I’m going to talk to you today about music as a weapon, specifically music as it’s been used in social movements. And there’s many ways to approach this topic. But in America, I think, which is probably our greatest concern here, it’s been used, the main way it’s been used is a weapon to fight racial oppression. It goes back to slavery. And what I argue is that, or would argue is that music works so well at fighting oppression because it is a socially acceptable way to deliver a socially unacceptable message. Not only that, it also, because you’ve got melody, you’ve got rhyme, it sticks in the mind better. It’s easier to pass on from person to person. So as you may know, it starts really with field songs, with slave spirituals. They started singing these songs as ways to make the work easier. But over time, they became coded messages. They became a way of using Christianity against the people forcing Christianity on them. And so you find references to things like the River Jordan pop up all the time. You find things like chariots, trains, different kinds of forms of transportation. Now to somebody listening to this who is not on the inside of the culture that is producing it, they might just hear it as a spiritual, as a song about literally the River Jordan. But to somebody who knows what they’re listening for, these songs were actually coded messages about ways of escaping, about places to meet, about probably the most famous one, Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Many people think it’s about the underground railroad. And there’s a story, I’m not sure if it’s true, but it’s fun, even if it’s not true, that some people used to sing Swing Low Sweet Harriet, meaning Harriet Tubman. And so I’m going to just play a couple clips from these songs. First we’re going to do Swing Low Sweet Chariot. And I picked this version of it because I think it’s also a really cool example of the ways in which these field songs turned into rock and roll, R&B, all kinds of music that we love today. So take a listen. Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Swing Low Got it a bit feels good. And you heard, probably, I looked over at Jordan, River Jordan, once again, pops up. Now, we’re going to have to skip ahead quite a bit because I don’t have that much time, But in the civil rights movement was probably the next great phase of using music as a weapon. And perhaps understandably, they went back, many of the artists went back to these old songs and took inspiration from them. And now instead of singing about escape from slavery, they’re singing about escape from Jim Crow, from segregation, from virtual slavery, really. I’m going to start it, the story in 1963 with a guy named Sam Cook, who was a great gospel singer, and a huge influence on everyone that came after him. A song called A Change Is Gonna Come, which really in my opinion starts the great era of civil rights music. A long time coming, but I know a change’s gonna come. Now what is that if not a spiritual, a gospel song, and yet it’s a pop song? So in the 60s they started using pop music as a way of delivering this unacceptable message in a socially acceptable way. A change is gonna come. That is both a prediction and a warning if you’re listening to it with the right ears. Now many musicians heard Sam Cook and were inspired. One of the greatest ones in my opinion, actually the greatest one in my opinion, of the civil rights era is Curtis Mayfield. Now you heard, born by the river, you heard the river in Sam Cook. Now listen, see if you hear some words you recognize and people get ready by Curtis Mayfield and the impressions. Right when he says get ready for the train to Jordan, people knew what he was talking about, at least the people in the civil rights movement did. But at the same time you could also hear it as just a pop song, or as just kind of a spiritually tinged pop song. Now that song came out in 1965 at the height of the civil rights movement, right around when the Voting Rights Act was passed. And it was kind of the last era of hope basically in the movement. And you’ve also got this undercurrent of people saying, all right all these laws are being passed but what is really changing in our lives. The music starts to take on a little bit more of an angry tinge. And so you’ve got a song like this one by Nina Simone called Mississippi Goddamn. Now again, when talking about using a socially acceptable form, such as music, to deliver a socially unacceptable message, imagine in the mid-1960s a black woman calling out Governor George Wallace, one of the greatest racists of his time, saying things like America’s full of lies and you’re all gonna die like flies. You’d never get away with it, but you can sing it. And even though it was banned across the south, the message still got across. The song was still played. That’s an incredible song, incredibly powerful song. And you know, just the idea of it too slow, too slow, you know. That sort of stuff was dangerous to say. And even maybe dangerous to sing, but a little bit more acceptable to sing. However, by the late 60s, by about 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is killed, Robert F. Kennedy is killed, Malcolm X was assassinated, several years before. The movement is effectively, at this point, dead for all intents and purposes. I mean, there’s really no leadership. And it’s being torn apart from the inside and from the outside. And you start to have the songs become a little bit more harder, a little bit more of a kind of northern rather than southern gospel, more of a northern tinge. And again, you’ve got a guy like James Brown using an acceptable means to say an unacceptable message. Say it loud. I’m black and I’m proud. The idea of black pride flew in the face of 300 years of white supremacy. And at the same time as James Brown is singing the song, Stokely Carmichael is giving a speech where he’s basically bringing the phrase black power into the common consciousness. He becomes one of the most feared men in America. James Brown sings about black pride because he remains one of the greatest stars. Now anger starts to take over, depression, a feeling of helplessness or hopelessness maybe. And so the same guy that once sang People Get Ready by 1970 is singing this. Christmas. Niggas. Whites. Jews. Crackers. Don’t worry. If there’s hail below, we’re all gonna go. Now that’s a different message you will admit. And what I find interesting is that the 70s goes on into the 80s into the hip hop era. Now we start to see a socially unacceptable form to deliver a socially unacceptable music. I don’t know how many of you were alive for the advent of hip hop, but I certainly remember in my childhood, a lot of white people were terrified by it. And it was kind of for the first time using the language, using the culture, using the style, the clothing, everything of northern mostly black people who were finally the ones to deliver the message rather than as it went in the 60s where it was mostly black people inventing the music, white people kind of co-opting it. And so you’ve got a song such as Fight the Power, which by Public Enemy, which is I think one of the great examples of a band that took the civil rights era music and brought it into this new form. Now you can hear Echoes of James Brown in there, I think, and a lot of the music of the 60s. Now the final thing I’ll say is that I think now we’re in another era. We’re kind of tiptoeing into it of great music dealing with social issues, these same issues as a matter of fact. You think of Beyonce at the Super Bowl a few years ago. You think of Kendrick Lamar at the Grammys just recently. You think of Benjamin Booker, who just released a great song that he’s going to come out. I believe and maybe play a little bit of it for you or at least show you some of it. All I will say to close is that music is still being used as a weapon. It is still, in my opinion, one of the most powerful weapons to fight oppression. It can’t do everything, but it can definitely get the wheels turning, like nothing else can. So I will end with this song that was written in the aftermath of several of the police killings recently by J Cole. I’m sorry, the killings were not by J Cole. The song is by J Cole and it’s called Be Free. Thank you very much. Thank you.