GWSS 241 Blog Post #3
Adubbs
Something that has remained at the forefront of my thoughts as we’ve engaged with music is the way music gives us a voice. It gives us power, a platform, a creative outlet, and a way to build community. It is through music that we become connected and stay connected.
As we saw when we engaged with Beyonce’s Lemonade and Childish Gambino’s This is
America, music can also be political. These performances leverage the structures in place that are all too often oppressive in order to reclaim what has been taken away from people of color in America. When artists use their platforms to share their messages, they demand attention. Best put by Kevin Young in his piece the Final Chorus: Planet Rock, The End of the Record, “in our digital age, we only pretend there’s silence. Things are louder than ever” (311). To me, this means that while you may not choose to sit down and stream Beyonce’s Lemonade, social media and the internet will make it nearly impossible for you to ignore the message that is relayed through her work, as well as the work of many others, namely Kendrick Lamar and D’Angelo. It is during this era of “violent but unacknowledged forms of white supremacy” (Brooks) that the Black Lives Matter and pop protest movements have been born. Until society addresses the violence that is being inflicted on Black America these movements won’t be going away and artists won’t stop using their platforms to bring agency to the issues at hand.
Two songs that immediately came to mind for my DJ selections are Vic Mensa’s 16 Shots and Solange’s FUBU. I chose these songs because they participate directly in pop protest and the Black Lives Matter movement. In 16 shots, Mensa sings about police brutality in a painful recount of the slaying of 17-year old Laquan McDonald. Further, I chose FUBU because it’s a more uplifting anthem for people of color. The song title is an acronym that means “For Us By Us”. In the song we hear Solange (Beyonce’s sister for those who don’t know), address the feeling of loneliness that comes as a result of being criminalized for the color of your skin. Both songs illustrate the power music holds and the role it plays in calling for change.
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