As African people were taken from their ancestral homes, much of their history and traditions were lost. As black people lost their native languages one of the few ways to keep their traditions alive was through oral traditions, especially through music. For example, in the New World the long vowel sound found in most "Black" music spread from Senegalese slaves (with roots in the African rendition of the Muslim call to prayer) to other slaves, especially from the Congo. This most likely was a result of trying to find comfort at night by singing to each other, or possibly in the work songs used to try and keep other slave’s spirits up. Combining the Senegalese call to prayer with Congolese rhythms and you get the blues. Even as the traditional religion of the Senegalese slave were lost, the sounds it help create were passed on to their decedents.
Furthermore as sub-Saharan Africa itself, was subjugated through colonialism, the native power and family structures were changed and muted. But the damage done to there power structures also lead to a similar explosion of new musical forms in Africa. Although Africa already had a strong musical tradition rich with the satire of those in power, the colonial period lead to a stronger focus of "power satire". It has often been noted throughout history that harsh critics of those in power through song, art, and poetry have "gotten away with things" that the authorities would have crushed if done in straight prose. The history of African people bares this out more than almost any other ethnic group.
The 1960s: The Civil Rights Movement
Civil Rights March on Washington, leaders marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963. The 1960’s was a fertile era for the genre, especially with the rise of the Civil Rights movement, the ascendancy of counterculture groups such as hippies and the New Left, and the escalation of the War in Vietnam. The protest songs of the period differed from those of earlier leftist movements; which had been more oriented towards labor activism; adopting instead a broader definition of political activism commonly called social activism, which incorporated notions of equal rights and of promoting the concept of "peace." The music often included relatively simple instrumental accompaniment including acoustic guitar and harmonica.
The American civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s often used Negro spirituals as a source of protest, changing the religious lyrics to suit the political mood of the time. The use of religious music helped to emphasize the peaceful nature of the protest; it also proved easy to adapt, with many improvised call-and-response songs being created during marches and sit-ins. Some imprisoned protesters used their incarceration as an opportunity to write protest songs. These songs were carried across the country by Freedom Riders, and many of these became Civil Rights anthems. Many soul singers of the period, such as Sam Cooke ("A Change Is Gonna Come" (1965)), Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin ("Respect"), James Brown ("Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud"[1968]; "I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I’ll Get It Myself) " [1969]) and Nina Simone ("Mississippi Goddam" (1964), "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" (1970)) wrote and performed many protest songs which addressed the ever-increasing demand for equal rights for African Americans during the American civil rights movement.
The predominantly white music scene of the time (this was a period where black musician’s music was labeled as “race music” ) also produced a number of songs protesting racial discrimination, including Janis Ian's "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)" in 1966, about an interracial romance forbidden by a girl's mother and frowned upon by her peers and teachers and a culture that classifies citizens by race. Steve Reich's 13-minute long "Come Out" (1966), which consists of manipulated recordings of a single spoken line given by an injured survivor of the Harlem Race Riots of 1964, protested police brutality against African Americans.
Nina Simone "Mississippi Goddam"
Sam Cooke "A Change Is Gonna Come"
Allies and Civil Rights leaders
As I wrote in the intro, many of the Civil rights movements best protest songs were not writen by people of African descent but should not be overlooked.
Dylan often sang against injustice, such as the murder of African American civil rights activist Medgar Evers in "Only A Pawn In their Game" (1964), or the killing of the 51-year-old African American barmaid Hattie Carroll by the wealthy young tobacco farmer from Charles County, William Devereux "Billy" Zantzinger in 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" (1964) (Zantzinger was only sentenced to six months in a county jail for the murder). By 1963, Dylan and then-singing partner Joan Baez had become prominent in the civil rights movement, singing together at rallies including the March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech. However, Dylan, glancing towards the Capitol, is reported to have asked: ""Think they’re listening?" Then he is also reported to have answered: "No, they ain’t listening at all." Many of Dylan's songs of the period were to be adapted and appropriated by the 60’s Civil Rights and counter-culture "movements" rather than being specifically written for them, and by 1964 Dylan was attempting to extract himself from the movement, much to the chagrin of many of those who saw him as a voice of a generation.
Indeed, many of Dylan's songs have been retrospectively aligned with issues which they in fact pre-date; while "Masters of War" (1963) clearly protests against governments who orchestrate war, it is often misconstrued as dealing directly with the Vietnam War. However, the song was written at the beginning of 1963, when only a few hundred Green Berets were stationed in South Vietnam. The song only came to be re-appropriated as a comment on Vietnam in 1965, when US planes bombed North Vietnam for the first time, with lines such as "you that build the death planes" seeming particularly prophetic. (In fact, unlike many of his contemporary "protest singers," Dylan never mentioned Vietnam by name in any of his songs.) Dylan is quoted as saying that the song "is supposed to be a pacifistic song against war. It's not an anti-war song. It's speaking against what Eisenhower was calling a military-industrial complex as he was making his exit from the presidency. That spirit was in the air, and I picked it up."[26] Similarly "A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall" (1963) is often perceived to deal with the Cuban missile crisis, however Dylan performed the song more than a month before John F. Kennedy's TV address to the nation (October 22, 1962) initiated the Cuban missile crisis. After this brief, but extremely fruitful, 20-month period of "protest songs," Dylan decided to extract himself from the movement, changing his musical style from folk to a more rock-orientated sound, and writing increasingly abstract lyrics, which had more in common with poetry and biblical references than social injustices. As he explained to critic Nat Hentoff in mid-1964: "Me, I don’t want to write for people anymore--you know, be a spokesman. From now on, I want to write from inside me...I’m not part of no movement...I just can’t make it with any organisation..."[22] His next acknowledged "protest song" would be "The Hurricane," written twelve years later in 1976.
Bob Dylan "Only A Pawn In their Game"
Pete Seeger, 1955 was a major civil rights advocate. Pete Seeger, formerly of the Almanac Singers and The Weavers, was a major influence on Dylan and his contemporaries, and continued to be a strong voice of protest in the 1960s, when he produced "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "Turn, Turn, Turn" (written during the 1950s but released on Seeger's 1962 album The Bitter and The Sweet). Seeger's song "If I Had a Hammer" had been written in 1949 in support of the progressive movement, but rose to Top Ten popularity in 1962 when covered by Peter, Paul and Mary), going on to become one of the major Civil Rights anthems of the American Civil Rights movement. "We Shall Overcome," Seeger's adaptation of an American gospel song, continues to be used to support issues from labor rights to peace movements.
Pete Seeger, We Shall Overcome
Phil Ochs, one of the leading protest singers of the decade (or, as he preferred, a "topical singer"), performed at many political events, including anti-Vietnam War and civil rights rallies, student events, and organized labor events over the course of his career, in addition to many concert appearances at such venues as New York City's The Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. Politically, Ochs described himself as a "left social democrat" who turned into an "early revolutionary" after the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which had a profound effect on his state of mind. Some of his best known protest songs include "Power and the Glory," "Draft Dodger Rag," "There But for Fortune," "Changes," "Crucifixion," "When I'm Gone," "Love Me I'm a Liberal," "Links on the Chain," "Ringing of Revolution," and "I Ain't Marching Anymore." Other notable voices of protest from the period included Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie (whose anti-war song "Universal Soldier" was later made famous by Donovan Leitch the Elder), and Tom Paxton ("Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation" - about the escalation of the war in Vietnam, "Jimmy Newman" - the story of a dying soldier, and "My Son John" - about a soldier who returns from war unable to describe what he's been through), among others. The first protest song to reach number one in the United States was P.F. Sloan's "Eve Of Destruction," performed by Barry McGuire in 1965.
Jamaica
Bob Marley's music greatly impacted people both in his native Jamaica, and around the world. In Jamaica, the ravages of poverty and racism were not lost upon the youth movement there. The birth of reggae music addressed issues of all kinds, but it can be argued that Bob Marley had perhaps the greatest impact on a generation there, with songs addressing his views on nuclear proliferation, and slavery, in his famous "Redemption Song," recorded shortly before his premature death shortly afterward.
Bob Marley and other reggae signers of this era, also helped publicized the the horrors of Apartheid on an international scale. They were able to reach audiences that were often unaware of the issues going on in Southern Africa (Rhodesia, South Africa, Angola, and Mozambique).
Bob Marley also greatly raised both the profile and consciences of the black diaspora to look into their roots. Marley playing to audiences in a time period when history of African people and civilizations were often suppressed, his strong Afrocentric music awoke the curiosity of millions of people of African decent world wide. Marley helped spark a growing interest in researching the history of ancient African civilizations, and inspired millions of black people to research their family’s history.
Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"
Golden Age of Hip-Hop
During Hip-Hop’s golden age, rap music was infused with the protest music. Public Enemy’s fight the power has consistently been rated the greatest rap music video ever. This song served both as the sound track to Spike Lee’s most successful movie “Do The Right Thing” and as the sound track to 80’s hip-hop’s black urban’s youth feeling of frustration and alienation. Hip hop of this era often was infuzed with messages of black power and resistance to police brutality, that often was being ignored by the mainstream media. The protest music of this generation of hip hop was often more militant than prior generations of black protest music.
Public Enemy — Fight the Power
South African anti-apartheid protest music
The majority of South African protest music of the 20th century concerned itself with apartheid, a system of legalized racial segregation in which blacks were stripped of their citizenship, dignity, and rights from 1948 to 1994. As the apartheid regime forced Africans into townships and industrial centers, people sang about leaving their homes, the horror of the coal mines and the degradation of working as domestic servants. Examples of which include Benedict Wallet Vilakazi's "Meadowlands", the "Toyi-toyi" chant and "Bring Him Back Home" (1987) by Hugh Masekela, which became an anthem for the movement to free Nelson Mandela. Masekela's song "Soweto Blues", sung by his former wife, Miriam Makeba, is a blues/jazz piece that mourns the carnage of the Soweto riots in 1976. Basil Coetzee and Abdullah Ibrahim's "Mannenberg", became an unofficial soundtrack to the anti-apartheid resistance.
Hugh Masekela "Bring Him Back Home"
Nigerian Colonial Period
In Nigeria during the colonial era, Muslim youths went door to door in the wee wee hours during Ramadan, waking up the faithful and reminding them to pray. Each posse had a lead singer and up to twenty chorus singers who also played percussion. The joyous rhythmic music of these youths or �Ajiwere� became known as Were music. In the 1960s were evolved through various hybrids into Fuji music, so called either after the Yoruba word �faaji� meaning �enjoyment� or because the speakers that generally delivered the music were made by the Japanese electronics giant, Fuji. The music of this era often became infused with the optimism of the end of British colonial rule, as Nigeria became an independent nation. The joys and frustrations as corruption started to kill the hopes of the new nation were expressed in the musical format of the era.
Cuban and Puerto Rican protest music
Although often not considered not strictly of "African decent", Cuban and Puerto Rican Protest Music can't be overlooked. A type of Cuban and Puerto Rican protest music, "Nueva trova," started in the mid-1960s when a movement in Cuban music emerged that combined traditional folk music idioms with progressive and often politicized lyrics. This movement of protest music came to be known as Nueva trova, and was somewhat similar to that of Nueva canción, however with the advantage of support from the Cuban government, as it promoted the Cuban Revolution. Though originally and still largely Cuban, nueva trova has become popular across Latin America, especially in Puerto Rico and Venezuela. The movements biggest stars included Cubans Silvio Rodríguez, Vicente Feliu, Noel Nicola and Pablo Milanés, as well as Puerto Ricans such as Roy Brown, Andrés Jiménez, Antonio Caban Vale and the group Haciendo Punto en Otro Son.
Andrés Jiménez, El Jíbaro: Mi Barrio
Brazilian Protest Music
Brazil with the largest population of people of African decent outside of Africa has a rich history of black protest music. One of the great practitioners of this form of protest music is Zelia Barbosa. “Without a country in which to live, a field to plant, a love to cherish or a voice to sing, one is dead.” In Brazil: Songs of Protest, Zelia Barbosa describes the hardships of plantation workers who are exploited by the landowners; of inhabitants of the slums who leave their families for work and wait for a raise they will never receive; of people forced to abandon their homes because of drought. Backed by guitar and percussion, Barbosa turns popular music into a vehicle of expression and action for the Brazilian people.
Today’s artist picking up the torch
Today, artist like Kendrick Lamar, whose music has often been called the soundtrack to the black lives matter movement, and Beyonce whose music is often tinged with feminist and black empowerment messages, are charting new courses. This new crop of artist seem to be trying to reawaken a spirit of protest in popular music, that has mostly disappeared as the music industry consolidated and became more commercialized. Striking a balance between commercial success and trying to deliver a message, these artist are taking black protest music into the twenty-first century.
Kendrick Lamar - Alright
Beyoncé - "Formation" Full Performance - Super Bowl 2016