, I expected. But what I didn't see coming
was the protest songs. To me, music hasn't felt this vital in a long time.
"In the late 80s / early 90s, it
was widely felt that part of ones duty, if you were a black MC, was to address
issues that concerned the black community," Dorian Lynskey explains,
author of 33 Revolutions Per Minute, which documents politically motivated
music in the last 50 years, "but taste changed; that fell out of favor.
What happens," he continues "is that something will come along, like
Hurricane Katrina, or Ferguson, where the people who are being hurt by racist
acts… look like rappers, it's too close to ignore… They feel obliged to step up
and be counted, and actually do a protest song."
Last summer, Roots drummer Questlove wrote an Instagram post, which challenged musicians to
"push themselves to be a voice of the times that we live in."
"I really apply this challenge to
ALL artists," Questlove said, "We need new Dylans, New Public
Enemies, new Nina Simones. New De La Rocha's. New ideas! I mean real
stories," he urged, "Real narratives. Songs with spirit, songs with
solutions, songs with questions. Protest songs don't have to be boring or
non-danceable or ready made for the next Olympics. They just have to speak truth."
His call was met. Alicia Keys, Run the
Jewels, J Cole, The Game, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Diddy and countless others
released protest songs off the back of what happened in Ferguson. It's a
testament to every artist involved.
Protest music might never have really
gone away, but it has refigured itself into songs that inspire and excite more
than ever. Up-and-coming artists are writing Songs - you want to stream and
share them because they're listenable and they're cooler than they've ever been
before. 'Cool' won't bring back victims any more than a song will
stop a shooting. But if nothing else, it might just get us to turn up the
volume on a subject that we can't afford to mute.
No comments:
Post a Comment