The Times Union
Raising their voices
Protest songs have long history of bringing people together
http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-features/article/Raising-their-voices-6030394.php#page-2
By Amy Biancolli
January 26, 2015

“As long as music has existed,” said Taina Asili, a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter based in Albany, “it’s responded to what’s been going on in the world. … Most good music, I would say, comes out of communities that have been oppressed, in some ways.” She noted flamenco music and gypsies in Spain. The music of Latin America. The salsa of Ruben Blades, the protest piano jazz of Nina Simone(“Mississippi Goddam”).

Asili’s own song, “For Our Children,” lays out rolling salsa rhythms under soaring vocals that protest the youngest victims of racism(“refusing to sacrifice one more angel’s life / to the hurricane of hatred”). It was released in August on “Fruit of Hope,” her new album recorded with her band, La Banda Rebelde, “Every type of genre I can think of, from rock to jazz to blues to folk and especially to hip-hop, has been responding to what has been going on,” Asili said.

In December, when a small group of protesters brought a list of demands to read aloud at the U.S. Attorney’s office at the federal building in downtown Albany, they found themselves with time to kill. No one was available, they were told. Everyone was busy.

After a brief discussion pondering what-nexts, the group of 20 activists — all motivated by the events concerning Michael Brown, Eric Garnerand other unarmed African-Americans who died at the hands of police — decided to wait it out. But they had relinquished their smartphones at security. There was nothing to do in that crammed little office but shift their weight and talk.
And sing.

Blue Canneker started in with her own tune, written after Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo.: “Justice is a River,” a hopeful folk number that dwells on patience and making amends. The lyrics seemed designed for people cooling their heels at a protest:

We are waiting, we will not go away
We are standing until judgment day …
Until justice is a river that feeds us.

The melody was sweet, the voices light — growing in number and volume as they moved from Carreker’s new song to older, more familiar tunes (“This Little Light of Mine,” “We Shall Not Be Moved”). But every protest song in the long history of the genre was new at some point, with repetition being the key: You hear others sing it and sing it yourself, building community with activists braving boredom or the cold. Eventually, the message and the music both sink in.

“Music can be a force to bring people together — and to create an energy that is inspirational but also creates a sense of belonging,” said Carreker recently. “When people are able to sing meaningful words together, it adds a layer of connectedness that I don’t think happens any other way.”

This weekend, the People’s Music Network — an alignment of socially conscious artists that dates to 1977 — will hold this year’s winter gathering in Greenfield, Mass., kicking off Friday with a dinner, a Shabbat singing event and a concert that includes singer-songwriter-educators Kim and Reggie Harris. But as the 21st century civil rights movement emerges and evolves, protest songs are emerging and evolving along with it. Nationally, recording artists from J. Cole and Tink the Rapper to Alicia Keys and Michael Franti have released tracks calling for change and peace. Locally, too, musicians representing a medley of ages, races and genres are cutting records in the name of racial progress. And they’re not all the ka-chung-ka-chungguitar folk so often associated with protest music.

That December trip to the federal building included Amani Olugbala, a spoken-word poet who just recorded a track with the band MIRK, “Permanent.,” that simultaneously mourns and celebrates the lives of black women and girls. “I was just trying to highlight our voices, my voice, and largely thinking about my mom, my grandmother, my aunt, my goddaughter — she’s three,” said Olugbala, who’s organizing a monthly “Black Lives Matter” showcase for young African-American performers.

She performs her song at protests, she said, and anywhere else the spirit moves her. “I will do it every single place that I am. For example, waiting for the bus this morning, I did it.”
Protest and song have long gone together. Back in the 1870s, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” was one of many spirituals borne of slavery and sung by slaves. The early 20th century brought songs supporting the labor movement and addressing World War I; in the ’40s, Woody Guthrie sang “This Land Is Your Land,” objecting to class divisions; by the ’60s, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger were raising their voices against racism and Vietnam. “We Shall Overcome” became an anthem of civil rights.

“As long as music has existed,” said Taina Asili, a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter based in Albany, “it’s responded to what’s been going on in the world. … Most good music, I would say, comes out of communities that have been oppressed, in some ways.” She noted flamenco music and gypsies in Spain. The music of Latin America. The salsa of Ruben Blades, the protest piano jazz of Nina Simone(“Mississippi Goddam”).

Asili’s own song, “For Our Children,” lays out rolling salsa rhythms under soaring vocals that protest the youngest victims of racism(“refusing to sacrifice one more angel’s life / to the hurricane of hatred”). It was released in August on “Fruit of Hope,” her new album recorded with her band, La Banda Rebelde, “Every type of genre I can think of, from rock to jazz to blues to folk and especially to hip-hop, has been responding to what has been going on,” Asili said.

Regardless of their musical bent, most protest songs fall into one of two very broad categories: longer, more complex and wordier songs that are generally sung by just one person or band; and shorter, simpler ditties and “zipper” songs that repeat phrases with substituted words (“If I had a hammer … a bell … a song”). The second type is much easier for a crowd to pick up and sing along — whether they’ve heard it before or not.

One recent example is “I Can’t Breathe,” a short number written by Luke Nephew of the New York City-based Peace Poets. Named for Garner’s last words, the song is catchy, punchy, impassioned and brief: “I can hear my neighbor cryin’ ‘I can’t breathe’ / Now I’m in the struggle and I can’t leave. / Callin’ out the violence of the racist police. / We ain’t gonna stop, till people are free.” In December, Samuel L. Jackson challenged people to record and upload their own versions, yielding thousands of YouTube videos.

“I love protest songs, if they are done properly — and I can’t stand what I call hit-’em-over-the-head songs,” said Sonny Ochs, sister of the late, great Phil and a music producer and radio host based in Schoharie County.

Instead, she prefers songs with subtlety and cutting humor, citing Tom Lehrer, Tom Paxtonand a more recent singer-satirist, Roy Zimmerman.

Her brother, too, lanced through hypocrisy with wicked precision. (The scathingly funny “Love Me, I’m a Liberal” attacked the left from the left.)
“Why do you go out? You go out to be entertained,” she stressed, recalling one songwriter in particular at a folk showcase she helped judge. His songs were absolute downers. She told him: “At least have the courtesy to hand the audience a razor blade.” He took the point.

Olugbala’s track, filled with bouncing guitar riffs, addresses its dark subject with a welcome lightness of touch. “I wanted it to be something that felt good … because the reason why (these deaths) are so horrible is because life is just so beautiful. People are beautiful, too — that’s the heartbreaking part about it. And I just wanted to say, ‘I see you, and you’re beautiful.’ ”
Speaking out in protest — and in song — is all she can do.

“Keep yellin’ about it,” she said. “There’s really no other choice.”

abiancolli@timesunion.com • 518-454-5439 • @AmyBiancolli