Do you think there's no good protest music these days? So did I, until I started looking for it. Every month, I listen to it all, then select the best that relates to that month’s political news. Here’s the round-up for September 2024.
1. SOUTH WEST SYNDICATE - PROMISED LAND
At the start of September, Indigenous custodians gathered hundreds of clapstick and yidaki (didgeridoo) players in Magan-djin/Brisbane to mark three years of occupying the notorious Adani coal mine. The event broke the world record for the number of clapstick players in one place. A week later, Aboriginal and multi-ethnic hip-hop collective South-West Syndicate released their new album, which celebrates such conservation efforts. "We start this story with the pre-occupation of the continent now known as Australia, where First Nations peoples lived with and nurtured the land for a hundred thousand years," say its liner notes. But as Australia's ruling Labor Party approved "1.3 billion tonnes" of coal mine emissions and the opposition Liberal Party whipped up anti-immigrant racism, the album, like so many Aboriginal people, took the moral high ground, welcoming immigrants and celebrating their stories. LISTEN>>>
2. BARKAA - BIG TIDDA
That is all the more generous when considering the devastating consequences of colonisation. Such suffering hit the headlines again on September 4, when Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe demanded a federal intervention after a second Aboriginal child died in a West Australian youth prison. Days later, it was revealed an Aboriginal woman had died in a Gadigal Land/Sydney jail after shoplifting goods worth just $23. Both stories came days after Indigenous emcee Barkaa, who has served jail time herself, released her acclaimed new EP. Asked about her ambitions for world domination after winning artist of the year and music video of the year at the National Indigenous Music Awards, she replied, laughing: “I just want white men to be very scared of me." The awards were held in the Northern Territory where, days later, Aboriginal women's group Ripple Effect Band released their groundbreaking debut album. LISTEN>>>
3. MISS KANINNA - KANINNA
Barkaa was cited as a big influence by fast-rising Indigenous singer Miss Kaninna as she released her new EP on September 20. "What I'm saying isn’t new," she said. "I’m not coming up with new ideas, I'm not saying anything that's fucking new. Everything I'm saying has been said since, you know, colonisation: ‘We want our fucking land back.’" Yet her cutting-edge, bass-heavy pop is so innovative that she was already selling out her headline tour of the country before the EP was even released. She used her real name, Kaninna, as the title of the record because - like so many people in Australia with non-Anglo sounding names - she had faced pressure to change it. "As a child I was given a nickname because people either couldn't be bothered learning how to say my name - or were just racist," she said. "People would say 'do you have an easier name I can call you', which made me ashamed of my name." LISTEN>>>
4. GREATSOUTH - GREATSOUTH
Across the Tasman Sea, the Indigenous Māori were also fighting against a huge attack as Aotearoa/New Zealand's new right-wing government stripped them of their rights. Leading the musical resistance was Māori musician Theia, who sings on her new single, "BALDH3AD!": "We’re prisoners on the very land we’re from. Plunder my motherland, pollute the sea, but still I survive, though you clip my wings, Baldhead, you tricked us with your treaty.” Discussing the record on September 16, she called it a protest song for “all Indigenous peoples of the world”. Her single came days after the new EP from Māori musician Payton Taplin under the name Greatsouth. "To be Māori is a protest," he said. "Māori have always had to fight for their rights... the land marches, the foreshore seabed - all that stuff is off the back of Māori protests... There's always an element of that within all Aotearoa Māori art." LISTEN>>>
5. SNOTTY NOSE REZ KIDS - RED FUTURE
Facing the same struggle in Canada were Indigenous rap duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids, who released their latest album of raucous resistance on September 13. Its title, Red Future, is about "building a better world for tomorrow", they said. "Some of that is about not living beyond your means. Because that's what our people have always done. They've always just taken what was needed." Two days before its release, it was reported that "Quebec’s strategic maple syrup reserve hit a 16-year low" as "another consequence of climate change". A fortnight later, the business media reported that "climate change is so bad, even the Arctic is on fire". On September 17, Toronto musician pHoenix Pagliacci said the climate emergency and genocide in Gaza meant she was quitting music for activism, despite the success of her latest album. “I need to figure out my place in making this world a better place," she said. LISTEN>>>
6. SERJ TANKIAN - FOUNDATIONS
Well aware of the effects of the genocide in Gaza is former System Of A Down singer Serj Tankian, who released his latest EP of super-strong songs on September 27. On its lead single, "Justice Will Shine On", the Armenian vocalist articulates the lasting trauma from his people's own genocide. “We are the children of all the survivors,” he sings. “Justice will shine on. We are the demons of all the deniers. Justice will shine on.” Days earlier, Philadelphia punks The Dissidents released their latest fundraising compilation album for Palestine. It was, they said, "the last of three international compilations we put together this year to support people trying to survive Israel's brutal assault on Gaza, which has been going on for almost a year". It came as police fired tear gas and ammunition at activists as they peacefully protested against a Melbourne arms fair selling weapons "battle-tested" in Gaza. LISTEN>>>
7. DELILAH BON - EVIL, HATE FILLED FEMALE
Middle East Monitor reported on September 9 that "an Israeli rabbi with strong links to [Israeli] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling party was filmed blessing a soldier standing trial for raping Palestinian prisoners from Gaza". That followed Israeli leaders defending 10 soldiers accused of rape, saying "everything is legitimate". Skewering such notions is the stupendously strong new album from British feminist "brat punk" Delilah Bon, who gets her audience to chant "dead men don't rape" at her shows. "You get so offended when I say dead men don't rape," she sings. "But where is your anger when I say women are dying?" On the album, she displays all the vocal dexterity of misogynistic rapper Eminem, but then goes one better by hitting the kind of high notes only Christina Aguilera could reach, as she belts out punchlines like: "My feminist agenda, to put all your cocks in a blender.” LISTEN>>>
8. SHEMEKIA COPELAND - BLAME IT ON EVE
In her song "Epstein", Delilah Bon targets disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and powerful men like him, who use their position to prey on females in plain sight of everyone. The album came as the former owner of London luxury store Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed, was accused of raping multiple employees. Both he and Epstein are long dead, leaving Epstein's female accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, to take the blame in his case. A US court upheld her conviction on September 17, a fortnight after blues singer Shemekia Copeland released her latest aptly-titled album, Blame It On Eve. “Adam got his apple and some bad advice,” she sings. “Ever since then Eve’s been taking the heat... Hurricanes and tropical twisters, always get named after some sister. But the worst windstorm is from DC, stealing rights from you and me. While a man is tough, a woman’s a bitch. Who needs a trial? Burn that witch.” LISTEN>>>
9. MARIA ISA - CAPITOLIO
When a gunman tried to assassinate Donald Trump on September 15, the Republican Party's presidential hopeful tried to pin the blame on his female Democratic Party rival, Kamala Harris. She responded by saying: “Violence has no place in America.” Yet, as critics pointed out that Americans incessantly mete out violence at home and abroad, Harris dispelled any doubts by assuring gun-loving Americans that "if someone breaks in my house, they’re getting shot”. That Democratic Party double-think can also be heard on the new EP by Democratic Representative Maria Isa Pérez-Vega, who is known as "the rep who raps". In an interview on September 13, she claimed to represent the poor. Yet on the EP's song "1st Class Flights" she boasts of her elite travel and dining arrangements. Harris, meanwhile, sought to reassure voters whose side she was on. "I'm a capitalist," she declared on September 25. LISTEN>>>
10. THE THE - ENSOULMENT
Britain's new Labour Party Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, was also leaving voters in no doubt as to whose side he was on, as he became mired in accusations of corruption on September 15. Days earlier, one of his British subjects, Matt Johnson, released his long-awaited comeback album as The The, which takes aim at the likes of Starmer. On "Some Days I Drink My Coffee By The Grave Of William Blake", he sings: "This greedy, unpleasant land wraps itself in a flag, pretending it's freedom – a dictatorship in drag. The forever wars, tyrannical laws, the coup d'états with probable cause, all revealed to little more than polite applause." As British media praised the war crime of Israel's exploding pager attacks on Hezbollah, Starmer was accused of indifference over Britain's forever wars in the Middle East. In a speech, he referred to Israelis kidnapped by Hamas as "sausages" rather than hostages. LISTEN>>>
[Mat Ward has been writing for Green Left since 2009. He also wrote the book Real Talk: Aboriginal Rappers Talk About Their Music And Country and makes political music. This year, Mat Ward released his new album, Take The Rad Pill.]
Want to get this column every month? Just email matwardmusic@gmail.com and I’ll add you to my monthly email that includes a link to this column here at Green Left. Yes, I want to read this column every month.
Read about more political albums.
Stream our new “Best protest songs of 2024” playlist on Spotify. This replaces the previous “Political albums” playlist, that was getting too big at more than 700 albums.