Black History: An Exploration of Music As an Expression of Civil Rights

Racial activism inside music is not a contemporary phenomenon, it has been there for the reason that artform’s inception. In the late nineteenth century, marginalized African-American communities invented the Blues largely as an expression of their subjugation; the truth that additionally they invented the construction of in style music was only a blissful accident. By 1939, Billie Holliday launched an anti lynching protest tune so potent that the proprietor of Atlantic Records known as Strange Fruit "a declaration of battle and the start of the civil rights motion” that dominated the ’60s. Once this motion reached its crescendo, Sam Cooke’s everlasting A Change Is Gonna Come was embraced to a degree that it arguably functioned as a brand new nationwide anthem to these for whom the nation’s precise anthem was desperate to ignore. Like a lot of the music of this period, Cooke’s message was extra conciliatory in tone, however by the ’70s the character of activism in music turned from a peace signal to a fist in a black leather-based glove.

If the ’70s noticed black music make a fist, the subsequent decade noticed activist hip hop throw a punch. Seminal acts like Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions extra carefully resembled Malcolm X than MLK of their revolutionary tone, and the time period “aware rap” was embodied as a worldview. Years later, America’s first black president was changed by one with the soul of a slave proprietor, and the spate of minorities being killed by police turned so rampant that even white individuals who thought that Rodney King was an aberration began to acknowledge an epidemic. Black Lives Matter discovered a second wave with public protests on a scale not seen for the reason that Vietnam War, and impressed a era extra politically inclined than the final.

Music as a type of activism inside African American tradition is a phenomenon that has no parallel in human historical past. Never earlier than have an oppressed group been in a position to converse previous their oppressors and to their oppressors’ kids. Never had a persecuted group been in a position to show that they had been sensible and delightful and actual. Never had a minority been in a position to outline the tradition of the bulk.

This choice considers a long time of activism in music from the Black Panther period of the ’70s, aware rap from 90s, as much as the Black Lives Matter motion as a method to have a good time the progress that has been made whereas lamenting the work that also must be finished.

Listen to all of Scott’s mixes HERE at Electric Adolescence.

Track List: Parrish – We are All Georgeous Monsterss (Excerpt)
Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble – Sounds Like Now
Janelle Monae feat. Wonderland Records – Hell You Talmbout (Video Mix)
Rhiannon Giddens – Cry No More
Camille Yarbrough – All Hid
The Last Poets – Black Wish
Bama the Village Poet – Ghettos of the Mind
Mos Def – Revelations
Big Daddy Kane – Erase The Racism (J. Period Exclusive Mix)
Ice Cube feat. Khalid Abdul Muhammad – Death
Boogie Down Productions – Exhibit B
Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble – The Colors That You Bring
Solange – Interlude: Tina Taught Me
Sault – Little Boy
Blood Orange – Christopher & sixth
Lauryn Hill – Black Rage
Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill – Ready Or Not (Excerpt)
James Brown – Say It Loud (Black and Proud) (Notorious JBs Version)
Brother Ahh – Transcendental March (Creation Song)
George Soule – Get Involved
Five on the Black Hand Side – Original Trailer
Sault – X
David McKnight – Strong Men
Marion Black – Listen Black Brother
The Chambers Brothers – People Get Ready
Ethel Davenport – Free At Last
Martin Luther King Jr – Civil Rights Address Washington D.C.
Nathan Davis – M.L.Okay.
Sarah Webster Fabio – After Birmingham
Sault – Out the Lies
Amanda Gorman – Biden/ Harris Inauguration Speech
Crowd Chanting Kendrick Lamar "Alright" In Response to Police Harassment
Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble – Power
The Last Poets – Black Is (Chant)
Public Enemy feat. Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG & Questlove – Fight the Power 2020
D’Angelo and the Vanguard – 1000 Deaths
Tamika Mallory – Women’s March Speech in Washington
Eddie Kendrick – My People Hold On
Moses Sumney – Power?
PM Dawn – Silence (Recorded on the Grave of Martin Luther King)

Track List:
Camille Yarbrough – But It Comes Out Mad
Syl Johnson – Is It Because I’m Black?
The Whatnauts – Message From a Black Man
Curtis Mayfield – Stare and Stare
Aretha Franklin – Young, Gifted, and Black
The Last Poets – When the Revolution Comes
Frankie Cutlass – Puerto Rico/ Black People
Public Enemy – Brother’s Gonna Work It Out (Remix)
Boogie Down Productions – The Racist
Big Daddy Kane feat. Gamilah Shabazz (Malcolm X’s Daughter) – Who Am I?
Brand Nubian – Allah & Justice
De La Soul – I Am I Be
Arrested Development – Raining Revolution
Erykah Badu – The Healer
Jamila Woods feat NoTitle – VRY BLK
Mick Jenkins feat. BADBADNOTGOOD – Drowning (I Can’t Breathe)
Blood Orange – JUNE 12TH (For Sandra Bland)
Saul Williams – Sha Clack Clack
Houz Mon – Intro: King 28 Years Later
Bama the Village Poet – Blackman My Brother
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Blacknuss
Sam Dees – Heritage of a Black Man
Gil Scott-Heron – Whitey On the Moon
Dr. Mary Sullivan Bain – Do You Know Black History?
Trinikas – Black is Beautiful
YG & Nipsey Hussle – Fuck Donald Trump