Tag: music for social change

  • Songs to Inspire Change (with Speech and Keenan The First)

    Songs to Inspire Change (with Speech and Keenan The First)

    We’re talking about inspiring change in Episode 13 of our podcast, “Themes and Variation” with guests Speech Thomas and Keenan The First.

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  • Speech (Arrested Development) on His Commitment to Recording Artists Behind Bars

    Speech (Arrested Development) on His Commitment to Recording Artists Behind Bars

    We sit down with famed hip-hop MC and producer Speech (of Arrested Development) to talk about his work recording and producing the music of prison inmates.

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  • How Adam Yauch Became Rap’s Fun-Loving Social Change Advocate

    Anyway you slice it, Adam “MCA” Yauch of the Beastie Boys was as “cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce,” even when his conversation changed from silly lyrics and dropping beats to deep social commentary and dropping thought bombs. The hip-hop pioneer, who would’ve turned 54 yesterday had life not been cut short…

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  • 5 Fierce Creative Femmes With Swagger That Empowers

    5 Fierce Creative Femmes With Swagger That Empowers

    By Jhoni Jackson Identifying as femme is a revolt against the patriarchy in itself; it is an inherently political act. The prevailing cisgender white heteronormative world in which we’re all prisoners tells us that femininity equals weakness, that no matter your gender, femininity as a quality means you’re less than. Even within the LGBTQIA community…

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  • Waves of Change: How to Make a Bigger Impact with a Benefit Compilation Album

    Waves of Change: How to Make a Bigger Impact with a Benefit Compilation Album

    Late on the evening of November 9, 2016, I felt what many politically left Americans felt: an overwhelming sense of despair and hopelessness that left me emotionally paralyzed. Soon after the initial shock of the moment had passed, I realized that reading friends’ enraged social media posts and stewing in my own misery wasn’t going…

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  • 5 Times Artists Have Changed the World

    We often forget when we’re bobbing our head to a song we love or admiring some splash of color on a canvas, just how powerful art and music truly are. As one of the most profound expressions of humanity we’re capable of, art has the power to open minds, to encourage empathy, to breed understanding, to force questions…

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  • Shea Rose: Using Music to Change the World

    Shea Rose: Using Music to Change the World

    Photo credit: Conor Doherty On stage, Shea Rose is breathtakingly talented and charmingly charismatic. She exudes power and confidence through a presence that somehow radiates both comfortable ease and careful coordination. Offstage, she is easy to talk to and surprisingly humble—especially when you consider some of her achievements. From being a spokesmodel for CoverGirl to…

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Jlin: Rhythm, Variation, & Vulnerability