When socially conscious rap group Public Enemy recorded their 1988 sophomore album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Chuck D stated his desire to create the Hip-Hop counterpart to Marvin Gaye’s protest masterpiece What’s Going On. Just like that album, Public Enemy succeeds in providing poignant social commentary on the challenges facing Black America. The album […]
Learn more →
“Cause I’m Black and I’m proudI’m ready and hyped plus I’m ampedMost of my heroes don’t appear on no stampsSample a look back you look and findNothing but rednecks for four hundred years if you check” The concept of “Fight The Power” originated when director Spike Lee approached Public Enemy about composing an anthem for his 1989 film Do The […]
Learn more →
When examining the history of political Hip-Hop it doesn’t get much more influential than rap group Public Enemy. The group features hard-hitting lyrics from emcee Chuck D, comedic levity from hypeman Flavor Flav, and a heavy musical attack that rivals any rock group from the Bomb Squad production team. The group’s genesis took place in 1985 when Carlton Ridenhour (aka […]
Learn more →
From the band’s website Admittedly, being inducted into the Protest Music Hall of Fame, which is not an actual hall of fame but more of an online archival project for this little-known website, doesn’t mean as much as being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (even though 3/4 of Rage Against The Machine didn’t show up for […]
Learn more →
One of the objectives of this site is to create an online archive of artists, albums, and songs that have made significant contributions to the canon of protest music. With that in mind, back in 2018, I decided to create an online Protest Music Hall of Fame. I invited website visitors to fill out a Google doc to nominate their picks, […]
Learn more →
The Protest Music Hall of Fame is an online archival project to draw attention to the artists, songs, and albums that have made considerable contributions to the historical development of protest music. Part two will focus on the albums and songs inducted. This is an extended Spotify version that features a song off the inducted album and all of the […]
Learn more →
The Protest Music Hall of Fame is an online archival project to draw attention to the artists, songs, and albums that have made considerable contributions to the historical development of protest music. Part one will focus on the artists inducted. This is an extended Spotify version that features songs from the artists discussed. The episode was originally published on December […]
Learn more →
The Protest Music Hall of Fame is an online archival project to draw attention to the artists, songs, and albums that have made considerable contributions to the historical development of protest music. This episode announces the inductees for 2020. This is also the final episode for 2020, a new season will be starting in 2021.
Learn more →After tabulating the results of a previous poll, here are the 2020 nominees for the Protest Music Hall of Fame online archival project. The poll will be open until November 30. Loading…
Learn more →
This is a brief episode that discusses a couple of updates in connection with the website and podcast. I discuss the recently launched Patreon and remind listeners about the 2020 Protest Hall of Fame Nomination Poll. The episode opens up with the track “Beepocalypse” by experimental musical duo Grex, off their latest album Everything You Said Was Wrong. Karl Evangelista of the duo […]
Learn more →