In keeping with his activist turn on 2016’s 4 Your Eyez Only, J. Cole’s new album, KOD, is an exploration of addiction. The title has three different meanings that all speak to this aim: Kids On Drugs, King OverDosed, and Kill Our Demons. Each feeds into the next in this narcotic odyssey.
I have several theories about why song rewrites work well. Theory aside, people know the tunes and can learn the words. Scholars differ on whether you should make it as simple as possible or let the crowd be the artist by recognizing their ability to learn and perform something a bit tricky. Either way, it's great when songs are repurposed and people get to shout and sing instead of just chanting or listening to speeches.
In 2020 Noname, a Chicago rapper, activist, and poet, released the single titled "Song 33" to address racism in America and the Black Lives Matter movement. She specifically raps about the killings of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter activist Oluwatoyin Salau, singing, "A baby just 19/I know I dream all black/I seen her everything immortalized in tweets, all caps/They say they found her dead," she raps.
Las Vulpes was the first spanish punk rock band formed only by women. It was founded in Baracaldo (Vizcaya, Basque Country) in the summer of 1982, as a result of the guitarist´s desire on creating an all women punk band. After a few changes, the final formation consisted on: Loles Vázquez (guitar), Mamen Rodrigo (voice), Begoña Astigarraga (bass) and Lupe Vázquez (drums), all between 17 and 22 years of age.
A year after the revolution, Egypt is still in conflict, still grasping for a catalyst to solidify its society and bring unity and peace to the people. Violence, poverty and unemployement are still rampant, and the voiceless still seek a voice.
As was the case in 2011, Hip Hop has reemerged as a voice for the Egyptian youth for 2012, with new challenges and frustrations countering their struggle for freedom and equality.
Before Chance the Rapper performed at sold-out concert venues, he practiced his rhymes in front of an intimate crowd of roughly a dozen people at Harold Washington Library. Now the rapper is trying to return the favor, one open mic at a time.
Hewlett-Packard pledged to stop using dangerous plastics in its computers by 2009. It broke that promise. Will a company-wide voicemail from William Shatner make it change its mind?
This month’s blast of arctic air may have roused climate-change skeptics. But the composer Laura Kaminsky and the painter Rebecca Allan were unfazed. Holed up in their apartment in Riverdale in the Bronx on one of the coldest days in decades, these longtime artist-activists were doing what came naturally: fighting the planet’s warming.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have released a pair of live albums to benefit relief efforts in response to devastating wildfires in their native Australia.
"The Red Power Movement of the 1960s and 70s was a time of profound social change and progress for American Indians in the United States and Canada. In her outspokenness about the injustices facing Indigenous people, Buffy Sainte-Marie also sang for peace, the environment, women and children—believing that art can have impact and make a difference.
As the No. 59 bus hurtled down Ratchadamnoen Klang road in Bangkok's Old Town, its passengers diverted their attention from the intense midday heat to a small crowd on the concrete below. About 25 people were marching and chanting, photographers scuttling in front of them.
CAIRO — Seven Egyptians were arrested on charges of promoting homosexuality after concertgoers waved rainbow-colored flags at a rock concert in Cairo last week, Egyptian officials said.
The arrests were the latest assault on social freedoms in Egypt under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whose government has imposed harsh restrictions on free speech and led an aggressive campaign against gays.
Last month, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, dozens of women gathered outside the supreme court building in Santiago, Chile—a country now beset by popular uprisings against inequality—for a feminist flash mob.
The Colombian hip hop had an outstanding representation with the C15 group in the Fabrica of Rimas International Festival, a gathering of urban cultures, sponsored by Morocco, Colombia and Spain.
A TYPICAL EPISODE of Journal Rappé begins with Senegalese rapper Makhtar “Xuman” Fall dressed in a suit and seated behind a news desk. At first glance, the show looks like an ordinary newscast. But then Xuman (pronounced human) launches into his intro, rapping in French instead of talking. “Welcome! Make yourself comfortable. These are the news for you. Some good ones and bad ones too. But they’re all news for you.”
See below for a link to the performance of the song at the Academy Awards.
From Salon: How Common and John Legend’s performance of “Glory” fired up Oscar night’s idling empathy machine by Sonia Saraiya
In 1988, rap group the N.W.A from Compton, California released their second album, “Straight Outta Compton”. Without any radio play or media coverage, the album still managed to become an underground hit, and the notorious rap group successfully introduced socially conscious gangsta rap into the mainstream.
Drake has released an emotional video for "God's Plan" in which he donates the music video budget to people in need.
Shot in Miami and directed by Toronto's Karena Evans and Jordan Oram, the video features a bunch of generous, grand gestures.
Earlier this year Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei recorded a gangnam style video, dancing handcuffed, sending a message to the Chinese authorities who responded by banning the video as soon as it came online. British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor
The rise of rock and roll in the late 1980 was largely associated with the student movements taking place at the same time. Cui Jian, considered by many to be the godfather of Chinese rock, even performed for the students on hunger strike in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
In Hong Kong in 2014 the song Raise Your Umbrella by Denise Ho and Anthong Wong became an anthem for the pro-democracy movement known as the Umbrella Revolution. The song was written after police fired tear gas into the crowds when protestors filled the streets.