Modern Protest Music pt 2

looky

I looked for protest music a little more seriously, and found some actual results this time,
including that hip-hop record I was looking for a few weeks ago.

Since a lot of these seem to be singles, or a special release that will not be reissued, I think this list is a really good candidate for assembling with iTunes or the new Napster.

Or just listen to more college radio for free!

Notice I don’t even mention downloading these songs and making a Ultra-Cool Modern Protest Music Sampler Box Set, because that would be illegal and therefore I wouldn’t dream of doing that. Not even as holiday gifts for all my friends.

  • A pretty damn good CD is Peace Not War, which has a lot of really famous people on it, including Public Enemy, Ani DiFranco, Chumbawumba, Massive Attack, and Sleater-Kinney. Available at Amazon and most decent record stores, but if you are interested, please buy it from one of the peace groups listed on their site, because more of the proceeds will go towards peace efforts.
  • Another good starting point is The Return of the Protest Song, an article by columnist Jeff Chang in the Boston newspaper Weekly Dig. He lists:
    • Blur‘s We’ve Got A File on You! (pop-rock)
    • Beenie Man (club music) brought us Terrorist
    • Calypso artist Andre Tanker with Food Fight
    • Lenny Kravitz (rock) gets extra points for We Want Peace because it’s a duet with Iraqi artist Kadim Al Sahir. You won’t find this one on Amazon, because it’s only played from the Rock the Vote site… maybe it will be on Kravitz’ new album.
    • Good luck finding “March of Death” from Rage Against the Machine and DJ Shadow (rap metal)… Amazon doesn’t have it, which doesn’t faze me, but neither does Rasputin’s…
    • Yo La Tengo (latin alternative) with Nuclear War (a cover of Sun Ra)

  • NOT on the list was Radiohead‘s album Hail to the Thief. Duh!
  • I think the one I was looking for was from Urban Box Office– their album is Raise Your Hands High… Say Not In Our Name and comes in 3 different volumes. Go directly to their site and do a search there, because their database is a little tempermental and won’t let me save links to particular items
  • Supposedly Reverend Run (Run DMC) is doing an all-star record… haven’t found it yet though.
  • This list wouldn’t be complete without The Beastie Boys. Those guys crack me up. They recently released “In A World Gone Mad” but damned if I can find it…
  • Michael Franti and Spearhead did a great song (getting some good airplay on the college stations here) U Can’t Bomb the World to Peace, featuring beatbox artist RadioActive and remixed by Sly and Robbie. The Spearhead site is pretty nice! On a side note, Michael Franti‘s previous group Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy has
    some pretty wild stuff, including an album with William S Burroughs.

  • What’s Next? Operation “Hood” Freedom on Planet Hiphop, written by the slightly wacky Minister Paul Scott of the Messianic Afrikan Nation.
  • …actually the whole site of Planet HipHop is pretty interesting… You’ll note they have an entire online radio feed devoted to “conscious” hip hop, i.e. protest music.
  • Guerilla Funk is the label of “Paris” and is devoted to news as well as his brand of angry progressive hip hop
  • “Sub Verse Music Inc. is first and foremost about the tenets of hip-hop culture and a supporter of underground initiatives.” So they say!
  • KRS One published The Hiphop Declaration of Peace
    on the Temple of Hip-Hop site.

  • Davey D’s Hip-Hop Corner has a bunch of news on hip-hop and progressive issues
  • Musicians United to Win Without War is a group of artists against the war- no album from them yet though! I like how the first name on the list is Laurie Anderson. She is a nut.

Viva!

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