This week on Comedy Central, the cable television show The Colbert Report featured inspiring performances by protest and change artists Crosby, Stills & Nash and Nas. Crosby, Stills & Nash in their heyday of the late 1960s and early 70s were part of a huge national antiwar movement to bring an end to the imperialist aggression in Vietnam. I'm happy to report that on the report they proved they still had it. They did their material great justice in their performance on the show.
Nas, a great rapper, is my favorite protest artist of today's generation, and my favorite rapper currently. His newest effort is a total hip-hop assault on the racist, negative campaigning vitriol being broadcast daily on FOX New Channel, another Cable network. I welcome this totally fly, very danceable hit-back at FOX, because they have dumbed down every other Cable News service since they introduced their style (80% propaganda, 20% actual news) to the public.
They are relevant artists today in this great atmosphere of uprising and action for change in America, an atmosphere that led directly to the success of Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.
During their appearance on Stephen Colbert's show, Stephen Stills put in a mention for his colleague, Neil Young, lauding Young's web site's repository of "over 2500" Iraq war protest songs. "They're out there, you just aren't hearing them," he said to Colbert's question, "Why don't we hear any Iraq war protest songs?"
By the way, the site is now gone well past 2700 songs.
No comments:
Post a Comment