On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather Friends Media As. Last week, we talked about how black 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.
I'm Eves and I'm Katie in today's episode Music Is for Movement.
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.
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 is the difference between a protest song and a song that talks about politics.
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 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 that message, and they intend to alert other people to whatever the injustice is and their response to it.
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, 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.
I'm gonna dread it, girl.
But it's like, baby, you are a billionaire capitalist who stands for nothing but yourself.
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.
Of work they do.
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.
Have a protest song.
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 consciousness and a raising of.
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 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
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.
That's what I think.
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. 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.
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 versus just letting the work speak for itself for two
different things. It's like going somewhere and telling everybody, I'm a gigster.
Look at me.
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 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.
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.
So today we're honoring the role that protest music played in freedom struggles and the musicians who made it.
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 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, 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 the song.
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.
That's right.
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 lynching movement and a potent reminder of black suffering, born on the eve of the Civil rights movement.
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 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.
We shall not, We shall not be moved. We shall not, we shall not move my good dream.
That's magic.
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. 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 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 song absolutely outlived him through the civil rights movement.
Sam will be back.
At course of the show, he sings well Over and a Fine Arrangement that black lives.
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 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.
But I know.
Come, I think it's.
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.
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
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.
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 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 I feel like we're all a little silly back.
Then, Why do you say that.
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.
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 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 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.
She's saying at the March on Washington.
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 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.
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.
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 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. 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 that strength with them as they marched.
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.
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 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.
Yes.
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 be prepared to fight with our minds and our bodies and our spirits.
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 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.
I didn't think that's where you're going with that.
My mom was like, I'm not gonna have the breath control to keep singing while I'm walking like that.
I'm not trying that way.
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 what's going on for sure, but also having that upbeat vibe going as well, I think that's what she was speaking to.
We got to go to a break, but we'll see you again soon.
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.
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.
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, 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
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. We are going into foreign countries to places our fathers and mothers don't know. Following freedom.
This song is.
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.
It was like the artists made music for the mood that was needed.
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.
Yeah, I could see how that could help keep the spear of the struggle alive.
Oh yeah.
And speaking of bands, the government censored music with anti apartheid themes right.
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 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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
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.
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
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, 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.
They're using these songs.
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 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.
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 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 y'all steps in order. So I like the thought of protest songs being a warning too and an.
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, 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 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
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 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.
They weren't self conscious about their role in the movement. They knew that they were important and necessary.
Not at all.
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 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 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 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 has to be the punching part, you know, it has
to be the part that is like I'm out there on the front.
Lines or I'm yelling.
I think a great message that comes from seeing these people who were banned for their songs, right they were exiled, how how much?
What else do you need to say?
That shows that the people against you knew how powerful they were too.
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 had something to say.
They managed to merge.
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 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?
But what does the art do?
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.
We can't.
We can't all do the same thing.
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 do some work for the people.
Now do it and do it at all costs.
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 it still goes. You know, after apartheid, you know, after Mandela was released, people were still singing.
You know, people are still singing today.
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?
I want to give credit to Onseen.
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, 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.
And I am aware of the on earth that that.
Is basically to be able to do it, and in a way that's it things me too and fulfills me.
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.
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.
Hi.
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 show notes for episodes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the IHEARTRADI your app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.