An album of songs inspired by the film, “The Birth Of A Nation,” which opens on October 7, contains multiple protest songs celebrating Nat Turner as a black revolutionary. As the film’s website describes, the film directed by Nate Parker is set against the antebellum South. Samuel Turner, who owns

Guitarist and singer-songwriter Moe Shinola of Kansas City, Missouri, produced a protest song to coincide with the launch of the national prison labor strike on September 9. Called “Abolish Legal Slavery,” it specifically highlights what Shinola described as the “corporate exploitation of prison labor” and the “prisoner exception to the

Jill Sobule’s song, “America Back,” was performed at rallies for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and it has been part of her repertoire for the past two to three years. It is now featured on a major crowd-funded protest songs compilation album that is forthcoming. “America BacK” is a robust

Forty-five years ago, on September 13, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller deployed the National Guard, police, and guards to crush the prisoner rebellion at the Attica state prison.  Tear gas was launched. Prisoners who were not resisting were shot and killed. Torture and abuse of prisoners was employed to restore

This week, on September 9, it will be 45 years since the Attica rebellion. Prisoners in various facilities throughout the country plan to engage in a long-term labor strike against prison slavery, many of the same conditions prisoners at Attica state prison in New York resisted. Thirty-three prisoners and ten

A Tribe Called Red is an indigenous Canadian DJ collective. The group describes their music as a “modern gateway into urban and contemporary indigenous culture and experience, celebrating all its layers and complexity.” They seek to promote “inclusivity, empathy, and acceptance amongst all races and genders in the name of

Kazoo Studios, who grew up in the New York City suburbs, is the lead singer for the band, Mother & the Boards. She sent along this recently released protest song about our collective apathy toward the degradation and destruction of Planet Earth. In the song called “Superfund,” Studios sings about

Folk musician Pete Kronowitt irreverently sings about the NRA and gun culture, especially its effects on children. It’s off his new album, “A Lone Voice.”

Brazilian music icon Elza Soares introduces her new album by acknowledging racism, domestic violence, drug addiction, global warming, and sex are the “real issues facing Brazil in its Olympic year.” And on “A Mulher Do Fim Do Mundo,” or “A Woman At the End Of the World,” the septuagenarian artist

“Welcome to the United Snakes. Land of the thief, home of the slave. Grand imperial guard, where the dollar is sacred and power is God,” Brother Ali raps on “Uncle Sam Goddamn,” a contemporary classic protest song. The song is about the legacy of genocide, slavery, and imperialism in the United