Message in our Music

A tradition of Black American music is encoding messages of life, freedom, and love.  Society often times make it seem as if message music is reserved for Negro Spirituals, or Gospel music.  Yes those genres of music are encoded with wonderful messages, but those aren’t the only genres.  ALL genres of American music created by its Black artists speaks to a form of life, love, and or freedom.  

Protest music is a tradition within our sound.  Billie Holidays “Strange Fruit”, Max Roach’s “Its Time”, James Brown “Funky President” to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s going on” and Ice Cube’s “Death Certificate”, are examples of protest albums and songs that have withstood the test of time.  The record industry systematically extracted the messages within our music through the 70s, and again in the 90s when major record companies purchased smaller black owned labels. (for more details listen to my breakdown on the Decline of R&B https://open.spotify.com/episode/7moIsblLxcUd1CeJrSRAop?si=7d678d2de0cf4f2f).

Message music isn’t something we voluntarily stopped doing.  Record labels simply refused to re sign artists who spoke positive message, or only released tracks of theirs full of materialism and degeneracy.  With that said the messages are still encoded in our music when you turn off mainstream radio, and open Spotify to listen to artists like Kendrick Lamar, and Andersen Paak.  Listen in to the podcast for 2 hours of message music.