The Connection Between Music and Politics

¶ … music is not always a vehicle for political or social commentary, it has become increasingly more so in the past several generations. Music serves often as a vehicle for community and cultural self-expression, or as a means to communicate social and political ideals as with the spirituals and blues songs of African-Americans bemoaning slavery and racism. Since the 1960s, however, music and its lyrical component has become a means by which to understand the zeitgeist of the historical epoch. Music in the 1960s was often directly and overtly political, particularly the songs of American folk musicians like Bob Dylan. It is almost easier to single out songs from the late 1960s that did not have political overtones versus those that did, because there were so many artists who used music to convey political messages. One of the most notable such songs is John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance." This song emerged during the peak of the American war in Vietnam, during which thousands of troops as well as civilians were dying in a pointless war. The late 1960s hippie movement was characterized by intense reactions to the political establishment that supported massive war efforts like that in Vietnam. As Gavish (2009) puts it, "Political music is meant to appeal not only to the oppressed, but to those compassionate to the cause as well, and popular acts realize the power they have to inspire people to action." Songs like "Give Peace a Chance" protested the military-industrial complex and offered hope that change was indeed possible. Lennon and Yoko Ono capitalized on their high profile presence in the music industry to draw attention to their causes.

The 1970s was largely a decade of disillusionment in the United States. As the hippie era drew to a close, many idealists came to realize that the forces of political, economic, and social power were too powerful to change with peaceful songs. The political corruption evidenced in the Nixon administration, the drawn-out Vietnam War, and crises in the Middle East all converged to create a decade in which people might have lost all hope were it not for the inspiration of artists drawing attention to the ways individuals can empower themselves for change. In the 1970s, Jamaican musician Bob Marley transformed the post-colonial and anti-colonial movements worldwide with his poignantly political songs. The song "Small Axe," for example, refers to the power of grassroots political movements to overcome seemingly overwhelming political odds. Richardson (2005) notes, "The cruel hypocrisy of this colonial rule is a constant theme of Marley's work." Songs like "Small Axe" truly encapsulate the spirit of Marley's work. "So if you are the big tree," Marley sings, "We are the small axe / Ready to cut you down." The "big tree" refers to the big political muscle -- the governments and corporations in power. The "small axe" refers to the people. Although the mainstream media in the United States did not initially promote Bob Marley, his songs have endured and remain a mainstay of global political culture.

In the 1980s, music in the United States became invigorated by the hip hop movement. Characterized by more than music alone, hip hop included other forms of artistic expression including graffiti art and dance. The earliest hip hop artists utilized instruments and electronics that were cheap and easily available to the urban poor to create revolutionary new sounds, putting politically-charged poetry to music in a new style called rap. One of the first bands to become popular outside of its New York community was Public Enemy. As Jonas (2004) puts it, "more than any other group at that time, Public Enemy set the standard for progressive, socially conscious rap." The title of their album Fear of a Black Planet implies the ongoing racism endemic in American society, which prevents genuine freedom and equality. One of the most important political rap songs of the 1980s, which helped raise awareness about racism in America, was Public Enemy's song "Fight the Power." The song combines frustration and anger at the lack of social progress in America with a keen sense of hope and inspiration for the future: "It's a start, a work of art / To revolutionize make a change." Just as with Marley's "Small Axe," the song "Fight the Power" encourages the downtrodden and disenfranchised to bind together with their community members in order to achieve self-empowerment and social justice. Filmmaker Spike Lee helped to showcase Public Enemy's political messages through the medium of film such as in Do the Right Thing.

Just as the 1970s seemed to be a decade of disillusionment after the incredibly hopeful 1960s, the 1990s also appeared poised to lose the verve generated by the hip hop movement of the 1980s. Rap music morphed to "gangsta rap," and rock music became self-absorbed, and yet there remained always an undercurrent of political activism in the arts. Tupac's album 2 Pacalypse Now is filled with politically potent messages including those in the song "Trapped," which bemoans the ongoing culture of violence and despair in black communities in America. "Cause they never talk peace in the black community / All we know is violence, do the job in silence / Walk the city streets like a rat pack of tyrants." Whereas the rap music of the 1980s fiercely criticized the white establishment and called upon the black community to "fight the power," the 1990s asked the same black community to look inward and confront the ways that their own leadership has failed to produce meaningful internal changes. Tupac sings about being "tired of being trapped in this vicious cycle," in "Trapped," because both the outside and the inside worlds seem converged on maintaining a status quo of poverty, violence, and hopelessness. Hip hop in the 1990s captured the generation's growing awareness about police brutality, such as with high-profile incidents like Rodney King. Yet even as the mainstream media decried police brutality, it also showcased a mistrust and fear of rap music, such as by dismissing the entire genre as representing the "destruction of American values," when clearly it was not (Hughes, 2013). Rappers like Tupac upheld the fundamental tenets of American values by protesting oppression and racism.

In the first decade of the new century/millennium, British/Sri Lankan artist MIA made waves in the music industry with her intensely political songs. One such song was "Born Free," which was accompanied by a controversial and violent video (Pickard, 2010). The song and its video mirrored the perpetuation of violence worldwide in the decade following the September 11 terrorist attacks and the brutal response to it by the United States that resulted in massive destabilization of the Middle East. Mainstream media decried the visual content of MIA's song, while celebrating her courage as an artist (Pickard, 2010).