January 25, 2024 • 35 mins
Throughout history and across the world, Black people have used protest songs to boost morale and inspire action. In this episode, Katie and Yves explore the history of protest songs created to uplift major social movements, including the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Friends Media As. Last week, we talked about how black
(00:22):
artists have used their work to speak out about wars
around the world, and we want to continue the conversation
because our cultural work demands that we train our art
and hearts on solidarity and freedom. That said, today we're
specifically talking about protest songs that were written in response
to social issues or in alignment with social movements.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm Eves and I'm Katie in today's episode Music Is
for Movement.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
There are countless protest songs that were born out of
so many different movements. Musicians like Bob Marley, Nina Simone,
Marvin Gay, Billy Holiday, Gil Scott Heron, and Tracy Chapman
wrote and performed songs that condemned lynchings, opposed poverty and
police brutality, encouraged revolution, and called for freedom.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Black people use these songs as tools for morale and
calls to action and resistance movements around the world, like
the civil rights movement in the fight against apartheid in
South Africa. Some of these songs can be traced back
to their creators. Some are of unknown origin and transformed
with time. They all serve to document people's struggles and
express their descent and emboldened protesters. What do you think
(01:35):
is the difference between a protest song and a song
that talks about politics.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So a lot of times protest songs that do have
political messages and messages when it comes to blackness, of
pro blackness and like anti racism. So I think the
line between what is a protest song and then what's
something that has political message or socio political messaging can
(02:01):
get kind of blurry sometimes. I think it's not that
big of a deal, you know, to like call something
that somebody else might not call a protest song, to
call it a protest song. I think that protest songs
are in response to injustices. They have something to say
about those injustices. They are clear in their delivery of
(02:22):
that message, and they intend to alert other people to
whatever the injustice is and their response to it.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I struggle with this a little bit because I think
the moment that we've found ourselves in in the past
couple years has been great fodder for a lot of
music that is in response to injustice. And then you
look at these songs by these artists and you're like
you're saying the right things, you're wearing the right clothes,
(02:58):
you're putting up the right hands. But is this really
a protest song? This is really like an anthem that
the people can use. And I don't know the answer
to that. Like Beyonce has Black Parade, right, she's talking
about like time for another march, I'm gonna let my
hair shrivel up.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I'm gonna dread it, girl.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
But it's like, baby, you are a billionaire capitalist who
stands for nothing but yourself.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So in your mind, somebody has to be worthy of
creating a protest song. Because what I think when you
say that is that like questioning the validity of someone's
status as a freedom fighter if they have something called
a protest song, Because people who have protest songs are
not necessarily protest musicians, Like that isn't the only kind.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Of work they do.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And in my mind, I don't think that a person
needs to qualify as a freedom fighter or a resistance
leader or an activist even to.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Have a protest song.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yes, and of course I give people length to learn
things and to grow and to change their stances on things,
of course, yes, But I do think what you say
is like, it's an interesting thought because you use the
word use, like how are we going to use this song?
And I do think there is function to protest songs,
but that function sometimes is just like a raising of
(04:18):
consciousness and a raising of.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Spirit, right, But I don't think using Beyonce as an example,
who I do like Beyonce. I've been down for since
the ninety nine to two thousands. Okay, I was at
the tour, Okay. However, I don't think you can say
that like Beyonce is raising consciousness, like you have to
be conscious to raise conscious Like she knows what she's
(04:41):
doing as far as like the marketing, like the Black resistance,
like the you know, dressing up like a black panther,
you know. Quoting Malcolm X, she says she's a little
Malcolm little Martin mixed with Mama Tina. No, Like, you
don't have the politics of those men, and that's fine.
A lot of people don't have those politics, right, A
lot of people aren't that article. But you, as a
billionaire capitalist, that's just not you. And you don't have
(05:04):
to pretend that that is you. So I do think
she was like making black parade as like, oh, this
is gonna have the streets talking like this is what
the poors are gonna sing as they march with their
hands up asking the police not to shoot them.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
That's what I think.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
But I feel like the intention there has to be
some goodwill, good faith in making of a protest song.
It can't be just like a cash grab clout grab. Yeah,
and that's what I think we've seen, and not just Beyonce.
Future has a song March Madness, and on the there's
only one line, but he was like, I'm an activist now.
(05:42):
He was like, all these cops shooting niggas tragic. It
is like whoa Future took a stance on cops shooting niggas.
It was just like, no, I mean sure, but like
that does not make a protest song.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I'm going to guess that the rest of the lyrics
that that line is couched in have nothing to do
with protests, nothing in min So we can't call that
on a protest song. But I was thinking when you
said that that it definitely is something when you're telegraphing
that something is a protest song. But for somebody to
be like this song means something, let me put it
out and let me tell y'all that it means something
(06:15):
versus just letting the work speak for itself for two
different things. It's like going somewhere and telling everybody, I'm
a gigster.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Look at me.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I mean, like, because you have strange fruit. And I
think it's very clear, like this is a song against lynching,
and I think she really was against lynching. But I
don't know if like in today's time, you can say
like you're really against the things that you like actively
benefit from. Like Billy Holliday isn't benefiting from lynching, but
(06:43):
the billionaire class is benefiting from the police force, right
because the police are here to protect property and that's
what you have a lot of. So you're making these
songs talking about like marching against police brutality, and you're
having music videos where you're staying on cop cars. But girl,
you know you need them cops.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Protest songs are testimonies. They're manifestos for liberation, their love
songs for the people hurt by the actions that they're condemning,
their elegies for people who perished in the fight, and
their invitations to uprising.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
So today we're honoring the role that protest music played
in freedom struggles and the musicians who made it.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
How gatekeepers and tastemakers have responded to black folks protest
songs is telling. When power is present, the response is
often fear. Take Strange Fruit, sung by Billie Holliday and
written as a poem by Abel Mira pol. Her record company, Columbia,
wanted nothing to do with the song, which is about
the horror of lynching. Once she did get it recorded
(07:52):
by Commodore Records in nineteen thirty nine, some radio stations
refused to play it, and of course the US government
couldn't get with bill singing about her opposing a practice
that it supported and protected because it got civilians to
do its bloody bidding. They understood the potential of the
song to do the exact thing that scared the most,
(08:12):
arouse awareness and action that would result in the status
quo shifting. So the FBI found a reason they could
put on paper to hunt her drugs the fed's old
friend and had her sent to prison from heroin they
planted on her. When she got out, she couldn't play
jazz clubs anymore. But Strange Fruit pierced through the walls
of the prison that people had tried to create for
(08:33):
the song.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Despite the government and other detractor's best efforts to bury
the song, Strange Fruit became Billie Holliday's best selling record.
The attempted suppression of the song only served to help
it transcend the barriers of time and space. Many singers
have since performed their own versions of Strange Fruit, and
it left an indelible mark on the genre of blues
and protest songs.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And it wasn't just about how many people listened to
the record, or or how many people covered it, or
how many prized lists or halls of fame that the
song made it into. It's also about how copies of
the record were sent to US senators as anti lynching
bills struggled to make their way through Congress. It's about
how Strange Fruit was a sacred song of the anti
(09:17):
lynching movement and a potent reminder of black suffering, born
on the eve of the Civil rights movement.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
And when we come back, we get into the Civil
rights movement, a movement so many protest songs grew out of.
When I think of protests in the fifties and sixties,
I think of music, music and the civil rights movement
are interconnected in my mind because chanting and singing were
(09:46):
such huge parts of how activists chose to express their frustration, anger,
and collective spirit. I think of this little light of mine,
we shall not be moved, and woke up this morning
with my mind stayed on freedom.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
We shall not, We shall not be moved. We shall not,
we shall not move my good dream.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
That's magic.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I love freedom songs like the ones you mentioned, Katie,
because they have such a long history. They've been touched
by so many hands and have been amended to fit
different uses over time. Before they were sung during the
Civil rights movement, they were labor union songs, gospel songs,
and spirituals that enslaved people sang when working or at gatherings.
(10:40):
To me, it feels like they've grown so immensely powerful
because they've consumed the energy of all of the souls
and struggles that they supported. But I also like the
protest songs that have more modern origins, the ones that
have artists we can name and thank for the great
emotion in life their work brought to the movement. Sam
Cook wrote A Change is Going To, a swelling and
(11:01):
soulful song about Black Hardship and Hope, and it was
released in nineteen sixty four, the same year that he
was murdered. He only played it in public for a
live audience once on Johnny Carson's Tonight's Show, but the
(11:21):
song absolutely outlived him through the civil rights movement.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Sam will be back.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
At course of the show, he sings well Over and
a Fine Arrangement that black lives.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
This song is definitely one that has many lives. People
have continued to sing it or quote it in settings
that feel like they're about progress and positivity, even when
the cause is not about black folks, or it is
and its impact is questionable. I'm thinking of Beyonce singing
it back in twenty thirteen at a benefit concert for
Time for Change and initiative Gucci started to advocate for
(11:54):
gender equality and how the establishment has used it in
political arenas, like when Betty Levette and John bon Jovi
sang it at Barack Obama's inauguration in two thousand and
nine and when Jennifer Hudson sang it at the twenty
twenty Democratic National Convention.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
But I know.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Come, I think it's.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Really indicative, just like of how black art is co opted.
You take the most radical thing you can and just
like wash all the blackness off of it, and they're like,
here you go, it's for everybody now.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
And to add salt into the wound. It's born out
of black people's pain because this song is specifically in
response to Sam Cook's experiences. He dealt with segregation, he
dealt with being turned away from hotels, he dealt with
his own frustrations and the interpersonal experiences that he had
with racism, and with violence due to racism, and with
(12:53):
exclusion due to racism. So thinking of all of that
being the foundation of this song and then seeing these
institutions and systems using the song to prop up their
messages of positivity, it's pretty icky.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, And I can see even if like racismism just
wasn't a thing anymore, like black people didn't deal with
anything negative related to being black, and then you want
to use this song. It's like, see what happens when
you have like a song like this that can really
like institute some change, but black people still dealing with
the same stuff. Like no, you're not seeing a white
only sign, but buss believe like there are places that
(13:31):
are white only and black people can't get into them.
Black people will get like physically harmed for doing certain
things out in public. Black people will get killed for
doing regular things out in public in their own homes.
So to use this for like a Gucci campaign or
for the DNC, or even for Barack Obama's inauguration, which
(13:53):
I feel like we're all a little silly back.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Then, Why do you say that.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I feel like we all did this because Barack Obama. Yeah,
I think we were like, Oh, black man's gotta help us,
you gotta lift us up.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
So the song A Change Is Gonna Come is more
mouldable than strange fruit. It's anti segregation and anti racism protests,
is couched in a format that's a little bit more
digestible for the masses. The line that specifically addresses segregation,
I go to the movie and I go downtown, somebody
keep telling me don't hang around wasn't included in the
(14:26):
single version of the song, but Cook did write it
as a response to his experiences as a black man
in the nineteen sixties US. The song, with his grand
horns and strings and theatrics, gave civil rights activists an
anthem that helped them remember why they were fighting and
inspired more faith to keep pushing. So the civil rights
(14:46):
era was a magical time for protest music. And one
woman we have to mention in this context is Odetta,
who has been called the voice of the civil rights movement.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
She's saying at the March on Washington.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Right, yeah, and at many other demonstrations in the nineteen
fifties and sixties. She was a musician who we well
could dedicate an entire episode to on her own. But
she sang folk songs and ballads and blues she learned
from old spirituals and work songs and prison songs. When
explaining why she thought work songs were liberation songs, she
(15:22):
said the following in a New York Times interview. Those
people who made up the songs were the ones who
insisted upon life and living, who reaffirmed themselves. They didn't
just fall down into the cracks or the holes.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Seems like a through line in these songs is the
will to live despite the anguish that has come before
and the uncertainty of the future.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, there's sadness, there's exhaustion, there's resentment, there's fury, and
there's love. There's willpower, and there's perseverance. There's a song
on her first solo album, Odetta sings ballads and blues,
known as the Spiritual Tripsogy or the Freedom Trilogy. It's
made up of the spirituals o Freedom, come and go
(16:05):
with me, and I'm on my way, she sings, and
before I be a slave, I be buried in my
grave and go home to my Lord and be free.
You know, you'll find that a lot of the lyrics
are simple and repetitive, so they become second nature, as
familiar as skin. You can soak them up a lot easier,
and then it becomes natural to focus on the feeling.
(16:28):
In an interview for the National Visionary Leadership Project, Odetta
talks about how folk music was central to the civil
rights movement. She says they gave protesters strength and courage
to go into their demonstrations. There was a magic about
it being music rather than say a sermon that made
people pay, embodied attention that allow people to really carry
(16:50):
that strength with them as they marched.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
There are people who come and say, I'm tired of
this preaching to the choir, Well, who else are you
going to preach to? They're the ones that keep trying
and trying and working and working, and they need to
be encouraged and reminded of spirit.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Odetta has spoken about how the work music she studied
revealed to her stories of black people and black life
that weren't apparent in mainstream narratives, and when she sang
those songs like she wanted to, she was better able
to deal with her feelings of rage. She said in
the book keep On Pushing Black Power Music from Blues
to Hip Hop by Denise Sullivan, I could get my
(17:32):
rocks off within those work songs and things without having
to say I hate you and I hate me. Odetta
said that the folk songs quote helped me see myself
instead of waiting for someone to look at me and
say I'm okay.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Protest music can raise awareness and be a call to
collective action, and it can help us better understand and
reckon with our shared experiences. But it can also hit
on such a personal level, help us tap into layers
of trauma and optimism that we had not yet touched,
help us process, help us heal so that we can
(18:07):
be prepared to fight with our minds and our bodies
and our spirits.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
When of the things about the civil rights movement. When
you see the marches and you see the people like
singing these songs, they all aren't like super sad, you know.
Some of them are very lively and empowering, and they
have the protest message in them. But if your marching,
you know, twenty thirty fifty miles down the road, you
(18:32):
can't be singing sad ballads all day, you know what
I'm saying. You gotta get a little turn up. You
gotta you know, be clapping on the ones and the twos.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I didn't think that's where you're going with that.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
My mom was like, I'm not gonna have the breath
control to keep singing while I'm walking like that.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I'm not trying that way.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
No, I mean like cause, like she said, it's like healing,
you know. But I think it's more productive to have
songs that you know, aren't just like, oh I hate this,
I hate what y'all doing in me, but speaking to
the promise of the future, like what we're going to
have once we are free, Speaking positivity over your life
and the life of other black people, while also acknowledging
(19:12):
what's going on for sure, but also having that upbeat
vibe going as well, I think that's what she was
speaking to.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
We got to go to a break, but we'll see
you again soon.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Of course, the United States wasn't the only place where
music played a crucial role in protest against injustices and
solidarity building. In South Africa, protest songs were used in
the resistance against apartheid, the legal system of racial segregation
in South Africa from the nineteen forties to the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Music that was critical of apartheid helped bring attention to
the resistance efforts in South Africa, and it helped influence
the dismantling of oppressive government policies. I'm sure some of
the themes and freedom songs were similar to the ones
and protest songs from the Civil rights movement.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yes, definitely. The songs were referring to different events, of course,
but they were also responses to the harmful actions of
government and individual apartheid supporters. These songs documented the plight
of black South Africans who were forcibly removed from their
homes and made to relocate. They were about triumph over
oppressors in the wake of events like the Soeto Uprising,
(20:26):
demonstrations that students in South Africa led when black schools
were forced to use Afrikaans as the language of instruction.
They highlighted women's role in the movement. They mourned the
loss of land and memorialized lost people. And as the
fight for freedom changed tones, so did the freedom songs.
The sounds changed, the lyrics change. Songs went from hymn
(20:49):
like to upbeaten jazzy to sharper and more militaristic. The
song we Will Leave Our Parents, for example, includes the
following lyrics. Following freedom, we say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye home.
(21:09):
We are going into foreign countries to places our fathers
and mothers don't know. Following freedom.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
This song is.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
About how youth left South Africa to join the MK
or the Spear of the Nation, which was the military
wing of the African National Congress that it established in
nineteen sixty one. The song acknowledged the sadness of leaving,
but was clear that the fight must go on and
that they were going to take part in it. Songs
were used to mobilize support and mentally prepare people for battle.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
It was like the artists made music for the mood
that was needed.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, they were writing the rhythm of the anti apartheid effort.
So to speak, songs gave people the strength to persevere
even when their leaders were locked up and banned. It
helped instill in freedom fighters faith and gave them direction.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, I could see how that could help keep the
spear of the struggle alive.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And speaking of bands, the government censored music with anti
apartheid themes right.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yep, and some of the musicians who created those songs
were imprisoned, exiled, and even killed. Miriam Mikayba, Voicily Meini,
Hugh Masakele, Dorothy Masuku, and Abdullah Ibraheim are just some
of the musical artists who were punished for their outspoken
opposition to apartheid when they were exiled, though they were
(22:26):
often musically successful and successful in spreading their anti apartheid
messages abroad to people who were morally outraged with the
abuses happening in South Africa. Other musicians continued their activism
from within the country's borders.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I can't help but think about how much of a
testament this is to the artist's belief in the power
of music to create change. Musicians continued to make beautiful
music with serious messages even with the threat of incarceration, displacement,
and death dangling over their heads. But those starts remained
even if they didn't make music.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah, I mean, it was either death or freedom for
the people who were in this fight. They were freedom fighters.
So music happened to be the medium that they used,
and it was their gift and it was part of
the way that they chose to freedom fight in this case.
And I mean music not only helped resistors broadcast messages
(23:20):
to people within and outside of the movement, it literally
helps them survive and others persist on their path toward freedom.
And here it comes up again that magic that music
has in being able to help Black people clearly and
viscerally give voice to our experiences and life to our power.
Activists and artist Sofiso and Tulli, who was forced into
(23:43):
exile during apartheid, says the following in the two thousand
and two documentary A Mantla, a Revolution and four Part Harmony.
A song is something that would communicate to those people
who otherwise would not have understood where we are coming from.
You could give them a long part speech they would
still not understand. But I tell you, when you finish
(24:05):
that song, people will be like, Damn, I know where
you niggas are coming from. I know where you guys
are coming from, death unto apartheid.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
And the magic continues to Black protest music may not
be as popping as it was in the sixties or
as distinct of a genre, but it lives on. Hip
hop's been holding it down from NWA to Public Enemy
like Janelle Money with songs like hell you talking about Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I was thinking about protest songs over the years. I
do really associate protest songs with the sixties and the seventies,
like I feel like that was a high point for them.
But I also wonder if I'm being unfair to just
the amount of work that we have nowaday and how
much how different it is to access those things, because
songs are still an integral part of the way that
we express our protests, and there's still a lot of
(24:52):
things to protest about that we are protesting about. But
it's like how many layers of band camp can I
dig through? And I'm going to get to some test
songs and ones that I have no idea exists right now.
I can go back and look at videos of people
who were freedom fighters and apartheid, and they're using these
songs as they're outside, as they're going to like demonstrate,
(25:14):
as they're going to protest, as they're going into literal
armed battle, as they're going up against tanks, as they're
going up against people's guns.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
They're using these songs.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
They have practices where they merged song and dance together
to be able to train, to become soldiers, to be
able to face battle. And one of the thing about
protests songs that are super interesting to me is how
there's a dissonance between the delivery of the song and
the things that people are talking about. Like they can
be really upbeat, they can be like, Okay, this is
(25:42):
a groove, you know, I can dance to this song,
and they're talking about how they're fighting, or they're talking
about uplifting the people who have died, or they're talking
about uplifting people who are going into battle now. But
the range of topics can be so varied. Still they
are about how people are entering into resistance.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I think it's interesting how you said the lyrics would
change at some point. They were warnings to their opposition,
and so when I initially think of protest songs. I
think it's for the people singing them, for the people
who are on the same side, but for the people
who are against you. Hearing a gang of people singing
the same song, it is showing that you're united, that
(26:27):
you're coordinated, that y'all know at least some of the
same information, and that y'all are on one accord. So
I do think like hearing it from the opposition is
also powerful too for people who are looking to oppress you.
It sends the message like it's going to be harder
to fuck with these people just by singing a song
and you just said and dancing and you know, having
(26:50):
y'all steps in order. So I like the thought of
protest songs being a warning too and an.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Incit sphere, and people who hear it it can create
that kind of Pavlovian response where you hear this certain word,
then I know what's coming next. Like, for instance, I
can't speak the languages that people were speaking when they
were singing a lot of the anti Apartheis songs because
they weren't singing them in English all of the time.
And also a lot of the people who their oppressors,
(27:18):
who were their enemies in this fight couldn't speak the
languages either, but they would still hear these words and
knew that that meant charge. So there are people in
this documentary talking about how even when I heard that
word after you know, nineteen ninety four, that did something
to my spirit, that put a little fear in my bones.
You know, that rouled up something in me. I understood
(27:38):
what that meant. And also just as a form of
coded message, a message that could stay within community. There
was an element of that in the civil rights movement
protest songs as well. But in our case people spoke
English across the board, and in their case in the
South African apartheid fight, in that case, not everyone's the
(28:00):
same language. One thing also that I was thinking about
that came up across the different movements and the protest
songs that were within them, was how the artists who
were creating these songs thought about the music and thought
about the power of the music. They had no qualms
in understanding how powerful the music was and what the
(28:26):
abilities and the capacities of creating protest songs did for
the movement. They weren't equivocating over like what is my
song going to do for the people, or you know,
should I even make this song.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
They weren't self conscious about their role in the movement.
They knew that they were important and necessary.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Not at all.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And the people who are freedom fighters who did do
interviews talk about how they knew then and now how
important song was to the movement and in apartheids case,
how lively the movement was because of the music. The
creators of these songs talk about how moves they were
and creating the music, how they felt called to create
(29:09):
the music in some instances, but the ability of song
to be able to speak to people in ways that
other forms of vocalization couldn't. So it's not like they
downplayed those other forms. They acknowledged that they were different
forms though that song did something from people. It imbued
(29:30):
an energy and a spirit in people that other mediums
could not. That when people heard songs, it moved them,
and it moved them thoroughly. And I think that is
like a great message for people who feel, you know,
their work isn't impactful or can't be powerful. I was
thinking about how we talk so much about self care
(29:53):
these days and about mental health and wellness, and when
it comes to talking about movements, I think a lot
lot of times we try to put ourselves in these
cages or wrangle ourselves into spaces where we feel like
only the most active thing we can do is the
thing that we think is right for that movement, Like
it has to be the thing that is like it
(30:13):
has to be the punching part, you know, it has
to be the part that is like I'm out there
on the front.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Lines or I'm yelling.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I think a great message that comes from seeing these
people who were banned for their songs, right they were exiled,
how how much?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
What else do you need to say?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
That shows that the people against you knew how powerful
they were too.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Exactly, they didn't want you in there. They wanted to
shut their songs down. They didn't want people to hear them,
they didn't want people to sing. They definitely didn't want
people to sing them who they knew were about to
fight them. And yet and still, you know, they went
to other places around the world and they were still
able to deliver their message to the masses. All of
the freedom fighters who created these songs knew that they
(30:56):
had something to say.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
They managed to merge.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Their gifts and their talents and their skill sets and
creating music to make actual change that was real and tangible,
and that the people who weren't freedom fighting, who weren't
writing the song set as much they verified that. You know,
it wasn't just a guess, Oh, like what did this
(31:21):
do for it? How can we quantify it? It's like
they're saying it kept them alive? But yes, it kept
them safe. It kept them alive. I think it's really
easy to say, like, but why do we need to
do that?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
But what does the art do?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
But when we talk about self care or whatever word
you want to use, this is part of that work
that needs to be done with the artistry and with
the care of mentality to be able to even fight
in the first place, and to support people who are
doing different things because we don't all need to do
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
We can't.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
We can't all do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And we better respect our God given you know, they
were given to us for a reason. And I, for one,
am so grateful that all these people we talked about
today understood that, you know, they knew what they were
given and when they were spoken to to be put
in the place where they were like, Okay, Now it's
time for you to share it because it's about to
(32:19):
do some work for the people.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Now do it and do it at all costs.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Because it was at all costs. Yeah, because voicely Mini
died and so they say, according to people who knew
him and who was around him, died singing, like he
went to the gallows singing. So song was in every level.
It was in death and it was in life, and
(32:45):
it still goes. You know, after apartheid, you know, after
Mandela was released, people were still singing.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
You know, people are still singing today.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Now it's time for role credits, the segment where we
give credit to a person, our thing we encountered during
the week. Eaves, who are what would you like to
give credit to?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I want to give credit to Onseen.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
This week, just been thinking about protests and capacities for
writing and for art to be able to speak out
about things and incite different thoughts and people and change.
I'm just really grateful to be able to have a
platform to be able to speak to people, and to
have people to be able to communicate back with us,
and to be able to talk to you because a
lot of these conversations that we have can happen privately,
(33:30):
you know so, But this also gives me a container
to be able to talk to you about certain things,
and for other people to be able to think about
things that they haven't thought about before, to think about
the roles if they're artists themselves that they have and
being able to create change and update their understanding and
awareness and consciousness on different things.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
And I am aware of the on earth that that.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Is basically to be able to do it, and in
a way that's it things me too and fulfills me.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I'll give credit to the ancestors and the ones we
knew while they were alive, and like watch them transition
because it's a different relationship, but it's still a relationship
and I love them. So let's shout out to y'all.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Gangang Gang, Gang Gang watching over us right now. Yep,
to be sure about it, and we'll see y'all next week.
See ya bye.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us
on Instagram at on Theme Show. You can also send
us an email at Hello at on Theme Dot Show.
Head to on Theme Dot Show to check out the
(34:55):
show notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the IHEARTRADI your app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Friends Media As. Last week, we talked about how black
(00:22):
artists have used their work to speak out about wars
around the world, and we want to continue the conversation
because our cultural work demands that we train our art
and hearts on solidarity and freedom. That said, today we're
specifically talking about protest songs that were written in response
to social issues or in alignment with social movements.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I'm Eves and I'm Katie in today's episode Music Is
for Movement.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
There are countless protest songs that were born out of
so many different movements. Musicians like Bob Marley, Nina Simone,
Marvin Gay, Billy Holiday, Gil Scott Heron, and Tracy Chapman
wrote and performed songs that condemned lynchings, opposed poverty and
police brutality, encouraged revolution, and called for freedom.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Black people use these songs as tools for morale and
calls to action and resistance movements around the world, like
the civil rights movement in the fight against apartheid in
South Africa. Some of these songs can be traced back
to their creators. Some are of unknown origin and transformed
with time. They all serve to document people's struggles and
express their descent and emboldened protesters. What do you think
(01:35):
is the difference between a protest song and a song
that talks about politics.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So a lot of times protest songs that do have
political messages and messages when it comes to blackness, of
pro blackness and like anti racism. So I think the
line between what is a protest song and then what's
something that has political message or socio political messaging can
(02:01):
get kind of blurry sometimes. I think it's not that
big of a deal, you know, to like call something
that somebody else might not call a protest song, to
call it a protest song. I think that protest songs
are in response to injustices. They have something to say
about those injustices. They are clear in their delivery of
(02:22):
that message, and they intend to alert other people to
whatever the injustice is and their response to it.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I struggle with this a little bit because I think
the moment that we've found ourselves in in the past
couple years has been great fodder for a lot of
music that is in response to injustice. And then you
look at these songs by these artists and you're like
you're saying the right things, you're wearing the right clothes,
(02:58):
you're putting up the right hands. But is this really
a protest song? This is really like an anthem that
the people can use. And I don't know the answer
to that. Like Beyonce has Black Parade, right, she's talking
about like time for another march, I'm gonna let my
hair shrivel up.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I'm gonna dread it, girl.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
But it's like, baby, you are a billionaire capitalist who
stands for nothing but yourself.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So in your mind, somebody has to be worthy of
creating a protest song. Because what I think when you
say that is that like questioning the validity of someone's
status as a freedom fighter if they have something called
a protest song, Because people who have protest songs are
not necessarily protest musicians, Like that isn't the only kind.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Of work they do.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And in my mind, I don't think that a person
needs to qualify as a freedom fighter or a resistance
leader or an activist even to.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Have a protest song.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yes, and of course I give people length to learn
things and to grow and to change their stances on things,
of course, yes, But I do think what you say
is like, it's an interesting thought because you use the
word use, like how are we going to use this song?
And I do think there is function to protest songs,
but that function sometimes is just like a raising of
(04:18):
consciousness and a raising of.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Spirit, right, But I don't think using Beyonce as an example,
who I do like Beyonce. I've been down for since
the ninety nine to two thousands. Okay, I was at
the tour, Okay. However, I don't think you can say
that like Beyonce is raising consciousness, like you have to
be conscious to raise conscious Like she knows what she's
(04:41):
doing as far as like the marketing, like the Black resistance,
like the you know, dressing up like a black panther,
you know. Quoting Malcolm X, she says she's a little
Malcolm little Martin mixed with Mama Tina. No, Like, you
don't have the politics of those men, and that's fine.
A lot of people don't have those politics, right, A
lot of people aren't that article. But you, as a
billionaire capitalist, that's just not you. And you don't have
(05:04):
to pretend that that is you. So I do think
she was like making black parade as like, oh, this
is gonna have the streets talking like this is what
the poors are gonna sing as they march with their
hands up asking the police not to shoot them.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
That's what I think.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
But I feel like the intention there has to be
some goodwill, good faith in making of a protest song.
It can't be just like a cash grab clout grab. Yeah,
and that's what I think we've seen, and not just Beyonce.
Future has a song March Madness, and on the there's
only one line, but he was like, I'm an activist now.
(05:42):
He was like, all these cops shooting niggas tragic. It
is like whoa Future took a stance on cops shooting niggas.
It was just like, no, I mean sure, but like
that does not make a protest song.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I'm going to guess that the rest of the lyrics
that that line is couched in have nothing to do
with protests, nothing in min So we can't call that
on a protest song. But I was thinking when you
said that that it definitely is something when you're telegraphing
that something is a protest song. But for somebody to
be like this song means something, let me put it
out and let me tell y'all that it means something
(06:15):
versus just letting the work speak for itself for two
different things. It's like going somewhere and telling everybody, I'm
a gigster.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Look at me.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I mean, like, because you have strange fruit. And I
think it's very clear, like this is a song against lynching,
and I think she really was against lynching. But I
don't know if like in today's time, you can say
like you're really against the things that you like actively
benefit from. Like Billy Holliday isn't benefiting from lynching, but
(06:43):
the billionaire class is benefiting from the police force, right
because the police are here to protect property and that's
what you have a lot of. So you're making these
songs talking about like marching against police brutality, and you're
having music videos where you're staying on cop cars. But girl,
you know you need them cops.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Protest songs are testimonies. They're manifestos for liberation, their love
songs for the people hurt by the actions that they're condemning,
their elegies for people who perished in the fight, and
their invitations to uprising.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
So today we're honoring the role that protest music played
in freedom struggles and the musicians who made it.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
How gatekeepers and tastemakers have responded to black folks protest
songs is telling. When power is present, the response is
often fear. Take Strange Fruit, sung by Billie Holliday and
written as a poem by Abel Mira pol. Her record company, Columbia,
wanted nothing to do with the song, which is about
the horror of lynching. Once she did get it recorded
(07:52):
by Commodore Records in nineteen thirty nine, some radio stations
refused to play it, and of course the US government
couldn't get with bill singing about her opposing a practice
that it supported and protected because it got civilians to
do its bloody bidding. They understood the potential of the
song to do the exact thing that scared the most,
(08:12):
arouse awareness and action that would result in the status
quo shifting. So the FBI found a reason they could
put on paper to hunt her drugs the fed's old
friend and had her sent to prison from heroin they
planted on her. When she got out, she couldn't play
jazz clubs anymore. But Strange Fruit pierced through the walls
of the prison that people had tried to create for
(08:33):
the song.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Despite the government and other detractor's best efforts to bury
the song, Strange Fruit became Billie Holliday's best selling record.
The attempted suppression of the song only served to help
it transcend the barriers of time and space. Many singers
have since performed their own versions of Strange Fruit, and
it left an indelible mark on the genre of blues
and protest songs.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And it wasn't just about how many people listened to
the record, or or how many people covered it, or
how many prized lists or halls of fame that the
song made it into. It's also about how copies of
the record were sent to US senators as anti lynching
bills struggled to make their way through Congress. It's about
how Strange Fruit was a sacred song of the anti
(09:17):
lynching movement and a potent reminder of black suffering, born
on the eve of the Civil rights movement.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
And when we come back, we get into the Civil
rights movement, a movement so many protest songs grew out of.
When I think of protests in the fifties and sixties,
I think of music, music and the civil rights movement
are interconnected in my mind because chanting and singing were
(09:46):
such huge parts of how activists chose to express their frustration, anger,
and collective spirit. I think of this little light of mine,
we shall not be moved, and woke up this morning
with my mind stayed on freedom.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
We shall not, We shall not be moved. We shall not,
we shall not move my good dream.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
That's magic.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I love freedom songs like the ones you mentioned, Katie,
because they have such a long history. They've been touched
by so many hands and have been amended to fit
different uses over time. Before they were sung during the
Civil rights movement, they were labor union songs, gospel songs,
and spirituals that enslaved people sang when working or at gatherings.
(10:40):
To me, it feels like they've grown so immensely powerful
because they've consumed the energy of all of the souls
and struggles that they supported. But I also like the
protest songs that have more modern origins, the ones that
have artists we can name and thank for the great
emotion in life their work brought to the movement. Sam
Cook wrote A Change is Going To, a swelling and
(11:01):
soulful song about Black Hardship and Hope, and it was
released in nineteen sixty four, the same year that he
was murdered. He only played it in public for a
live audience once on Johnny Carson's Tonight's Show, but the
(11:21):
song absolutely outlived him through the civil rights movement.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Sam will be back.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
At course of the show, he sings well Over and
a Fine Arrangement that black lives.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
This song is definitely one that has many lives. People
have continued to sing it or quote it in settings
that feel like they're about progress and positivity, even when
the cause is not about black folks, or it is
and its impact is questionable. I'm thinking of Beyonce singing
it back in twenty thirteen at a benefit concert for
Time for Change and initiative Gucci started to advocate for
(11:54):
gender equality and how the establishment has used it in
political arenas, like when Betty Levette and John bon Jovi
sang it at Barack Obama's inauguration in two thousand and
nine and when Jennifer Hudson sang it at the twenty
twenty Democratic National Convention.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
But I know.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Come, I think it's.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Really indicative, just like of how black art is co opted.
You take the most radical thing you can and just
like wash all the blackness off of it, and they're like,
here you go, it's for everybody now.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
And to add salt into the wound. It's born out
of black people's pain because this song is specifically in
response to Sam Cook's experiences. He dealt with segregation, he
dealt with being turned away from hotels, he dealt with
his own frustrations and the interpersonal experiences that he had
with racism, and with violence due to racism, and with
(12:53):
exclusion due to racism. So thinking of all of that
being the foundation of this song and then seeing these
institutions and systems using the song to prop up their
messages of positivity, it's pretty icky.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, And I can see even if like racismism just
wasn't a thing anymore, like black people didn't deal with
anything negative related to being black, and then you want
to use this song. It's like, see what happens when
you have like a song like this that can really
like institute some change, but black people still dealing with
the same stuff. Like no, you're not seeing a white
only sign, but buss believe like there are places that
(13:31):
are white only and black people can't get into them.
Black people will get like physically harmed for doing certain
things out in public. Black people will get killed for
doing regular things out in public in their own homes.
So to use this for like a Gucci campaign or
for the DNC, or even for Barack Obama's inauguration, which
(13:53):
I feel like we're all a little silly back.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Then, Why do you say that.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I feel like we all did this because Barack Obama. Yeah,
I think we were like, Oh, black man's gotta help us,
you gotta lift us up.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
So the song A Change Is Gonna Come is more
mouldable than strange fruit. It's anti segregation and anti racism protests,
is couched in a format that's a little bit more
digestible for the masses. The line that specifically addresses segregation,
I go to the movie and I go downtown, somebody
keep telling me don't hang around wasn't included in the
(14:26):
single version of the song, but Cook did write it
as a response to his experiences as a black man
in the nineteen sixties US. The song, with his grand
horns and strings and theatrics, gave civil rights activists an
anthem that helped them remember why they were fighting and
inspired more faith to keep pushing. So the civil rights
(14:46):
era was a magical time for protest music. And one
woman we have to mention in this context is Odetta,
who has been called the voice of the civil rights movement.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
She's saying at the March on Washington.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Right, yeah, and at many other demonstrations in the nineteen
fifties and sixties. She was a musician who we well
could dedicate an entire episode to on her own. But
she sang folk songs and ballads and blues she learned
from old spirituals and work songs and prison songs. When
explaining why she thought work songs were liberation songs, she
(15:22):
said the following in a New York Times interview. Those
people who made up the songs were the ones who
insisted upon life and living, who reaffirmed themselves. They didn't
just fall down into the cracks or the holes.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Seems like a through line in these songs is the
will to live despite the anguish that has come before
and the uncertainty of the future.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, there's sadness, there's exhaustion, there's resentment, there's fury, and
there's love. There's willpower, and there's perseverance. There's a song
on her first solo album, Odetta sings ballads and blues,
known as the Spiritual Tripsogy or the Freedom Trilogy. It's
made up of the spirituals o Freedom, come and go
(16:05):
with me, and I'm on my way, she sings, and
before I be a slave, I be buried in my
grave and go home to my Lord and be free.
You know, you'll find that a lot of the lyrics
are simple and repetitive, so they become second nature, as
familiar as skin. You can soak them up a lot easier,
and then it becomes natural to focus on the feeling.
(16:28):
In an interview for the National Visionary Leadership Project, Odetta
talks about how folk music was central to the civil
rights movement. She says they gave protesters strength and courage
to go into their demonstrations. There was a magic about
it being music rather than say a sermon that made
people pay, embodied attention that allow people to really carry
(16:50):
that strength with them as they marched.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
There are people who come and say, I'm tired of
this preaching to the choir, Well, who else are you
going to preach to? They're the ones that keep trying
and trying and working and working, and they need to
be encouraged and reminded of spirit.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Odetta has spoken about how the work music she studied
revealed to her stories of black people and black life
that weren't apparent in mainstream narratives, and when she sang
those songs like she wanted to, she was better able
to deal with her feelings of rage. She said in
the book keep On Pushing Black Power Music from Blues
to Hip Hop by Denise Sullivan, I could get my
(17:32):
rocks off within those work songs and things without having
to say I hate you and I hate me. Odetta
said that the folk songs quote helped me see myself
instead of waiting for someone to look at me and
say I'm okay.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Protest music can raise awareness and be a call to
collective action, and it can help us better understand and
reckon with our shared experiences. But it can also hit
on such a personal level, help us tap into layers
of trauma and optimism that we had not yet touched,
help us process, help us heal so that we can
(18:07):
be prepared to fight with our minds and our bodies
and our spirits.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
When of the things about the civil rights movement. When
you see the marches and you see the people like
singing these songs, they all aren't like super sad, you know.
Some of them are very lively and empowering, and they
have the protest message in them. But if your marching,
you know, twenty thirty fifty miles down the road, you
(18:32):
can't be singing sad ballads all day, you know what
I'm saying. You gotta get a little turn up. You
gotta you know, be clapping on the ones and the twos.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I didn't think that's where you're going with that.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
My mom was like, I'm not gonna have the breath
control to keep singing while I'm walking like that.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I'm not trying that way.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
No, I mean like cause, like she said, it's like healing,
you know. But I think it's more productive to have
songs that you know, aren't just like, oh I hate this,
I hate what y'all doing in me, but speaking to
the promise of the future, like what we're going to
have once we are free, Speaking positivity over your life
and the life of other black people, while also acknowledging
(19:12):
what's going on for sure, but also having that upbeat
vibe going as well, I think that's what she was
speaking to.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
We got to go to a break, but we'll see
you again soon.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Of course, the United States wasn't the only place where
music played a crucial role in protest against injustices and
solidarity building. In South Africa, protest songs were used in
the resistance against apartheid, the legal system of racial segregation
in South Africa from the nineteen forties to the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Music that was critical of apartheid helped bring attention to
the resistance efforts in South Africa, and it helped influence
the dismantling of oppressive government policies. I'm sure some of
the themes and freedom songs were similar to the ones
and protest songs from the Civil rights movement.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yes, definitely. The songs were referring to different events, of course,
but they were also responses to the harmful actions of
government and individual apartheid supporters. These songs documented the plight
of black South Africans who were forcibly removed from their
homes and made to relocate. They were about triumph over
oppressors in the wake of events like the Soeto Uprising,
(20:26):
demonstrations that students in South Africa led when black schools
were forced to use Afrikaans as the language of instruction.
They highlighted women's role in the movement. They mourned the
loss of land and memorialized lost people. And as the
fight for freedom changed tones, so did the freedom songs.
The sounds changed, the lyrics change. Songs went from hymn
(20:49):
like to upbeaten jazzy to sharper and more militaristic. The
song we Will Leave Our Parents, for example, includes the
following lyrics. Following freedom, we say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye home.
(21:09):
We are going into foreign countries to places our fathers
and mothers don't know. Following freedom.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
This song is.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
About how youth left South Africa to join the MK
or the Spear of the Nation, which was the military
wing of the African National Congress that it established in
nineteen sixty one. The song acknowledged the sadness of leaving,
but was clear that the fight must go on and
that they were going to take part in it. Songs
were used to mobilize support and mentally prepare people for battle.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
It was like the artists made music for the mood
that was needed.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, they were writing the rhythm of the anti apartheid effort.
So to speak, songs gave people the strength to persevere
even when their leaders were locked up and banned. It
helped instill in freedom fighters faith and gave them direction.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, I could see how that could help keep the
spear of the struggle alive.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And speaking of bands, the government censored music with anti
apartheid themes right.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yep, and some of the musicians who created those songs
were imprisoned, exiled, and even killed. Miriam Mikayba, Voicily Meini,
Hugh Masakele, Dorothy Masuku, and Abdullah Ibraheim are just some
of the musical artists who were punished for their outspoken
opposition to apartheid when they were exiled, though they were
(22:26):
often musically successful and successful in spreading their anti apartheid
messages abroad to people who were morally outraged with the
abuses happening in South Africa. Other musicians continued their activism
from within the country's borders.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I can't help but think about how much of a
testament this is to the artist's belief in the power
of music to create change. Musicians continued to make beautiful
music with serious messages even with the threat of incarceration, displacement,
and death dangling over their heads. But those starts remained
even if they didn't make music.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Yeah, I mean, it was either death or freedom for
the people who were in this fight. They were freedom fighters.
So music happened to be the medium that they used,
and it was their gift and it was part of
the way that they chose to freedom fight in this case.
And I mean music not only helped resistors broadcast messages
(23:20):
to people within and outside of the movement, it literally
helps them survive and others persist on their path toward freedom.
And here it comes up again that magic that music
has in being able to help Black people clearly and
viscerally give voice to our experiences and life to our power.
Activists and artist Sofiso and Tulli, who was forced into
(23:43):
exile during apartheid, says the following in the two thousand
and two documentary A Mantla, a Revolution and four Part Harmony.
A song is something that would communicate to those people
who otherwise would not have understood where we are coming from.
You could give them a long part speech they would
still not understand. But I tell you, when you finish
(24:05):
that song, people will be like, Damn, I know where
you niggas are coming from. I know where you guys
are coming from, death unto apartheid.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
And the magic continues to Black protest music may not
be as popping as it was in the sixties or
as distinct of a genre, but it lives on. Hip
hop's been holding it down from NWA to Public Enemy
like Janelle Money with songs like hell you talking about Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I was thinking about protest songs over the years. I
do really associate protest songs with the sixties and the seventies,
like I feel like that was a high point for them.
But I also wonder if I'm being unfair to just
the amount of work that we have nowaday and how
much how different it is to access those things, because
songs are still an integral part of the way that
we express our protests, and there's still a lot of
(24:52):
things to protest about that we are protesting about. But
it's like how many layers of band camp can I
dig through? And I'm going to get to some test
songs and ones that I have no idea exists right now.
I can go back and look at videos of people
who were freedom fighters and apartheid, and they're using these
songs as they're outside, as they're going to like demonstrate,
(25:14):
as they're going to protest, as they're going into literal
armed battle, as they're going up against tanks, as they're
going up against people's guns.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
They're using these songs.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
They have practices where they merged song and dance together
to be able to train, to become soldiers, to be
able to face battle. And one of the thing about
protests songs that are super interesting to me is how
there's a dissonance between the delivery of the song and
the things that people are talking about. Like they can
be really upbeat, they can be like, Okay, this is
(25:42):
a groove, you know, I can dance to this song,
and they're talking about how they're fighting, or they're talking
about uplifting the people who have died, or they're talking
about uplifting people who are going into battle now. But
the range of topics can be so varied. Still they
are about how people are entering into resistance.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I think it's interesting how you said the lyrics would
change at some point. They were warnings to their opposition,
and so when I initially think of protest songs. I
think it's for the people singing them, for the people
who are on the same side, but for the people
who are against you. Hearing a gang of people singing
the same song, it is showing that you're united, that
(26:27):
you're coordinated, that y'all know at least some of the
same information, and that y'all are on one accord. So
I do think like hearing it from the opposition is
also powerful too for people who are looking to oppress you.
It sends the message like it's going to be harder
to fuck with these people just by singing a song
and you just said and dancing and you know, having
(26:50):
y'all steps in order. So I like the thought of
protest songs being a warning too and an.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Incit sphere, and people who hear it it can create
that kind of Pavlovian response where you hear this certain word,
then I know what's coming next. Like, for instance, I
can't speak the languages that people were speaking when they
were singing a lot of the anti Apartheis songs because
they weren't singing them in English all of the time.
And also a lot of the people who their oppressors,
(27:18):
who were their enemies in this fight couldn't speak the
languages either, but they would still hear these words and
knew that that meant charge. So there are people in
this documentary talking about how even when I heard that
word after you know, nineteen ninety four, that did something
to my spirit, that put a little fear in my bones.
You know, that rouled up something in me. I understood
(27:38):
what that meant. And also just as a form of
coded message, a message that could stay within community. There
was an element of that in the civil rights movement
protest songs as well. But in our case people spoke
English across the board, and in their case in the
South African apartheid fight, in that case, not everyone's the
(28:00):
same language. One thing also that I was thinking about
that came up across the different movements and the protest
songs that were within them, was how the artists who
were creating these songs thought about the music and thought
about the power of the music. They had no qualms
in understanding how powerful the music was and what the
(28:26):
abilities and the capacities of creating protest songs did for
the movement. They weren't equivocating over like what is my
song going to do for the people, or you know,
should I even make this song.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
They weren't self conscious about their role in the movement.
They knew that they were important and necessary.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Not at all.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And the people who are freedom fighters who did do
interviews talk about how they knew then and now how
important song was to the movement and in apartheids case,
how lively the movement was because of the music. The
creators of these songs talk about how moves they were
and creating the music, how they felt called to create
(29:09):
the music in some instances, but the ability of song
to be able to speak to people in ways that
other forms of vocalization couldn't. So it's not like they
downplayed those other forms. They acknowledged that they were different
forms though that song did something from people. It imbued
(29:30):
an energy and a spirit in people that other mediums
could not. That when people heard songs, it moved them,
and it moved them thoroughly. And I think that is
like a great message for people who feel, you know,
their work isn't impactful or can't be powerful. I was
thinking about how we talk so much about self care
(29:53):
these days and about mental health and wellness, and when
it comes to talking about movements, I think a lot
lot of times we try to put ourselves in these
cages or wrangle ourselves into spaces where we feel like
only the most active thing we can do is the
thing that we think is right for that movement, Like
it has to be the thing that is like it
(30:13):
has to be the punching part, you know, it has
to be the part that is like I'm out there
on the front.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Lines or I'm yelling.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I think a great message that comes from seeing these
people who were banned for their songs, right they were exiled,
how how much?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
What else do you need to say?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
That shows that the people against you knew how powerful
they were too.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Exactly, they didn't want you in there. They wanted to
shut their songs down. They didn't want people to hear them,
they didn't want people to sing. They definitely didn't want
people to sing them who they knew were about to
fight them. And yet and still, you know, they went
to other places around the world and they were still
able to deliver their message to the masses. All of
the freedom fighters who created these songs knew that they
(30:56):
had something to say.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
They managed to merge.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Their gifts and their talents and their skill sets and
creating music to make actual change that was real and tangible,
and that the people who weren't freedom fighting, who weren't
writing the song set as much they verified that. You know,
it wasn't just a guess, Oh, like what did this
(31:21):
do for it? How can we quantify it? It's like
they're saying it kept them alive? But yes, it kept
them safe. It kept them alive. I think it's really
easy to say, like, but why do we need to
do that?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
But what does the art do?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
But when we talk about self care or whatever word
you want to use, this is part of that work
that needs to be done with the artistry and with
the care of mentality to be able to even fight
in the first place, and to support people who are
doing different things because we don't all need to do
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
We can't.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
We can't all do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And we better respect our God given you know, they
were given to us for a reason. And I, for one,
am so grateful that all these people we talked about
today understood that, you know, they knew what they were
given and when they were spoken to to be put
in the place where they were like, Okay, Now it's
time for you to share it because it's about to
(32:19):
do some work for the people.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Now do it and do it at all costs.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Because it was at all costs. Yeah, because voicely Mini
died and so they say, according to people who knew
him and who was around him, died singing, like he
went to the gallows singing. So song was in every level.
It was in death and it was in life, and
(32:45):
it still goes. You know, after apartheid, you know, after
Mandela was released, people were still singing.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
You know, people are still singing today.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Now it's time for role credits, the segment where we
give credit to a person, our thing we encountered during
the week. Eaves, who are what would you like to
give credit to?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I want to give credit to Onseen.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
This week, just been thinking about protests and capacities for
writing and for art to be able to speak out
about things and incite different thoughts and people and change.
I'm just really grateful to be able to have a
platform to be able to speak to people, and to
have people to be able to communicate back with us,
and to be able to talk to you because a
lot of these conversations that we have can happen privately,
(33:30):
you know so, But this also gives me a container
to be able to talk to you about certain things,
and for other people to be able to think about
things that they haven't thought about before, to think about
the roles if they're artists themselves that they have and
being able to create change and update their understanding and
awareness and consciousness on different things.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
And I am aware of the on earth that that.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Is basically to be able to do it, and in
a way that's it things me too and fulfills me.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I'll give credit to the ancestors and the ones we
knew while they were alive, and like watch them transition
because it's a different relationship, but it's still a relationship
and I love them. So let's shout out to y'all.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Gangang Gang, Gang Gang watching over us right now. Yep,
to be sure about it, and we'll see y'all next week.
See ya bye.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
This episode was written by Eves Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us
on Instagram at on Theme Show. You can also send
us an email at Hello at on Theme Dot Show.
Head to on Theme Dot Show to check out the
(34:55):
show notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the IHEARTRADI your app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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