Music
Protest Music
What is protest music?
Music can be composed to promote ideas in opposition to dominate beliefs in society. Protest Music is comprised of songs that work to deconstruct harmful social constructions, such as race class and gender. These songs offer a significant and coherent message that can incite action and revolution. In his book, Popular Music in Theory, Keith Negus employs the observations of a cultural theorist, Lawrence Grossberg, to identify music as an important method in promoting change. Both Negus and Grossberg agree that “music operates ‘at the intersection of the body and emotions,’ and can create ‘affective alliances’ between people, which in turn can create the energy for social change that may have a direct impact on politics and culture” (p. 220). Music can be used by marginalized groups to create powerful coalitions and voice opinions. These two important functions of protest music are used to classify songs into two distinct categories, which R. Serg Deisoff (1969) labels as magnetic songs and rhetorical songs. A magnetic song “appeals to the listener and attracts him to a specific movement or ideology within the ranks of adherents by creating solidarity in terms of the goals expressed in the song. […] The other type of song persuasion is the rhetorical which points to some social condition […]. The essence of this type of song is a statement of individualistic discontent” (pp. 438-438). Both forms of protest music are successful in challenging oppressive beliefs.
