Right now, being black has been more important than ever ✊🏾
Photo by Janine Robinson on Unsplash
Artists such as Ray Blk, Stormzy, DAVE, Bashy and Swiss have created music which speaks to the black struggle. Over time, political leaders have even been called out.
The #blacklivesmatter hashtag has raised awareness to a level where nothing I could write about is more important or relevant today. For Artists, Musicians, Producers and music professionals; we wake up black every day and music has been one of our ways to express ourselves at scale.
The year 2005. For many of us that grew up on Channel U, @swissworld CRY was one of the crossover songs into speaking about the black struggle
Look what happened to the motherland, they don't wanna treat blacks the same as another man
2 years later, in 2007 we got another one☝🏾
Bashy gave us Black Boys which gave us more consciousness
A lot of people gave us game; during this period including the likes of Wretch 32, JajaPDC, Lowkey plus more.
10 years+ and we are still singing about the Black struggle. It's 2017 and DAVE gave us a poetic Question Time addressing some of the deeper issues. Such as systemic oppression, colonialism that had us wondering if Theresa May was gonna drop a Fire In The Booth.
The next year after that, Stormzy at the height of this career, gave us one of the best moments at the BRITS where he called out Theresa May again with a chilly performance.
And only a few months ago, DAVE used his platform to give us this masterpiece named BLACK, where he was calling out the same political leaders that have been under fire by the black community.
Black music such as Jazz and Blues have deep African origins and have influenced music for centuries and have been a way out for many people to be vocal about the oppression they face in society.
All cultures love black music and if you don't experience the same struggle, hopefully, the next time you listen to our music, you take some time to understand why we can be so deep with our music and where it's coming from.