Musings on Music and Politics

For as long as popular music has been around there has always been a fair share of rebels and artists who have challenged the status quo and exposed greedy oligarchs and elites for who they really are.

Music is around when transformation is occurring in society whether it was the folk music scene of the 1960’s opposing the Vietnam war, the punk rock and heavy metal scenes of the late 70’s and 80’s being angry and nihilistic about the future or the hip hop scene of the early 90’s that was challenging racial and economic inequality in America and globally. What all these genres have in common is a “fuck you” attitude towards authority and the powers that be.

Today we face a number of issues from the recognition of first nation people being incarcerated in very high numbers due to a criminal justice system that is run by corporations aiming to maximise their profits by keeping as many black people locked up as they can.  We are also seeing police murders of young African Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement being born as a way to protest and resist the brutality on the streets of America due to people recording these incidents on their smartphones. The issue that affects nearly everyone today is the gap between the rich and the poor and a fragile environment that is being destroyed because of climate change, a human made problem that is especially being perpetuated by the fossil fuel industry.

With all these issues being real and affecting people’s lives, the only way to overcome them is if we take direct action and realise that we can all make a difference. Music has a role to play in motivating and inspiring people to take action and over the last few decades young people have become aware of such issues when their favourite bands start to educate fans about the issues of the day. In the 60’s and 70’s the voices of Bob Dylan, Gill Scott Heron and Nina Simone gave rise to political consciousness for people all around the world. In the 80’s Bruce Springsteen stood out and spoke about the ugly truth of American patriotism in “Born in The U.S.A.” The song would be a huge hit for Springsteen in a decade when the music industry was being swept away by the rock star lifestyle of fame and riches.
In the 90’s Rage Against the Machine wrote many anthems that would champion political causes from the Mexican guerrilla group the Zapatistas to causes the political left cared about such as immigration and getting the common person to stand up against exploitation and injustice. They also wrote songs that spoke up against corporate greed and America’s offshore wars. The music was always angry but that anger was speaking truth to power which not many bands have been able to achieve in a music industry dominated by disposable pop music. In the 00’s System of a Down made their fans aware of the Armenian Genocide that occurred in 1915 by the Turkish government and Turkey denying it was a genocide, it was a personal issue for the band because they are all of Armenian heritage and their grandparents were survivors of the genocide.

Radiohead’s Kid A album cover depicted snowy mountain tops in flames and the song “Ideoteque” lyrics forewarns “Ice age coming.  We're not scaremongering this is really happening”. What Thom Yorke is referring to is climate change and the dangers that it will bring to current and future generations.
Hip Hop artist have also given their voice to the struggles of racism and poverty around the world. Hip Hop in the early 90’s had Public Enemy, KRS-One and Ice Cube rapping about issues of the ghettos and how being poor and black in America made you a target of the police and the C.I.A. Rap today has been hijacked by masculinity and having more wealth than common sense but last year Kendric Lemar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” was the first mainstream hip hop album to be candid about the issues of police brutality, particularly in the video for the song “Alright” with the Black Lives Matter movement using it as an anthem for protesting.  Lemar also brings up the issue of institutionalized racism but he is mainly interested in the politics of the neighbourhood of Compton where he grew up and where many great hip hop artists carved their legacy and left a mark in popular culture.
America has had a black president for 8 years and now Obama’s time is coming to an end but there are still a lot of problems to be sorted out and it will take a president with a lot of guts and determination to really fix the major problems America and the world is facing. Senator Bernie Sanders is the first truly progressive politician running a campaign that is focused on issues like tackling greed on Wall Street, the income inequality in America and providing free education and healthcare to everyone. Already many artists are in support of Sanders but it remains to be seen if he will win the democratic nomination and become the next president of the United States. It certainly should inspire musicians to write songs about the issues of the day and to get young people interested in politics. I got interested in Bernie Sanders after Killer Mike from Run the Jewels and Dr Cornel West came out and endorsed him and I would recommend watching this video of Killer Mike interviewing Bernie Sanders at his Barbershop in Atlanta.