Arrested Development, from the artist’s Bandcamp It is the first month of the new year and it featured several socially conscious releases. Now is a small sampling. Songs/Videos: Guilty (featuring Mary Lattimore, Lonnie Holley, Raia Was) – Moor Mother This tune is off the prolific Jazz poet’s upcoming album “The Great Bailout”, due out on March 8, 2024. Both the […]
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Billy Bragg, one of the artists who recorded a response song to Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Man North of Richmond”. Via artist’s Bandcamp The history of protest music has a long-standing tradition of songs written in response to other songs. For example, Woody Guthrie’s protest standard “This Land Is Your Land” was composed to critique Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America”. This […]
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By now it has become obvious that I’m bad with introductions, so let’s get right into it. Here is a small sampling of socially conscious music released during the past month. Songs/Videos: Safe To Run (featuring Hurray for the Riff Raff) – Esther Rose The latest single by the country-folk singer fantasizes about escaping a world that is on the […]
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December tends to be a slower month in terms of music releases, but there were still some notable socially conscious releases to close out the year. Songs/Videos: Life On Earth (with Preservation Hall Jazz Band) – Hurray For The Riff Raff Hurray For The Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra) recently released a new version of the title track off their […]
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Over the past number of months, posting has been less frequent due to health issues and other personal circumstances. There has been improvement, so I hope to start posting more often. In connection with this, I plan on returning to posting a monthly recap. Below is a list of notable socially conscious songs, videos, and albums released during July. Songs […]
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The prolific rapper, singer-songwriter, and poet recently released a video for “Powerless” a track off his latest album The Grift. He also released The Grift Home Companion, a spoken word album that further addresses the issues brought up on The Grift. The lyrics address the variety of ways that the political establishment strives to make its citizens feel powerless. The […]
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This hard-hitting collaboration between two politically minded hip-hop artists was released on July 24 to correspond with the M4A Marches that took place on that day across 50 cities. The tune powerfully highlights the failures of US healthcare and the need for reforms with lyrics such as “It’s CEOs and politicians poors are coming for. ‘Cause more than 30 million […]
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Just about every 2020 best album list features some variance of 2020 was a shitty year, but at least we had plenty of good music to help get us through. Let’s skip all of that, and get straight to the list of the 40 best protest albums of 2020. When putting the list together several notable releases deserved consideration but […]
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This episode features special guest singer-songwriter, rapper, and producer Jesse Jett. We discuss how the pandemic and current political climate resulted in a creative catalyst which resulted in the 24 track, 90-minute album The Virus. We also discuss his collaboration with Awkword on the tune “10 Demands” and several other projects that he is currently working on. Jett also becomes […]
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This episode features activist, journalist, and rapper Awkword. We discuss his new tune “Ten Demands (featuring Jesse Jett)’ and his work with the Ten Demands for Justice initiative which provides a roadmap towards abolition. We also discuss how he views music has an extension of his activism and how rap and punk music saved his life. During the episode, we play portions […]
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