“Power to the people no delay
Make everybody see
In order to fight the powers that be”

Music is a power, and one that has been used throughout time and across genre to resist injustice and oppression. For Black History Month, we are looking at some of the work in our collection that focuses on Black Musical Resistance from Jim Crow to today.

Want to listen along to some of the music in here as you read? Check out our Naxos Playlist.

History

Music is an important tool for understanding social movements, with music inspired by and working to shape the events around it. In the history of Black resistance in the West, musical genres from Jazz to Hip Hop have emerged to help Black musicians express and advocate for themselves. Below is recommended reading that traces musical resistance from the beginning of slavery to the 1980s.

Recommended reading

Civil Rights Music: The Soundtracks of the Civil Rights Movement by Reiland Rabaka is an introduction to Black musical resistance in history. Rabaka relates the undertold stories of the music of the Civil Rights Movement, first grounding the reader in the sociology and musicology of the movement's music, before exploring the genres of gospel, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll. New to this topic? The second chapter, "The Musicology of the Civil Rights Movement" serves as a starting point to understand the relationship between popular music and popular culture in the context of social movements.

Children of the Ghetto: Black Music in Britain by Kevin Le Gendre covers Black British music from the 1960s to the 1980s. Le Gendre focuses on the shift in Black music that originated from elsewhere to Black music being created and performed in Britain, and how this was reflective of the political and social surroundings Black musicians were experiencing at the time. Children of the Ghetto tells the stories of Black musicians who went against the grain, the genres and subgenres born in this period, and music born from a need to be heard.

Rhythms of Resistance and Resilience: How Black Washingtonians Used Music and Sports in the Fight for Equality by Maurice Jackson tells the history of Black music in Washington, DC. Jackson introduces the book with an emphasis that jazz expresses both the joy and sorrows of Black people in America and does not shy away from either. The first half of the book looks at resistance in music, with the second exploring resistance through sports. Jackson zooms in on a few different points of interest including Jazz in the post-war period, and artists like Billie Holiday and her “Strange Fruit” or Duke Ellington and the evolution of this relationship with Washington.

Jazz

To understand Jazz is to know the time of racial unrest that shaped its emergence. The exact origin of the genre is debated, but it’s clear it was born and shaped by Black artists surrounded by deep-set societal and institutional racism. It is in this context, that Jazz as resistance music is clear. The texts below provide an overarching view of Jazz and resistance, the intersectional context of gender that Black women in Jazz navigated, and some of the platforms for Jazz and surrounding political movements, including radio.

Recommended reading

Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music by Gerald Horne discusses how the industry itself used and exploited Black Jazz musicians, from segregated unions to backlash around the activism found in their work. Horne takes readers from the end of the 19th century to the present, emphasizing that the racism Black Jazz musicians face and how it manifests in exploitation is a connecting thread throughout the history of the genre.

The Drum is a Wild Woman: Jazz and Gender in African Diaspora Literature by Patricia G. Lespinasse addresses the objectification of women in the genre and looks to how women have navigated and challenged that narrative in the post war period. Lespinasse looks at how women in the African diaspora have used Jazz to transform from object to subject, with the natural state of resistance in Jazz being what allows for this transformation. She then further investigates the music itself, and how the musical tropes of call and response represent and create resistance.

Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Davis digs further into Black feminism in Jazz, exploring the work of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Gertrude “Ma” Rainey. Davis analyzes the lyrics and work of these artists in the context of social issues, collectivity, and Black social consciousness. Some key themes identified by Davis include sexual sovereignty, the personal as political and freedom equated with mobility in music on travelling.

Jazz Radio America by Aaron J. Johnson is about the post-war radio era for Jazz. Johnson’s own experience with the industry plays a part as he discusses the differences between commercial, non-commercial and community radio. Johnson highlights the political nature of the radio, and the conflicts between the Disc Jockeys and music and the funding for the radio.

Genre and culture

Musical genres like Hip Hop, Punk, Reggae and Gospel originate in Black musical traditions. These traditions were born in part to speak to the oppression Black people have and continue to experience, and in turn have rich subcultures and communities they are grounded in. While many have been co-opted and changed over time, their roots and role in cultural preservation persist.

Recommended reading

Rebel Musics: Human Rights, Resistant Sounds, and the Politics of Music Making edited by Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble is curated around musical activism and resistance across genre and space. Chapter four, "Gospel as Protest: The African Nova Scotia Spiritual and the Lyrics of Delvina Bernard" by George Elliot Clarke, brings readers to Gospel presence in Canada. Clarke looks at the Gospel tradition amongst Africadians, a musical tradition not exclusive to the United States with its own rich history of folk and religious connections. Clarke then analyzes Delvina Bernard’s lyrics and the larger picture they paint of her experiences as Black woman in Nova Scotia and the resistance found within it.

Hip Hop Revolution: the Culture and Politics of Rap by Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar dives into the cultural history of hip hop, telling a fuller story of the genre and culture around it. Recommended chapter: "Rebels with a cause: Gangstas, Militants, Media and the Contest for Hip-Hop," where in Ogbar addresses the monolithic perception of hip hop and the culture wars that enforced it. Ogbar focuses on the subversive rebellion that is found in Hip-Hop that White consumers look past.

Black Punk Now: Fiction, Nonfiction and Comics edited by James Spooner and Chris L. Terry features interviews, fiction, and comics by Black Punk artists and creators. Two chapters that focus on music and provide a greater understanding of Black Punk are "The Progenitors of Black Feminist Punk: Sista Grrrl Riot" by Laina Dawes and "10 Commandments of Black Punk According to Matt Davis" by Dr. Joanna Davis-Mcelligatt. Dawes interviews four artists, Honeychild Coleman, Tamar-Kali Brown, Simantha M. Sernaker and Maya Sokora who produced concerts or “riots” under the name Sista Grrrl Riot in 1998, which influenced the evolution of Afro-Punk. Dr. Davis Mcelligatt illustrates these 10 Commandments in a comic, providing a visual impact for readers.

From Jim Crow to Jay Z by Miles White tells a musical history with a lens focused on the roles that Black men are forced into, diving into the treatment of Black men’s bodies and the absence and performance of them in music and popular culture. White provides some historical context and discussion of Jazz, while primarily looking at Rap and Hip-Hop culture. Chapter Two, "The Fire this Time: Black Masculinity and the Politics of Racial Performance," highlights the commodification of Black bodies and Black culture in music.

Black Music in Britain in the 21st Century edited by Monique Charles with Mary W. Gani covers a wide scope of prominent genres for Black British musicians and the communities around those genres. Chapters explore tensions between community and corporate expressions of these genres, such as in "Sounds of Oppression: The Lost Inheritance of the UK Reggae and Soundsystem Culture" by Daniel ‘Husla D’ Johnson and Roy Wallace. Johnson and Wallace discuss the industry misrepresentation of reggae music and culture in Britain, and the overall coopting of a genre that was suppressed from mainstream music spaces and bloomed despite this in community spaces. Johnson and Wallace explore how corporate reggae is divorced from its relation to resistance, while resistance is intrinsic to the more authentic, community driven collective music making practice of reggae.

Creating futures

Resistance is not relegated to the past, with music continuing to be a platform for rebellion and resistance as music is used to help imagine Black futurity. Black artists have used music to address colonialism, imperialism and the control of Black voices. It has and continues to be a tool to work towards counterculture and musical resistance.

Recommended reading

I Mix What I Like! A Mixtape Manifesto by Jared Ball discusses the resistance found not only in the music itself, but also in the formats and culture around music. Utilizing anti-colonial theory, it critically breaks down the role of media power and the loss of platforms as Black news spaces have been disappearing in the rise of the internet age that creates little room for Black and other marginalized people. Ball looks at how existing forms of media can serve as sites of resistance in reclaiming space to platform Black voices, such as mixtapes being spaces for emancipatory journalism.

Assembling a Black Counter Culture by DeForrest Brown, Jr. explores the relationship Black musicians have been navigating between technology and Afro-futurity through the story of techno music which Brown grounds the origins of in Detroit. Brown introduces the genre, careful to separate it from electronic music that rose in popularity in White audiences. The book is interested in techno and resistance, digging into Black techno artists and collectives making active political statements in their music.

Boogie Down Predictions: Hip-Hop, Time and Afrofuturism edited by Roy Christopher presents a multifaceted approach to Hip-Hop and Afrofuturism, with the book itself framed like a mixtape. The second chapter in part three, "Afrofuturism and the Intersectionality of Black Feminism, Civil Rights, the Space Race, and Hip-Hop" by K. Ceres Wright, is specifically interested in the resistance practices that Black women engage in through Afrofuturism. Wright looks at how while Hip-Hop culture is rife with misogyny and misogynoir, Black women in music have worked to fight against this and create space for other Black women to envision Hip-Hop as a sight for futurity instead.

“You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
And skip out for beer during commercials, because
The revolution will not be televised”