(from POLITICO)
Leave Your Mark
- “Exuma, the Obeah Man”, Exuma, Exuma, 1970, Junkanoo/folk, Bahamas. https://youtu.be/CJKPucU4Y_c
- “Jilali Boualam”, Asmâa Hamzaoui & Bnat Timbouktou, Traditional, 2020, Gnawa, Morocco. https://youtu.be/9n6JDL-F6_w
- “Ndeye”, Jahman X-Press, Single, 2021, Senegalese hip hop, Senegal. https://youtu.be/ylqTBJon-V8
- “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido”, Inti-Illimani, La Nueva Canción Chilena, 1974, Nueva canción chilena, Chile. https://youtu.be/7F_9FEx7ymg
- “White Army, Black Baron”, Red Army Choir, Red Army Definitive Collection, 2002, Marching, USSR. https://youtu.be/zgKazTrhXmI
- “Thru Our Scars”, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Mafia, 2010, Symphonic death metal, Italy. https://youtu.be/f2uhdol3DKA
- “Amazonia”, Gojira, Fortitude, 2021, Progressive metal, France. https://youtu.be/B4CcX720DW4
- “Wavin’ Flag”, K’naan, Troubadour, 2009, Reggae fusion, Canada. https://youtu.be/VXSJoVL2Vp0
- “Revolution”, Helly Luv, Single, 2015, Pop, Iraq. https://youtu.be/fLMtTQsiW6I
- “Ascension to Heaven”, xi, Parousia, 2013, Artcore, Japan. https://youtu.be/l5F5YBKEceM
For my playlist, I curated ten world music songs that each represent the idea of standing up for something greater than yourself. Civil rights, women’s rights, a revolution, destigmatization, the environment, or something as broad as peace in one’s country or the world. It does not matter what issues one may face, as long as one is willing to do something about them. The artists whose works I have selected here are examples of those who have chosen to use music as their medium to take a stand.
Starting the playlist is one of Exuma’s most popular songs “Exuma, the Obeah Man.” Macfarlane Gregory Anthony Mackey, also known as Tony McKay and Exuma was a Bahamian artist, playwright, and author who produced music that was a mixture of various genres such as calypso, junkanoo, carnival, reggae, African music, and folk music. The group name Exuma comes from the name of a group of Bahamian islands, while the title of “Obeah Man” as referenced in this title comes from his memories of Junkanoo, a street parade with music, dance, and especially vibrant costumes performed in the English-speaking Caribbean every Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Obeah is a system of spiritual healing and justice-making practices developed by West African slaves in the West Indies, including the Bahamas, and Exuma grew up being taught Obeah (Ehrlich 2020). It has also been discriminated against, especially by British colonists who believed that followers of Obeah were skilled at creating poison or being associated with black magic, so laws were passed limiting the practice of Obeah, and followers were often blamed for attacks making use of it (Paton 2019). It was still discriminated against in Exuma’s time, so he presented himself as an Obeah man, highlighting the positive power of the traditions in the lyrics. The song opens with sounds of nature, such as wolves howling, crickets, and frogs, followed by a sudden introduction to upbeat percussion and guitar playing in the background throughout the whole song. The especially higher points in the vocals happen during the chorus, when Exuma loudly sings that he is the Obeah Man. Though his music did not receive very much recognition outside of the Caribbean, he still stood up for Obeah with this song and his album Exuma, playing an interesting fusion of folk and Junkanoo music.
Following this song is a traditional Gnawa piece performed by Asmâa Hamzaoui & Bnat Timbouktou. Gnawa music is a form of Islamic religious music, mixing Islamic Sufism and pre-Islamic African traditions, originating from the Gnawa ethnic group in Morocco, who were taken there from Central Africa as slaves. The music resembles a hypnotic trance played at a low tone with instruments such as the sintir, frequently repeated lyrics, and cymbals known as qraqeb (qarqaba in singular). It is also used in healing ceremonies known as derdebas, which are meant to help heal the very sick by purging evil spirits that brought about the illness (Romero 2003). For a long time, Gnawa music was looked down upon due to its association with the low status and formerly enslaved Gnawa people. However, it is much more accepted today and has become a part of Morocco’s cultural identity, and it is therefore modernizing and fusing with other genres such as jazz or hip hop. Sufis and one of their types of holy music, Qawwali, has also been modernizing and spreading as world music, leading to questions such as whether “it [Qawwali world music] eliminates traditional forms of belief or enhances them” or whether it “…must be seen as a possibly integral part of the orbit that which traditional Sufi music inhabits” (Qureshi 2013). Regardless, Asmâa Hamzaoui and her group Bnat Timbouktou are notable in Gnawa circles as she is the first female Gnawa musician ever since she formed the group Bnat Timbouktou (Daughters of Timbuktu) in 2012. The reason this is the case now is because Gnawa music has historically been closed off to women (Frost 2020). They are not allowed to perform publicly as it is a widespread taboo Asmâa and her group mates are trying to combat against by playing traditional Gnawa music. The song they perform in this playlist is a traditional song. It starts with light playing of the sintir, followed by the clapping of the qraqeb, which goes on for the rest of the song. Whenever Asmâa sings or repeats a lyric of the song, it starts off high in pitch and volume before gradually lowering in pitch and volume as well, and the three other players follow suit when they sing backing vocals for Asmâa. The song also progressively gets faster. Asmâa Hamzaoui is pushing for the end of an existing taboo and thus more opportunities for women by continuing to play Gnawa music.
Continuing with the theme of womens’ empowerment, the next song is a Senegalese hip hop song “Ndeye” by Jahman X-Press. Abdoulahad Thioune is an artist, songwriter, performer, and lead singer of the Senegalese band X-Press, and is one of the biggest artists in the Senegalese hip hop scene. Jahman X-Press’s hip hop tends to incorporate more electronic elements, such as trap beats, which is a form of hybridity that underground hip hop artists in Senegal “almost uniformly denied any historic or aesthetic connection between hip hop and traditional performance, instead emphasizing hip hop’s roots in the United States and using the music to inscribe contemporary, experience- based connections with black American youth” (Appert, 2016), meaning they would not consider this truly Senegalese music. As for the song itself, it opens with a slow piano and Jahman singing in a higher, happy tone of voice. As the introduction progresses, a guitar and violin start playing, followed by a trap beat that plays for the rest of the song. The song’s lyrics are in Wolof and talk about a wife named Ndeye who suffers from physical abuse from her husband and in-laws. Jahman encourages her to keep on going as the abuse will end one day, but it turned out that she died because of the abuse, presumably by suicide, due to the lyrics asking when she would be coming home. The combination of a cheerful melody and very grim lyrics helped contribute to it becoming very popular in Senegal, and sparked conversations on feminism in the country as a result. Jahman used his influence to create a social commentary in his country where domestic violence is a serious problem to try and work towards stopping it.
For the next song, I chose the song “El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido” performed by Chilean group Inti-Illimani. This song was originally written in 1970 by another Chilean group Quilayapún in support of then-presidential candidate Salvador Allende, the first Marxist to be democratically elected in Latin America. The song received many covers by music groups, but Inti-Illimani’s cover made the song famous around the world when it was published in an album in 1974, a year after Allende was overthrown in a coup d’état, leading to the start of Augusto Pinochet’s rule. The song became an anthem of Chilean resistance against the regime and later protests around the world from other Latin American countries to Tunisia to even Hong Kong. The song is very simple in instruments, featuring nothing but a guitar and vocals. It opens with one singer quietly chanting the song title, followed by the rest of the group joining in very loudly, and shortly after is the guitar that is played throughout the song, played more intensely whenever the singers are chanting the title. The song ends with them chanting as the song fades to silence. I chose this song because it was written to help rally the working class to support Allende and his government, and it found new life in protest movements all over the world.
Continuing with the higher energy that “El Pueblo Unido” brought to the playlist, I continued it with the Red Army Choir’s performance of the song “White Army, Black Baron,” otherwise known as The Red Army is the Strongest. The marching song was originally written in 1920 during the Russian Civil War during the Red Army’s (Soviets’) final offensive against the White Army (Royalists for the Tsar) in the Crimea where the White Army, commanded under Pyotr Wrangel (referred to as “black baron”) had retreated. It ended with Wrangel and his troops fleeing to Constantinople, ending the war in the south of Russia. The song was written as motivation for that final push by the Red Army in the Crimea. It starts with brass instruments and strings playing quietly, with the choir also starting to sing quietly, before getting progressively louder. During the chorus, the choir sings in canon while more instruments begin to play loudly such as drums and trumpets, and for the finale, the choir slows down before finishing off very loudly and higher-pitched, instilling even more motivation into the listener than the already incredible amount instilled from the rest of the song. The song was further adopted by communists in Weimar Germany and later in Austria, who fought the Dollfuss regime during the Austrian Civil War. This song is different from the others so far in that this is a song that was spread by a military authority as a direct and immediate call to action, while the others did not have that same sense of urgency. However, because of its ultimate contribution to a revolution and high energy performance, I have included it here.
Continuing from the Red Army Choir’s high energy singing, the next song is “Thru Our Scars” by death metal group Fleshgod Apocalypse, an Italian symphonic death metal group known for their very high-speed metal and lyricism. The focus of the album Thru Our Scars was released, Mafia, was the Italian mafia, the most powerful crime organization in their home country of Italy. The lyrics describe what the mafia has done and what the people should do back to them. The sheer rage accompanying the singing voice is reminiscent of Mexico’s punk scene, in that performers also yell lyrics like this during events. The energy in their voice inspires those in the audience to “‘sacar la rabia’ in the performance space… which translates to ‘take out the rage’ as a means of describing a sense of catharsis that they enjoy at punk shows, one that provides them with a chance to express personal and collective rage through specific practices, such as screaming along with vocalists or participating in the slam dance” (Tatro, 2014). Along with such heavy vocals, the song also has an extremely fast 280 BPM blast beat present throughout most of the song. It starts with a second-long drum and guitar section followed by a quiet period where a violin is playing, followed by the drums and guitar again. There are some portions of the song where the drums are not played as intensely while one of the singers is singing extended long notes as well.
Slowing down from “Thru Our Scar,” next is “Amazonia” by Gojira, a French heavy metal band with worldwide outreach that has also used this outreach to engage in human, animal, and environmental rights activism. This song is an example of such activism, written to raise awareness and money for the Amazon Rainforest and indigenous peoples that reside there. In 2019, the Amazon dealt with an especially large surge of wildfires due to President Jair Bolsonaro’s increased efforts to weaken environmental protections and encourage deforestation for business purposes, which the music video for this song shows. The song retains the same musical tone of Thru Our Scars, retaining the sense of anger, although now for different purposes. The lyrics reference the Amazon burning with particularly iconic lines such as “The greatest miracle is burning to the ground.” The song was produced incorporating indigenous Brazilian instruments, some of which are present throughout the song. Though it is not as fast as “Thru Our Scars,” it is still very high-energy and evocative.
The next song is a change in pace from the previous ones: “Wavin’ Flag” by Somali-Canadian artist K’naan. Keinan Abdi Warsame, known by his stage name K’naan, grew up in Somalia during his childhood but his mother and him left to the United States to join his father after the start of the Somali Civil War, and soon after they moved to Canada. K’naan came back to the United States and began learning about hip hop and rap despite not knowing English. For his third album, Troubadour, he wrote the cheerful and optimistic song Wavin’ Flag. Its lyrics reflect the struggles his people are facing in war, and the hope he has for them to overcome these struggles. The song was a hit but it reached international fame when Coca-Cola chose it as its promotional anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and created a remixed version of it featuring African percussion instruments throughout the song, and rewritten lyrics to better suit the World Cup, with notable lines such as “Let’s rejoice in the beautiful game,” referring to the event. Aside from this song, K’naan is also very involved in Somali politics and is generally perceived as a spokesperson for the Toronto Somali community. The song’s cheerful, slow beat and lyrics is why I added this song to the playlist.
Continuing the topic of overcoming wartime struggles, the song “Revolution” by Helly Luv is a direct call to action to fight against the Islamic State in Iraq. Helly Luv’s parents are from Iraqi Kurdistan, who fled the country during the Gulf War. Helly Luv’s mother smuggled her to Turkey while her father stayed behind to fight in Iraq as part of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish branch of the Iraqi armed forces. He then joined the family in Turkey and they received asylum in Finland, where Helly Luv took an interest in dancing and music. For this song, she visited a village a few miles away from Mosul, which was an ISIS stronghold, and where the Peshmerga are also fighting against ISIS. She wrote this song to gather support for these forces fighting against ISIS, and it received international fame due to its catchy percussion and chorus. Outside of this song, she runs a non-profit organization to help people and animals in Kurdistan, so she is dedicated to her cause.
To close off this playlist, I have chosen a song that is not actually directly related to any form of activism, but a recurring idea behind all these artists and their works in this playlist: “Ascension to Heaven” by xi. Yusuke Ishiwata, better known as xi, is a rhythm game artist known for his artcore works, carefully blending high speed electric beats and orchestral leads. The song was originally produced for a rhythm game song contest. The song starts with just a slow piano before transitioning into chaotic breakcore beats, almost to signify that something has gone wrong. After this, the breakcore beats quiet down while the piano plays and is joined by a choir-like violin. It then transitions to a very melancholy portion of the song with just the piano and later the violin present, before it builds back up for the song’s climax. The reason why I chose this song is because there is a story connected to the song which is told in the original contest entry. It is about a man who comes to terms with the fact that people will die. In the opening of the song, he is worried about his uncertain fate of either going to heaven or hell. During the next slow piano portion, he questions why death exists in the first place, because there would be no state of living either if it did not exist. He also asks why people resist death when they already understand that it is inevitable. When the violin begins to play, he comes to the conclusion that when one fully grasps that death is something one cannot escape, they can live their life comfortably, while one who tries to constantly resist death will have their life defined by that fact. I feel that this message is something that accurately applies to the lives of each artist and track produced here, especially those that were close to dangerous situations. They are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in. They are not afraid of underperformance, backlash, criticism, and in some cases even literal death. When one does not let these fears chain themselves down, they can do anything, and these artists chose to stand for things bigger than themselves.
George Vallejo is a second year student at the University of Chicago. Music has always been an important part of his life, whether it is through practicing the violin, watching or performing traditional Bolivian dances, or enjoying high-speed music in rhythm games. Though a computer science major, he wishes to explore more music and maybe even learn to create some of his own.
Bibliography
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Ehrlich, Brenna. “’Exuma’ at 50: How a Bahamian Artist Channeled Island Culture into a Strange Sonic Ritual.” Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone, November 5, 2020. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/exuma-obeah-man-album-tony-mackey-1083973/.
Frost, Jo. “Introducing… Asmâa Hamzaoui & Bnat Timbouktou.” Songlines, February 10, 2020. https://www.songlines.co.uk/features/introducing-asmaa-hamzaoui-bnat-timbouktou.
Paton, Diana. “Diana Paton: The Racist History of Jamaica’s Obeah Act.” Jamaica Gleaner, June 16, 2019. https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20190616/diana-paton-racist-history-jamaicas-obeah-act.
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