| If I could just find which box I packed the downloading chord thingamajig for my camera, I would upload some pics I took from Tuesday night's Obama rally here at the St Paul Excel Energy Center. I'll keep looking. In the meantime... As June is "Black Music Month" I thought it appropriate to re-post this entry from Deesha's (Mamalicious!) and my recent 32 Days of Black History blogathon celebrating Black History Month. I'll have more to say on "Black music" and hopefully more playlists to come soon. |
Welcome to my first 32 Days of Black History post. (See here for information about this joint effort with Mamalicious!) What a wonderful way to begin our blogathon--with some music. Deesha and I plan to devote each Friday of this effort to music. Deesha has come strong out of the gate in her first post with insisive commentary on and an awesome playlist of Michael Jackson, B.C. (Before Changes...) I'll definitely plan in future weeks to bring you some funk, perhaps some old school hip-hop, and definitely some of my favorite jazz. But today I'll kick things off with a theme of Protest and Social Commentary.
Let me first note that I am experimenting with a new streaming web player for this so please excuse any bugs. For example, when I was previewing the playlist, the software played Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" when it was supposed to be streaming "Mercy, Mercy Me." Now, in a different context, let's get it on might be a political battle cry. But I am pretty sure that when Marvin sang There's nothing wrong with me loving you he was not directing his sentiments toward, for example, the President of the United States.
Anyway, where was I?
Protest and social commentary. Compiling this playlist took me through several decades of Black people putting voice to tune in order to comment on social ills of the day, claim self- and community-love, and protest injustice. In this playlist the Chi-Lites are exasperated and demand that "for God's sake, give more power to the people." Meanwhile The O'Jays decry our obsession and love of the mean, mean green almighty dollar. Lady Day gives a haunting description of "strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees" while Harry Belafonte repeatedly shouts "before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave..." Because of the random aspect of the order that these songs are streamed, you may find yourself in jarring musical and temporal transitions. For example, after Billie in circa 1950s jazz club you may suddenly time warp to hear Public Enemy urge you to "Fight the Power" or Angie Stone sing an ode to her often misunderstood Black brothers, or you may jump over into hard rock to hear Living Colour note that "the mirror speaks, the reflection lies." But no matter the era or musical stylings, Angie and Chuck D and Vernon and Billie are all part of the same tradition.
In short, no observance or discussion of Black History would be complete without acknowledging the role that music has played in expressions of Black empowerment, Black rage, Black pride, Black hope, Black humanity, Black love. Now, many Black History Month observations will focus only on the "happy" or the "firsts" in music such as Berry Gordy's feel-good Motown sounds, or Marian Anderson breaking the color barrier by performing with the Metropolitan Opera. But this focus does not tell the full story. Hopefully this playlist (as of my final tally, over 50 songs strong) will help fill in some gaps.
Some of the "usual suspects" of protest and social observation are here from as many musical genres as I could cobble together, including:
*Curtis Mayfield "If There's a Hell Below..."
*Stevie Wonder "You Haven't Done Nothing"
*The Staple Singers "Respect Yourself"
*Bob Marley "Get Up, Stand Up"
*Aretha Franklin "Young, Gifted and Black"
*Gil Scott-Heron "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"
*War "The World is a Ghetto"
*Tracy Chapman "Talkin About a Revolution"
*Isley Brothers "Harvest for the World"
*James Brown "(Say It Loud) I'm Black and I'm Proud"
But I've also thrown in a few surprises. Louis Armstrong asserts in his signature rasp that "We Shall Overcome." Jimi Hendrix provides his famous interpretation of the land of the free and home of the brave. And I include two examples of jazz giants using their art forms to make important public statements: a piece from Wynton Marsalis's "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary" and another from Terence Blanchard's incredibly moving ode to New Orleans post-Katrina.
But enough yapping. This is supposed to be about the music, not about my comments. I will make one more disclosure: the only "rules" for inclusion in this playlist were that the songs be some of my favorites and they were available from the finetune.com site for playlist inclusion. As such, this is by no means an exhaustive sample. Please feel free to share your own favorites.
Happy Listening!