Protest albums to exercise your voice

By Arman Saxena     10/22/24 11:24pm

It’s election season, and while the ballot is one way to make your voice heard, these artists believe in another way to influence their communities: protest. 

From Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” to Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled debut, major protest albums have entered the cultural canon. However, many lesser-known protest projects are equally as powerful. Check out these albums and get inspired to exercise your voice outside the confines of the electoral system.

“Nina Simone in Concert,” Nina Simone

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This 1964 live album is the iconic African American singer-songwriter Nina Simone’s first with explicitly political themes. In the midst of the civil rights movement, it was no wonder Simone felt compelled to protest a racist status quo through her music. 

While multiple songs on this project contain political messaging, none ring as powerfully as the final track “Mississippi Goddam.” It angrily yet melodically critiques white moderates who claim to support civil rights but prefer slow, comfortable change, highlighting their discomfort with protests as stemming from ignorance with effects similar to outright opposition. 

The song contrasts this with the Black community’s enduring trauma, emphasizing that prioritizing the comfort of the privileged over the suffering of the disenfranchised is self-serving. The themes of this song made it a popular choice during the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Zombie,” Fela Kuti

The pioneer of Afrobeat, a blend of West African musical styles with funk and jazz, Nigerian musician Fela Kuti was known for his energetic rhythms laced with rebellious political messaging. 

A passionate critic of the Nigerian military junta that controlled the country from 1966 to 1999, Kuti organized a commune he called the Kalakuta Republic in 1970 that he declared independent of Nigeria. His 1976 album “Zombie” is characteristically rebellious and condemns complicity and docility in the face of subjugation, as well as denouncing robotic compliance from members of the Nigerian military. 

In response to the album’s popularity, the Nigerian military burned down the Kalakuta Republic and killed Kuti’s mother. Still, the album remains a strong stance against oppressive power.

“It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” Public Enemy

Along with N.W.A., De La Soul, Eric B. & Rakim, Run-DMC and Beastie Boys, the New York-based Public Enemy was one of the hip-hop groups that ruled the scene during the late 1980s. 

But unlike the rest of those groups, Public Enemy was the most explicitly political (with the exception of N.W.A., whose “Straight Outta Compton” was the first major political hip-hop album on the West Coast). “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” is the blueprint for many of the political hip-hop projects that followed it. 

While it doesn’t contain “Fight the Power,” a track made iconic by Spike Lee’s similarly radical film “Do the Right Thing,” songs like “Bring the Noise” and “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” more than suffice in terms of protest messaging. 

“Da Lama ao Caos,” Chico Science & Nação Zumbi

By blending Afro-Brazilian musical genres like maracatu, coco and ciranda with hip-hop and rock, Chico Science & Nação Zumbi established a unique sound that brought together the traditional and the modern. 

Lead singer Chico Science grew up in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco and “Da Lama ao Caos”’ lyrics criticize the systemic socioeconomic factors that Science believed contributed to the poverty and inequality that affected the state. This album immerses listeners in a lush environment through its images of street markets and subaquatic trees, and with sonics similarly native to Pernambuco.

“Let England Shake,” PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey is an artist constantly reinventing herself. With 2011’s “Let England Shake,” PJ Harvey channels her inner Bob Dylan and Sixto Rodriguez, transforming herself into an anti-war folk rocker. This project explores the United Kingdom’s relationship with war, illustrating how England’s national identity has been forged by the corpses of war. It also explores the role the country has played in the world, from World War I to more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

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