(1996)
Album: Evil Empire

Rodeo Drive è la strada dello shopping di Beverly Hills,

[2017]
Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel: Shawn Corey Carter (Jay-Z)
Album: 4:44

In the summer of 2017, Jay-Z dropped his thirteenth studio album 4:44 to near-rapturous fan reception and critical praise. The project was Jay’s most vulnerable and intimate to date, with the title track famously confirming allegations of infidelity mentioned on his wife Beyoncé’s 2016 opus Lemonade. However, LP standout track “The Story Of O.J.” was less personal and more societal, as the Jigga Man addressed racism and stereotypes within the black community with his signature incisiveness.

“The Story Of O.J.” features lyrics referencing infamous figure O.J. Simpson and his alleged belief that his wealth and influence transcended his race. “I’m not black, I’m O.J.” is a line rumored to have been uttered by Simpson in an interview, and it was quoted in the Emmy-winning... (continua)

Guitar Nubbit - Georgia Chain Gang -1962
Transcription: Jürgen Henning (Blues Power Magazin 2 (1993), no. 3, p. 19)

Library of Congress, Archive of AmericanFolk Song, WPA Collection.
American Folksongs of Protest by John Greenway
Philadelphia University Pennsylvania Press 1953
p. 95-96

Da : Slave Songs of the United States.
New York: A. Simpson & Co., 1867. - Part 1, p.46 , #61

William Francis Allen, (1830-1889), Charles Pickard Ware, (1840-1921), and Lucy McKim Garrison, ( 1842-1877) .

[Verse 7 was added after the Emancipation Proclamation.--J. S. R.]
da: William Francis Allen, (1830-1889), Charles Pickard Ware, (1840-1921), and Lucy McKim Garrison, ( 1842-1877) .

My Father, How Long ? ( Traditional )
Berea Songs of Slavery and Emancipation Ensemble

My Father, How Long? / We’ll Soon Be Free.

Two versions of the same song. First in TW Higginson* Army Life In A Black Regiment (pg. 169 XXXIV)
[For singing this “the negroes had been put in jail in Georgetown, S.C., at the outbreak of the Rebellion. ‘We’ll soon be free’ was too dangerous an assertion, and though the chant was an old one, it was no doubt sung with redoubled emphasis during the new events. ‘De Lord will call us home’ was evidently thought to be a symbolical verse; for, as a little drummer boy explained it to me, showing all his white teeth as he sat in the moonlight by the door of my tent, ‘Dey tink de Lord mean for say de Yankees.’”——T.W.H.]
second version, Slaves Songs of the United States, section IV., #112.
I made a composite lyric; music is based on that provided in Slave Songs... (continua)

(2024)
Album: Cowboy Carter

L'album è la seconda parte di una trilogia inaugurata con Renaissance del 2022. In questo album Beyoncé coraggiosamente si arrischia in un’operazione di riappropriazione culturale del country, tradizionalmente visto come musica bianca e di stampo conservatore.

Ma Beyoncé è comunque una donna del sud degli Stati Uniti e il country fa parte delle sue radici quanto la musica nera, e in questo album riesce a mettere insieme le due cose in maniera a volte sorprendente.

La traccia di apertura Ameriican Requiem (la doppia i è un riferimento all'atto II della trilogia) è un vero proprio requiem per il sogno americano, per tutte le idee di libertà e di uguaglianza tradite nel corso della storia, il funerale di una società libera dall'odio e dalla discriminazione ancora molto lontana dal realizzarsi.

L'album continua con Blackbiird (anche qui con la doppia i), cover della canzone scritta da Paul McCartney per i Beatles e dedicata a tutte le donne nere che lottano per liberarsi.

da
Lawrence Gellert, “Negro Songs of Protest”
Published by the American Music League - New York - 1936

(2019)
Album: American Love Call
Written by Aaron Frazer & J.B. Flatt.

Note da Genius

(1976)

Scritta da Tommy Butler (solo un omonimo del bassista dei Big Country) e interpretata da Carlton Williams per un musical intitolato "Selma" e dedicato alla famosa marcia di Selma e a Martin Luther King.

(1995)
Scritta da Prince con Nona Gaye (figlia di Marvin Gaye)

Sembra che Prince sperasse che la canzone diventasse una specie di inno non ufficiale della Million Man March

Album: Room 25 (2018)

Featuring Adam Ness

One of the more socially conscious tunes on the album is “Prayer Song,” which features vocals from Adam Ness. The lyrics deftly explore subjects, such as gun violence, police brutality, gentrification, toxic masculinity, and systemic racism.

The lyrics include: “I set my cell phone on the dash, could’ve sworn it’s a gun / I ain’t seen a toddler in the back after firing seven shots.”

Those words allude to incidents, where a black person is shot because a police officer apparently mistakes a cell phone for a gun.

It is also a reference to the June 7, 2016 murder of Philando Castile. He was shot by a police officer seven times while his 4-year-old daughter was sitting in the backseat.

The song additionally explores how America never truly removed the shackles of past racial oppression (“A free man in the land of the noose,” “Darkness lingers in... (continua)

Album: The Returner (2023)

1972
Questa grande umanità ha detto basta! - Canzoni di lotta di tutto il mondo

(2023)
Featuring NOFX
Fishbone EP

This track is off the influential ska band’s recently self-titled EP, which was produced by NOFX’s Fat Mike. Referring to Billie Holiday’s 1939 classic anti-lynching standard “Strange Fruit“, the tune effectively merges past histories with current realities.

Questo brano fa parte del recente EP omonimo della influente band ska, prodotto da Fat Mike dei NOFX. Con un riferimento al classico contro i linciaggi del 1939 di Billie Holiday "Strange Fruit", il pezzo fonde efficacemente storie passate con realtà attuali.

50 Best Protest Songs of 2023

I'M GONNA SIT AT THE WELCOME TABLE

(civil rights version)

Testo e note da : I'm Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table (civil rights song)

This song is an adaptation of the African American Spiritual/Gospel with the same title.

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 184 - p. 22

FLING OUT THE ANTI-SLAVERY FLAG

AIR : Auld Lang Syne

(1997)
Album: Wu-Tang Forever

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848
p. 28,29

RESCUE THE SLAVE!

AIR — The Troubadour

This song was composed while George Latimer, the fugitive slave,was confined in Leverett Street Jail, expecting to be carried back to Virginia by James B. Gray, his claimant.

[2016]
Scritta da Lucinda Williams.
Arrangiamento musicale del compositore Nicholas Britell.
Nella colonna sonora del film di Gary Ross "Free State of Jones" (2016), con Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mahershala Ali.

Newton Knight (1829-1922), contadino, soldato sudista, disertore, comandante di un nutrito gruppo armato di renitenti, schiavi fuggiaschi e defezionisti che nel Mississippi profondo, nella contea di Jones, combattè contro le razzie e le violenze dell'esercito confederato, dei proprietari terrieri e dei bianchi razzisti. Anche dopo la fine della guerra Newton Knight, nominato sceriffo federale, comandò un reggimento di soldati afroamericani che aveva il compito di fermare le violenze dei gruppi paramilitari bianchi, precursori del Ku Klux Klan. Sposò in seconde nozze Rachel, una ex schiava da cui ebbe diversi figli. Morì nel 1922 e, nonostante in Mississippi allora la segregazione vietasse i cimiteri misti, fu sepolto accanto a sua moglie su una collina della contea di Jones che domina la loro fattoria.

Walking Boss – Doc Watson – 2004

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848 p. 29

THE SLAVE-HOLDER'S ADDRESS TO THE NORTH STAR
by John Pierpont ( 1785 – 1866 )

2022
Build a House

with Yo-Yo Ma and Francesco Turrisi

African Americans were forcibly enslaved and brought to this land to build houses they were not allowed to live in, tend to families who were not their own, and sow the seeds that fed a nation - while being left with only scraps themselves. They were not expected to thrive. But they did.

In her picture book debut from Candlewick Press, MacArthur Fellowship recipient and Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Rhiannon Giddens depicts a family’s resilience in the face of violence and sorrow. They are determined not just to survive, but also to tell their own story.

Based on the song “Build A House,” composed for the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth and performed with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Giddens’s stirring text is paired with moving illustrations by Monica Mikai. Build a House confronts the history of slavery in America by telling... (continua)

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848 pag. 41- 42

THERE'S A GOOD TIME COMING - J. Hutchinson Jr.

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848 pag. 43,44

OFT IN THE CHILLY NIGHT
by John Pierpont ( 1785 - 1866 )

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848 pag. 40,41

COME JOIN THE ABOLITIONISTS ( Traditional )

AIR — When I can read my title clear

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848 p. 46

AIR — Ortonville

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848 pag. 31,32

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848 - p. 47

AIR — To Greece we give our shining blades.

Anonymous Americas

(1963)

All'epoca delle lotte dei diritti civili, la canzone si domanda cosa direbbero Jefferson, Washington e Lincoln se fossero tornati per partecipare a un programma televisivo.

La canzone fu ripresa negli anni '70 da Omara Portuondo che l'ha anche reinterpretata a 93 anni nel suo ultimo disco intitolato Vida e pubblicato nel 2023.

Una versione di The Star Spangled Banner, l'inno nazionale statunitense, cantato da Jill Scott durante l'Essence Festival 2023 a New Orleans.

La versione riscritta da Jill Scott è antirazzista e antinazionalista e ovviamente ha suscitato le proteste del partito repubblicano.

Jill Scott racconta di aver scritto le parole a diciannove anni ma di averla cantata solo ora che ne ha 51.

(2019)
Album: Eve

Rapsody’s album commences with the common theme of the track title and content celebrating powerful black women. In this track Rapsody interpolates and samples Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit”.

Testo della canzone adattata da un tradizionale Spiritual Americano e cantata dai partecipanti alla marcia per i Diritti Civili da Selma a Montgomery , Alabama , nel 1965.

Nota introduttiva di Len Chandler :


da : RADIO STATION WNEW'S STORY OF SELMA
1965 Folkways Records Album No. FH 5595

Murder on the Roads of Alabama - Len Chandler - 1965

Nota introduttiva di Len Chandler.

Basata sullo spiritual Gospel Plow, da cui è ripresa anche la melodia di Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

[1965]
Strofe / Stanzas 1:5 da / from: Freedom Songs: Selma Alabama album, 1965
Civil Rights Movement Archive
https://www.crmvet.org › albums › 65_selma
Side 1 - Band 4. - BERLIN WALL.

Strofe / Stanzas 6:8 da / from Huffpost
5 nov 2014  - The Other Berlin Wall and What It Can Teach Us Today
By Robert F. Darden, Contributor


Note tradotte e adattate da:
The Other Berlin Wall -- and What It Can Teach Us Today
HuffPost: https://www.huffpost.com › entry
5 nov 2014 — Robert F. Darden, Contributor.

Nella primavera del 1965, una lunga fila di persone a Selma, Alabama si trovò di fronte a un nemico altrettanto pericoloso e recalcitrante. In quella mattina fredda e rigida, si diressero verso l'Edmund Pettus Bridge, dove affrontarono un piccolo esercito di poliziotti, agenti di pattuglia autostradali, delegati irregolari e civili armati. Cantavano "God Will Take Care of You" mentre camminavano.... (continua)

(1949)

By Langston Hughes ( 1901 - 1967 )
© 2023 The Ohio State University - University Libraries
The Great Migration and Lynching

(2017)
Album: Shade

Album: Bridges (1977)
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson

Tuskegee Syphilis Study - Wikipedia

The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (informally referred to as the Tuskegee Experiment or Tuskegee Syphilis Study) was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a group of nearly 400 African American men with syphilis.

The purpose of the study was to observe the effects of the disease when untreated, though by the end of the study medical advancements meant it was entirely treatable. The men were not informed of the nature of the experiment, and more than 100 died as a result.

*

Lo studio sulla sifilide di Tuskegee fu un esperimento clinico attuato e seguito dallo United States Public Health Service nella città di Tuskegee, in Alabama, negli USA.

Svoltosi tra il... (continua)

Track 3 on The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes( 1921-1930 )

Hughes explains the history of black people in first person form; he is aligning himself with the societal roles of a black person throughout history.

(da Genius )

My Lord What a Morning - Joan Baez –

Album : Joan Baez in Concert 1962

Adattamento di Joan Baez a canzone di protesta del testo di un noto Black Spiritual di pubblico dominio del Nord degli Stati Uniti del 17°-18° sec.

(2021)
Featuring Axell

[2002]
Lyrics and music / Testo e musica / Paroles et musique / Sanat ja sävel: Rev. Robert B. Jones Sr.
Album / Albumi: At the Crossroads

Note dal blog "pancocojams " di Azizi Powell:
Rev. Robert Jones - "The Darkness of Blackness"

I assume that Melville is the novelist Herman Melville", but I'm not sure which story this is "about men [Black or otherwise] who "came in on the tide". Here's some information about Herman Melville
from wikipedia

"Herman Melville (born Melvill;[a] August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are Moby-Dick (1851); Typee (1846), a romanticized account of his experiences in Polynesia; and Billy Budd, Sailor, a posthumously published novella. Although his reputation was not high at the time of his death, the 1919 centennial of his birth was the... (continua)

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848

pagine: 5,6

AM I NOT A MAN AND BROTHER?
AIR — Bride's Farewell.

The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848

A SONG FOR FREEDOM
AIR — Dandy Jim

Testo da :
The Anti-Slavery Harp
Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848
Page 37

Interpretazione musicale :
Traccia n.18 del doppio CD "Songs of Slavery and Emancipation" by Mat Callahan / Various Artists
Jalopy Records
Brooklyn, New York

The Slave Auction

by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper - 1825-1911

This poem is in the public domain.
Source : American Poetry : The Nineteenth Century
( The Library of America,1993 )

da : The Anti-Slavery Harp - Compiled by William W. Brown
Boston: Bela Marsh, 1848 – pp.24,25

2022
Ft. Sonny Landreth
Album: Done Come Too Far

Canzone antischiavista: The Sweets of Liberty (con la melodia di Is There a Heart That Never Loved ), Braham
da :"La Musica dei Neri Americani " – Eileen Southern
Ed. Il Saggiatore – p. 147

“Underneath the Harlem Moon” - Randy Newman

Album: 12 Songs - 1970

Newman’s point was unmistakable: he was singing racist and demeaning songs in order to perturb his listeners. It worked. Everyone who listened to “Underneath the Harlem Moon” got uncomfortable. As Greil Marcus wrote in Mystery Train, “Here [Newman] was, a struggling singer whose only possible audience would be urbane, liberal rock ’n’ roll fans, and he was unveiling . . . the charms of racism.” (Newman would go on to write many even richer evocations of American racism, among them “Sail Away,” “Rednecks,” and “Short People.”)

da :
History Of A Song, "Underneath The Harlem Moon

*

L'obiettivo di Newman era inequivocabile: cantava canzoni razziste e umilianti per turbare i suoi ascoltatori. Ha funzionato. Tutti quelli che hanno ascoltato "Underneath the Harlem Moon" si sono sentiti a disagio. Come ha scritto Greil Marcus... (continua)

Album: We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service (2016)

(2018)
Album: Lost



Freddie Gray, il ragazzo nero di 25 anni morto una settimana dopo essere stato arrestato a Baltimora lo scorso aprile [2015], ha subìto un unico colpo molto forte al collo e alla spina dorsale, molto probabilmente causato dalla brusca frenata del blindato della polizia in cui era stato caricato. Lo rivela l’autopsia sul corpo del ragazzo, di cui il Baltimore Sun ha ottenuto una copia. L’ufficio di medicina legale dello stato del Maryland ha concluso che la morte di Gray non può essere catalogata come un incidente, ma si è trattato di “omicidio” perché gli agenti non hanno seguito le procedure di sicurezza, compiendo “azioni di omissione”.

Anche se Gray è stato caricato sul blindato sdraiato a pancia in giù, i medici che hanno fatto l’autopsia presumono che si sia alzato in piedi e poi abbia sbattuto contro una parete a causa di un brusco cambio di direzione. Il ragazzo... (continua)

2022

1973

The song, which appeared on his first solo album Smokey in 1973 after his departure from the Miracles, has the bonus of a birthday greeting in the intro without being twee or frivolous. This is a rare protest song, with racism, black rights and the pain of native American history at its heart.
Songs Of The Week 2020: Take 1

(2012)
Album: God of the Serengeti

Il titolo di questa canzone viene da un famoso saggio dello storico Howard Zinn e anche di un documentario sulla vita dello storico americano, un cui discorso è utilizzato come introduzione e come finale.

Su un treno che si dirige verso una destinazione non puoi fingere di essere neutrale. La tua presunta neutralità non farà niente per cambiare il percorso del treno, e non importa che tu sia neutrale o che tu voglia raggiungere la destinazione, il treno ci arriverà lo stesso. Allo stesso modo quelli che non fanno niente contro un sistema ingiusto, come la schiavitù, il razzismo, il capitalismo o ogni altra forma di discriminazione stanno di fatto collaborando con gli oppressori.

In questa lunga canzone, arricchita dal campionamento di "House of Cards" di Ophelia Of The Spirits, Vinnie Paz tratta molti temi: dallo sterminio dei nativi americani,... (continua)

Album: White Jesus Black Problems (2022)

In Virginia, back in 1759, a white Scottish servant Elizabeth Gallimore, fell in love with a black slave whose name had been lost over time. Their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, who performs under the pseudonym Fantastic Negrito, has released the compelling concept album White Jesus Black Problems based on his recently discovered lineage. The ambitious multi-media project includes a companion film.

The Album track “Man with No Name” is a painful reminder that often the identity and experiences of the oppressed are often erased. With the song and album, the stories of the courageous forgotten are being reclaimed. The tune also contains a galvanizing message of hope with the line “I keep moving on.” It is a potent statement of perseverance that continues to resonate.

Daily Dose of Protest: Man with No Name – Fantastic Negrito

Canciones del Grupo de Experimentación Sonora del ICAIC (GESI) [1973]

Canción dedicada a Angela Davis, miembro del Partido Comunista norteamericano y simpatizante de los Panteras Negras. Relacionada con los activistas radicales conocidos como los Soledad Brothers, fue encarcelada por su supuesta participación en un intento de fuga en el que murieron varias personas. Después de pasar un año y medio en la cárcel y entre fuertes protestas internacionales por la arbitrariedad de su detención, fue declarada inocente en 1972 por un tribunal compuesto exclusivamente por hombres blancos. Tras su puesta en libertad, fue recibida en La Habana en un acto multitudinario, y pasó un tiempo en la Isla antes de regresar a su país.