Indigenous singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie sings, “And me I watched it grow: corporate greed & a lust for gold & coal & oil and, hey, now uranium.”

Jazz vocalist and songwriter René Marie believed since the civil rights movement jazz musicians had not done all that much to address social issues. She recorded a song in 2007 about her personal experiences with homelessness, and all money made from the song was to be given to Colorado’s Coalition for the

Carnage unfolds on a daily basis in Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Ukraine, and other countries of the world. Atrocities that happen a distance away from the United States make it possible to go about life without having too care or worry about what is happening. Through song, an artistic collaborative called the Newmanov

The Canadian government is investigating whether a scientist violated the public service’s “ethics code” when he wrote and performed a protest song against Prime Minister Stephen Harper. As reported last week by the Toronto Star, Tony Turner was put on leave with pay. Turner is a longtime employee, who has

The following list is aimed at putting to rest the notion that there is an absence of protest music or a lack of protest bands or singers. Many of the bands and singers are largely unknown and mostly do independent work. It is our hope that we might be introducing you to these bands and singers for the first time.

For this week’s protest song, Alec Hall submitted a piece created as a comment on the criminalization of black bodies in the United States and how black life is often erased from American culture and society. The 11-minute string quartet composition, “28 Hours,” is the first reader-submitted protest song featured here at Shadowproof.

J.B. Lenoir’s “Alabama Blues” is a rather well-known blues protest song. It stands out because, by the 1960s, it was increasingly rare for blues musicians to sing about poverty, despair, and social injustice. And, fifty years since the tune was recorded under the supervision of Chicago blues master Willie Dixon, its lyrics still carry a deep resonance.

In Philadelphia, musical artists Janelle Monáe and Jidenna led a rally and march on North Broad Street on August 12. The demonstrations were in support of the movement for black lives, and they were intended to complement the release of a new Black Lives Matter-inspired protest anthem. The anthem is called

There’s a popular idea, often repeated in the media, that all the protest music is gone. Kevin Gosztola’s new Protest Music Project will highlight the best protest music of the 2010s, and provide new artists a forum to highlight their best work. Most of all, it will help end the myth that protest music died with the 1960s.