Next July when the netroots gather in Phoenix, AZ, at Netroots Nation, along with speeches and workshops and panels there will be a Netroots Unity Concert for Immigration Reform, a Music Track for activists and bands to find creative ways to use music to move agendas, and a new online meetup site for bands and organizers - all part of the new Netroots Music Project launched today by the Netroots Foundation....
The Netroots Foundation is launching the Netroots Music Project (NMP) to bring protest music back into progressive activism nationwide. Next July when the Netroots gather in Phoenix, AZ, at Netroots Nation, along with speeches and workshops and panels, there will be a Netroots Unity Concert for Immigration Reform, a Music Track for activists and bands to find creative ways to use music to move agendas, and a new online meetup site for bands and organizers.
An Indiegogo campaign went live today to underwrite the project. Donors to the project will receive special perks such as photo ops with rock stars, reserved tables at the concert, T-shirts autographed by the bands.
The Music Project is synchronized with Netroots Nation’s beefed-up political activism in which Netroots staff work closely with local activists in the host city, as far as a year in advance, to bring to bear the energy of the NN participants and the national media on local issues. For those who were at or followed the involvement of NN in the Detroit water march, this is the model, although next year and subsequent years will see even more strategic engagement and activism on the part of Netroots Nation. Netroots Nation staff and Board members are meeting with and working closely with local organizers on how best to use Netroots Nation’s presence to move immigration reform agendas. A list of local and national organizations involved is here, and more will be added.
The NMP’s annual Unity Concert will feature artists from many musical genres and time periods whose lyrics and actions support Progressive social change. Bands involved are national Grammy winning bands, icons from the 60’s and local bands that support local organizations. National and local leaders will introduce the bands and lay out the issues. Each year the Unity Concert, which will be globally streamed and possibly nationally televised, will reflect and support the issues of the city and the state Netroots Nation is in; the theme next July in Phoenix will be immigration reform. Grammy-winning bands have already committed - providing the Netroots Foundation’s fund raising is successful – including Latino/Gringo bands writing and singing the anthems of the immigration rights movement in both Spanish and English. Some of the bands that we can name, and their songs , can be found on the Netroots Unity Concert Playlist.
The Music Track will offer workshops, panels and music showcases dedicated to bringing artists, labels, producers and political activists and organizers together and to provide a national audience and national media for today’s artists and protest music. As with the Film Track at Netroots Nation, it will be designed to attract progressive artists to show off their work, but also to get them together with political organizers and strategists and media experts to find ways to use music to create a progressive environment in the country.
The online meetup site will be developed with ActionNetwork.org and it will designed for local bands and local organizers to find each other and work together to bring music into events, marches, demonstrations, GOTV and anything else they create. Many of the bands now singing very political progressive lyrics are local and regional and want to get more involved with local and regional progressive organizing.
As with all things progressive and political, money is the secret. The Netroots Foundation’s Indiegogo site is up and money is coming in. Anybody who wants to help, get your picture taken with a rock star, get a front row table check out the Indiegogo site or the Netroots Nation Music Project site.
Patrick O'Heffernan
Chairman, Netroots Foundation