WSPC SESSION NOTES MARCH 2015: WHERE ARE THE PROTEST SONGS?

FROM THE DJ's STUDIO DESK:

"I urge and challenge musicians and artists to push themselves to be a voice of the times that we live in...I really apply this challenge to ALL artists...We need new Dylans. New Public Enemys. New Simones. New De La Rochas. New ideas!...I'm not saying every song gotta be 'Fight The Power' but in times like these we need to be more community minded...real stories. Real narratives. Songs with spirit in them. 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...my soul is aching man. Seriously just ONE or Two songs that change the course. This is something I feel the need and urgency to put out there."
-Questlove 

AMEN!

Dear readers and listeners, as I have always proclaimed since the genesis of this site, Synesthesia was created and is designed to be a celebration of music. It is not really a source of music criticism, so to speak. Even so, there will be times during which I feel a more serious thematic may need to be introduced into the continuing discussion and my spirit is telling me that we have now found ourselves at an especially crucial time. The above quotation, written and posted by The Roots' drummer and bandleader Ahmir "Questlove " Thompson on his Instagram profile dated "3 months ago," has truly hit home for me as I have housed the exact same feelings due to the politically (and therefore emotionally) precarious and even violently contentious times in which we all co-exist.

As you are able to view from my profile, I live in Madison, WI, a state governed by a figure whose name shall never litter my blogsite and whose self-described "divide and conquer" policies have left my adopted state battered and bruised. Now, after unleashing his latest (and horrifically dismantling) budget proposal, readying himself to sign "Right To Work" legislation into law (something he had previously expressed not pursuing) and his run for the Presidency, just last week, during a speaking engagement (i.e. fund raising event) at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he offered the following statement in regards to his preparation for being chosen as the "leader of the free world" in regards to how he would handle global terrorism:

"If I take on 1000,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world."

Yes, this is the vitriolic stance this individual has taken against the populace he was elected to serve. The firefighters, teachers, farmers, state workers, police officers, business owners, parents, children, the elderly, the disabled, and essentially any single person who does not exist within his inner circle and fund his pockets. Yes, this is how much he hates all of us.

For those of you who may be unaware, the "protesters" in question were a collective of these aforementioned people that make up our populace, of which I proudly include myself. We PEACEFULLY took to the streets, as well as PEACEFULLY occupied the State Capitol in 2011, after said unnamed Governor initially unleashed his (again) self-described "divide and conquer" policies against his constituency. For a period of nearly three months, I returned to the massive protests over and again to voice my outrage and offer my solidarity alongside my Wisconsin brethren and throughout that entire period, music played a crucial role, extensively as well as personally.

The eternal songs of unity and protest, like Ralph Chaplin's "Solidarity Forever" (composed in 1915) and the music of the late singer/songwriter/activist Pete Seeger, were sung over and again. In between outdoor speeches, DJs would spin tracks like Muse's "Uprising" and on one occasion, Guns N' Roses' classic "Welcome To The Jungle" was re-contextualized into what felt like a war cry. Our state was even visited by the likes of Tom Morello and I was even a stone's throw away from Foo Fighters' guitarist Chris Shiflett who performed a few Union themed selections on one especially frigid day which housed the largest protest crowds of nearly 200,000.

Unquestionably, the most important musical event that occurred during these initial protests was the formation of The Solidarity Singers, a grouping of random Wisconsin citizens who sing protest songs every single day at the Capitol during the noontime hour, a beautiful expression of non-violent Civil Rights activism that has breached over 1000 days and has also triumphantly withstood the unconstitutional and illegal arrests of various singers (including one then 84 year old Grandmother--that terrorist!) during the summer of 2013.

As for me, during the height of the protests in 2011, I was consumed. Armed with my trusty digital camera, I took hundreds of photos and shared them through social media complete with annotations I wrote detailing the people I had met, their stories as well as the tenor of the days and protests overall. In a strange way, I sort of imagined myself as sort of a war correspondent on the front lines, gathering the information to share with those outside of the state, the very stories and facts that the mainstream media (and most shamefully, our local media) had long ceased to air and were definitely not reporting with any detail or accuracy.

At that time, I felt inspired and took to my home computer to create five photographic protest "films" which I also shared through social media. As I look back upon those films now, I can not only see how they charted the beginnings, the zenith, the decline of the protests as well as the fervor behind the failed (and I still believe stolen) recall efforts. It was a time when my profoundly personal interests with writing, journalism, movies and of course, music all congealed naturally, providing me with an alchemy within my creative life that I really had not experienced before, and possibly even since. Within all of those projects, music played a indispensable role as I needed to find the right songs to give an added emotional weight to the images and personal feelings I wanted to share and hoped would be fully understood. I first utilized Todd Rundgren's "Just One Victory," and then followed up with Fishbone's "Change," Zwan's  "Freedom Ain't What It Used To Be," R.E.M.'s "Finest Worksong" and The Smashing Pumpkins' "Zeitgeist" for the remaining four films.

Throughout that experience, during those few months of 2011 especially, the music gave an additional and seismic voice to an on-going Civil Rights movement that felt to be as inseparable as it was inspiring. But like the protests themselves, that feeling was fleeting...

Since the 2011 protests, and despite the tiny yet heroically constant presence of The Solidarity Singers, the voluminous energy that rose upwards has had the wind kicked out of its sails to what feels to be a dangerously apathetic degree to me, and something that I simply cannot understand. Yes, speaking (and singing) truth to power when the power in question feels to be insurmountable as well as endlessly funded and possesses the largest mouth pieces is indeed exhausting. Seeing how the recall election was swept away from victory most certainly led to the enormous feelings of being disillusioned and defeated. That being said, the people we fight against NEVER grow tired and furthermore, while we retreat and lick our wounds, they remain as feral as ever, plotting madly about what sort of pain to next inflict.

The landscape in Wisconsin is just representative of what is happening to the nation overall as unquestionably, we are living in dark times indeed. We live in a time when the national discourse and debates regarding politics, race, science, religion, and sexuality, among other social/political topics have fully broken down into rancorous dialogues without nuance, ambiguity and are too often filled with blind allegiance to political party affiliations, even when those affiliations work directly against one's own self interests. Simply stated, you may not "be into politics," as so many friends and acquaintances have expressed, but I hate to break it to you, politics are definitely into you. I wish for all of you out there to understand that I am not politically savvy and I am not a "news junkie" in the least (and hey, the news has been cancelled anyway). But I do know the following even moreso: I don't try to keep up with the rumblings on the political landscape because I necessarily want to, My mind would certainly love to be occupied with more pleasurable things to ponder. I pay attention because I have to. 

Dear readers and listeners, it is unfathomable to me that people have become so disinterested, lackadaisical and downright apathetic regarding the society in which we all live and share that the right to vote itself feels so futile and that we have also recently exited an election cycle which spawned the lowest voter turnout in over 70 years. Racial unrest and inequality between the sexes has become the most overt that I have seen within my lifetime and how much more ink must be spilled over the disintegration of the Middle Class before the bulk of the nation either believes it or grows angry enough to keep something like the Occupy Movement at the forefront of most people's minds? And to that end, what of the ecology, the environment and climate change when the powers that be are determined to pretend that Science doesn't exist and intelligence is irrelevant? I could go on and on about the ills that plague our country and our world yet there is just too much to weigh us down and ensure that we all remain fearful, helpless and hopeless. It is within dark times like right now where music can enter the conversation to help assuage the pain and re-energize and re-inspire us to help our world, but I have to ask...

WHERE ARE THE PROTEST SONGS?

Protest songs are not an easy beast to tame. But when composed and performed to the best of an artist's abilities, they can work wonders in providing solace, understanding, and solidarity. They can help in uniting and energizing an individual, which just may end up with giving voice, purpose and momentum to an overall movement. The music can inspire an individual in ways that speeches the news and the full knowledge of atrocities may not be able to accomplish in quite the same way. The images on the news and the realities in an d of themselves may be terribly overwhelming but when placed into song with music, lyrics, and emotional content designed to connect with listeners, the effect can be seismic. So again, I ask...WHERE ARE THE PROTEST SONGS?

 

This is not to say that protest songs are not being written at all anymore. Yes, we have had Green Day's two sobering rock operas, "American Idiot" (released September 20, 2004) and "21st Century Breakdown" (released May 15, 2009)...

 ...and Nine Inch Nails passionately offered the Orwellian and apocalyptic concept/protest album "Year Zero" (released April 17, 2007).

Also in this area, I feel that some of the very best protest songs and/or albums have arrived from the hip-hop/soul community. Erykah Badu, for example, created one of the finest, darkest protest albums I have heard in within the last 10 years with the dense and disturbing "New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War" (released February 26, 2008). 

Questlove has undoubtedly been a leader in this arena as he and The Roots have made a career's worth of protest songs and albums going as far back as "Things Fall Apart" (released February 23, 1999)...

 

...as well as their most recent albums "undun" (released December 2, 2011) and self-described hip-hop opera "...and then you shoot your cousin" (released May 19, 2014).

And yet, why does the concept of the protest song somehow seems to be an archaic one that should be relegated to a bygone era? I do think that it is telling that the outstanding album from John Legend and The Roots entitled "Wake Up!" (released September 21, 2010) was an album of protest songs but all of the selections (save for the track "Shine" composed by Legend) were all cover versions of protest songs from the 1960's and 1970's. Where are the NEW protest songs???

Take a gander at my full WSPC playlist for last month as I have been entering protest songs into the mix as life in Wisconsin has grown more politically turbulent than ever before. On my mythical radio station, I "spun" tracks by the likes of Curtis Mayfield, The Clash, Steve Earle, Living Colour, Utopia, Bruce Springsteen, JAMES BROWN and of course, Public Enemy. And yet, there was nothing from 2015. Or 2014, 2013 or really anything from the previous five years or so. So, once more and with feeling...WHERE ARE THE NEW PROTEST SONGS?

Again, I know that it is not like there are no protest songs whatsoever being written but it seems that aside from the eternal protest chestnuts and artists known for delivering messages of social consciousness and justice, I am curious if the entire concept of protest songs are difficult for younger listeners to engage with, Are all of these veteran artists, to some degree, not making an impactful connection to younger audiences? That is not to say that the generation of "Millennials" cannot somehow seek out and be inspired by something like Chuck D.'s "The Black In Man" (released August 1, 2014). But to that end, I feel that Chuck D., and therefore Public Enemy, who have continued to create albums of political sonic booms for over 25 years, have been relegated to the sidelines and the musical underground where they will not be heard and experienced on the widest scale possible, like they were in 1989 when "Fight The Power" was originally released in conjunction with Writer/Director Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" (1989).

I wonder where are the voices of 2015 speaking and singing about the world of 2015?

In a December 2014 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Nicki Minaj expressed her thoughts as to why artists within the hip-hop community are not making protest songs in the era and aftermath of the unjust murders of the unarmed Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner:

"I feel like when Public Enemy were doing 'Fight The Power,' we as a culture had more power-now it feels hopeless..People say, 'Why aren't black celebrities speaking out more?' But look what happened to Kanye when he spoke out. People told him to apologize to Bush!...He was the unofficial spokesman for hip-hop, and he got torn apart...And now you haven't heard him speaking about these last couple things, and it's sad, Because how many times can you be made to feel horrible for caring about your people before you say, 'Fuck it, it's not worth it, let me live my life because I'm rich, and why should I give a fuck?'"

That answer is horrific.

To me, that explanation flies in the face of everything art and protest itself is designed to do. Art is designed to challenge and provoke as well as entertain but art is not always supposed to make us feel comfortable. But now, we live in a time when music itself has become so devalued and artists as well as society itself has grown to be more fearful. When artists are afraid to become provocateurs and hold up society's mirror to itself and ourselves, then we are in deep trouble as a human society as far as I am concerned. And in some way, an artist's fear of speaking out due to possibly being persecuted publicly, makes something like the murders of the Charlie Hebdo artists to have occurred in vain.

I cannot believe that we would even wish to allow artistic voices to be silenced, especially through fear and something tells me that we are actually indeed hungry for something to shake us out of our collective stupor.

Take the stirring performance of "The Charade" given by D'Angelo and the Vanguard on the January 31st episode of "Saturday Night Live" as the band members all wore T-shirts adorned with protest statements of "Black Lives Matter" and "I Can't Breathe."

Or take the jaw dropping, soul shaking performance by Common and John Legend on this year's Academy Awards telecast of their Oscar winning song "Glory" from Director Ava DuVernay's "Selma." As I have previously expressed, we are hungry.

In just one protest song, we have the ability to open ourselves up to experiences that help us to understand and expand our own world views. They can incite but they also provide us with a sense of passionate empathy with which we can utilize as fuel to make the world a better place for everyone. Like Questlove, I challenge and deeply wish for artists to overcome any sense of fear and be as bold as the art demands for you to be and sing out...loudly, proudly, unapologetically and unrepentantly. Whoever said that protest songs are owned by the 1960's? Protest songs are as up to the minute as the events that inspire them so, artists of today, your time is NOW!!!!

FIGHT THE POWER because LOVE'S IN NEED OF LOVE TODAY.
GET UP, STAND UP because of WHAT'S GOING ON
GET UP, GET INTO IT, GET INVOLVED for ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE 
LOVE IS THE ANSWER so in tribute, LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING

I'm ready to hear what you have to sing.