Hip-Hop Music: The Long Before The Black Lives Matter Movement

Music is a very powerful thing. Words hold an enormous amount of weight and this includes music. One of music’s biggest feats is its influence. Music is one of the most influential things in the world. Music has played a crucial role in politics, and especially in political movements in history.

Music is also a universal language. Music is something for everyone and exclusive to no one. Every culture has music. Some music is unique to only that culture while others, such as hip hop, are found all over the world in a plethora of languages. Music is not exclusive to just one person or culture. Music has a way of touching people, regardless of age, gender or race. This aspect plays a large role in showing how powerful and influential music is

It is just as pivotal today as it was back then. “Long before the Black Lives Matter movement, the pioneering hip-hop group N.W.A was raising its voice against police brutality” (Duthiers). N.W.A is a hip-hop group from Compton, California known for popularizing gangsta rap, which often used explicit lyrics and often speaking out against cops. Their most controversial song, “Fuck tha Police”, highlights many of the tensions between black urban youth and the police. “Such slogans were vastly more in synch with the hard realities facing young Blacks—so much so that as time marched on and hip-hop culture further solidified its place in American popular culture… (Kitwana 197). A less controversial, but still impactful song, was Public Enemy’s “Fight the

In short, this movement is an activist movement that campaigns against violence towards black people, but also expands to broader issues, such as racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system. While protesting, many Black Lives Matter protesters across America have been known to start chanting lyrics from Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” at anti-police rallies. The song and chant goes “we gon’ be alright” which expresses that even though there are bad times, everything will be alright. Another example is a performance by J. Cole on the Late Show with David Letterman. After the death of another black man, Michael Brown, J. Cole decided to use the power of music to help spread awareness and express some of his thoughts. Most artists go on these shows to promote their albums, but Cole decided to perform a newly written song titled “Be Free.” The lyrics go “All we wanna do is take the chains off / All we wanna do is break the chains off / All we wanna do is be free / All we wanna do is be free.” Cole speaks of how even though “slavery” has ended, African-Americans are still being enslaved through other forms such as psychological binding and physical incarceration. After the song, Cole received endless claps and cheers and Letterman was completely speechless! He managed to move the audience’s hearts with the power of music. He showed that music has no boundaries and