Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Mayfield

Photo: Gilles Petard/Redferns

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The Impressions' "People Get Ready" At 55: How Curtis Mayfield Created A Musical Balm For Black America

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The socially conscious soul great responded to a string of national atrocities with a peaceful redemption song
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Jun 7, 2020 - 1:02 pm

In August 1963, a throng of roughly 250,000 Americans, nearly 80 percent of them Black, marched on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., advocating for racial harmony and demanding economic equality. One month later, Ku Klux Klan members killed four young Black girls in the infamous 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala. Two years later, Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. Soon after, some 600 demonstrators marched across Alabama, from Selma to Montgomery, to demand equal voting rights for Black people, only to be met by plumes of tear gas from police and law-enforcement officers as white spectators watched and jeered on the sidelines.

All of these events happened nearly 60 years ago. Today, as thousands of demonstrators around the world take to the streets and social media to protest the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee and many other Black people at the hands of police, we'd be remiss to forget that America has been here before. But back in the days of Martin Luther King Jr., we had a multitude of musicians of color—John Coltrane, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and many others—who compassionately commented on society's convulsions. One of the tenderest, most talented among them was Curtis Mayfield.

The singer, songwriter and guitarist is best known for his solo career throughout the 1970s—namely, his GRAMMY-nominated soundtrack to Gordon Parks Jr.'s 1972 blaxploitation classic, Super Fly. But his signature song is "People Get Ready," his gossamer 1965 ode to deliverance written for his launchpad group, The Impressions. Featuring a gospel lilt and drawing themes from his upbringing in his grandmother's Traveling Soul Spiritualists' Church, the beatific ballad faces down recent American nightmares and offers not the sword in return, but a safe passage to paradise.

Mayfield joined The Impressions in 1957, back when they were called The Roosters, alongside vocalists Sam Gooden, Jerry Butler, who would be replaced by Fred Cash the following year, and brothers Arthur and Richard Brooks. The group knocked out a rapid series of hits like 1958's "For Your Precious Love," 1961's "Gypsy Woman" and 1963's "It's All Right." Despite their accolades, their Blackness meant trouble for the group while touring through the Deep South.

"Oh lord, it was rough," Cash said in Traveling Soul: The Life Of Curtis Mayfield, the 2016 biography from Mayfield's son, Todd Mayfield. "We were just scared to death a lot of times," Cash said, recalling the hassles the group experienced with soundpeople and the police. 

While staying in all-Black boarding houses, Curtis Mayfield often brooded alone and wrote while his bandmates went out celebrating. "I'd sit in my room and live through my own fantasies and write," he was quoted as saying in the book.

Despite the racism they faced, their hits were lucrative, especially the Mayfield-penned "It's All Right." "That song bought Sam's home, Curtis' home, and my home; we all bought homes off that song," Cash exclaimed in Traveling Soul. "By twenty-one, twenty-two years old, we all had our own homes and Cadillacs in the doggone garage." 

Some activists took the song's affirmative lyrics—"Hum a little soul, make life your goal / And surely something's got to come to you"—as something more profound: a call to empowerment. This came as a surprise to its writer.

"My father didn't mean it that way," Todd stated in Traveling Soul. "He wasn't quite mature enough as an artist." Still, Mayfield didn't fight this reading; the song's countercultural ripple effect, however minor, expanded his mind. That same year, Bob Dylan released "Blowin' In The Wind," while Sam Cooke put out "A Change Is Gonna Come" in response. Both songs, charged with personal and sociopolitical import, resonated with Mayfield and inspired him to dig deeper artistically.

"He was a big-picture thinker," Todd explained in Traveling Soul. "He wasn't the type to pick up a sign and start marching or get involved in the day-to-day machinations of the movement. Rather, he could observe it from a wide angle and use his poetic mind to craft something that spoke to peoples' souls."

In 1964, The Impressions took two more artistic steps in "Talking About My Baby," which featured a heavier gospel influence in its call-and-response, and "Keep On Pushing," Mayfield's first major statement as a topical songwriter: "A great big stone wall stands there ahead of me / But I've got my pride and I move the wall aside and keep on pushing / Hallelujah! Keep on pushing." (When an astonished Cash asked Mayfield how he wrote it, he simply responded, "I'm living.")

Soon after, Mayfield faced a quick series of extreme life changes: His brother Kirby died of an enlarged heart, he left his wife Helen and he moved into an opulent apartment on the second-highest floor of Chicago's Marina Towers. On December 11, 1964, a motel operator fatally shot his idol Sam Cooke in what was ruled a "justifiable homicide." The following February, Malcolm X's assassination shook him even further. These rattling events could have inspired a rattled response. Instead, Mayfield converted the turmoil into a tranquil hymn.

From its twinkling first seconds, "People Get Ready" casts a different type of spell than common doo-wop tracks: It joins The Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes," George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" and Bill Fay's "Be Not So Fearful" in the pantheon of songs that rapidly lower the blood pressure. It might be Zen if it weren't Christian to the core: Mayfield takes the readymade blues trope of a locomotive leaving the station and recasts it as a caravan to Zion. "There's a train a-comin'," he sings, "You don't need no baggage / You just get onboard."

For people of color struggling with anger, shock and sorrow, "People Get Ready" was a balm. "It was the same train that formed the Underground Railroad during slavery," Todd Mayfield wrote in Traveling Soul. "It was the movement train my father's generation boarded, determined to get to a better place or die trying."

"People Get Ready" launched to No. 14 on the U.S. pop charts and became deeply entwined with the civil rights movement. Chicago churches even began integrating it into their services, swapping the line "Don't need no ticket / You just thank the Lord" for "Everybody wants freedom / This I know." However it was tweaked, "I can remember [the song] just making people listen," Mayfield is quoted in his son's biography about the singer. "It was so different from what was looked upon as a hit."

The song comforted Black Americans across the nation. Major artists were listening, and paying attention, too. Bob Dylan, one of Mayfield's heroes, recorded "People Get Ready" during the sessions for 1975's The Basement Tapes, again as part of the 1975 rehearsals for his Rolling Thunder Revue tour, and a third time for the 1990 film, Flashback. Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield and Alicia Keys all gave the song their own unique shades, to say nothing of Jeff Beck, The Doors and U2, who all performed it live at some point. In 1998, the first year of its eligibility, the song was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame. (Mayfield himself received the GRAMMY Legend Award in 1994 and the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.)

With his reputation as a progressive artist cemented, Mayfield burned brightly throughout the 1970s on the strength of Super Fly as well as acclaimed solo albums like Curtis (1970), Roots (1971) and the live album Curtis In Chicago (1973). His commercial fortunes waned in the 1980s, and in 1990, he suffered a monumental setback when a freak lighting accident paralyzed him from the waist down. In 1999, he died at 57 due to complications from type 2 diabetes.

"People Get Ready" still hovers over all of Mayfield's myriad hits like a divine ball of caring energy. As the struggle for racial equality reaches its modern-day boiling point, the iconic song feels evermore like an extended hand, a reminder that the downtrodden are cared for, beckoning Black lives and allies to band together and climb aboard.

Want To Support Protesters And Black Lives Matter Groups? Here's How

GRAMMYs

Nina Simone in 1970

Photo by David Redfern/Redferns

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'Black Gold' At 50: How Nina Simone Refracted The Black Experience Through Reinterpreted Songs

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The High Priestess of Soul took songs from Appalachia and the musical "Hair" and charged them with civil-rights poignancy
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Jun 11, 2020 - 10:13 am

When Black lives and needs are highlighted on the world stage, contrarians tend to crawl out of the woodwork in response. "Why can’t we celebrate White History Month?" they ask each February. "Don’t all lives matter?" they ask the rest of the year. This line of questioning is nothing new. More than 50 years ago, Nina Simone offered a rejoinder to bad-faith ideas of reverse inclusivity while onstage at Philharmonic Hall (now David Geffen Hall) in New York City.

"[This next song] is not addressed primarily to white people,” the singer-songwriter deadpanned. "It does not put you down in any way; it simply ignores you." The crowd burst into laughter, but Simone wasn’t joking: "My people need all the love and inspiration that they can get." Simone then laid into "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," a song meant to elevate and encourage Black intellects. "We must begin to tell our young / There’s a world waiting for you,” she appealed, abetted by the male vocal duo the Swordsmen.

That version of "Young, Gifted and Black"—which she co-wrote with lyricist Weldon Irvine in memory of A Raisin in the Sun playwright Lorraine Hansberry—appears at the end of Black Gold, Simone's album pulled from that 1969 concert. It was nominated for a Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female at the 13th Annual GRAMMY Awards and turns 50 this year. Aside from that song, the live album consists of canon-crossing covers Simone curated to refract her own meaning, such as "Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair," "Ain’t Got No, I Got Life," and "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?"

These songs are not typically associated with social issues; respectively, they’re an Appalachian folk song, a Sandy Denny tune and two cuts from the musical "Hair." But true to her skill as an interpreter, Simone turned these apolitical songs into unlikely vehicles for radical self-expression. "This is a quest that’s just begun," she sang on "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," but Simone was in the center of her own personal and political struggle that dovetailed with the nationwide struggle for racial equality. 

Four years earlier, she'd hollered her incendiary classic "Mississippi Goddam" in front of 10,000 people near the end of the Selma to Montgomery March. Just one year prior, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on a hotel balcony. "We can’t afford any more losses," Simone said shakily while performing "Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)" three days after Dr. King’s murder at Westbury Music Fair. Her voice grew tremulous: "Oh my god, they’re shooting us down one by one."

"As the civil rights movement really swung into high gear, she swung into high gear with it," Simone’s musical director and accompanist Al Schackman said in the 2015 documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? "To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world, Black people," she stated in an interview clip shown in the film. "My job is to make them more curious about where they came from, and their own identity, and pride in that identity. That’s why I try to make [my songs] as powerful as possible—mostly just to make them curious about themselves."

Black Gold shows how Simone not only made her songs powerful, but others' as well. She doesn’t offer specifics about her choice to open with "Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair," a traditional ballad that can be traced back to Scotland. But given the themes interwoven throughout the rest of the album—and its cover, in which Simone proudly sports an Afro—it's arguable she meant to cast natural hair as a crown of beauty. Simone wasn’t always magnanimous about this topic.

"You used to be talking about being natural and wearing natural hairstyles," Simone tartly told a Philadelphia audience in 1979, chiding Black women for making what she considered to be stereotypically Caucasian fashion choices. "Now you’re straightening your hair, rouging your cheeks and dressing out of Vogue."

Simone didn’t only address the topic of hair—she reinterpreted songs from "Hair." In 1968, when the musical first hit Broadway, she picked up on "Ain’t Got No" and "I Got Life" and she added them to her repertoire. Her mash-up of those two "Hair" tracks, one a lament ("Ain’t got no mother, ain’t got no culture / Ain’t got no friends, ain’t got no schoolin'") and the other an affirmation ("Got my hair, got my head / Got my brains, got my ears") is charged with connotations of Black oppression and liberation. 

The resulting "Ain’t Got No, I Got Life," which originally appeared on 1968’s ‘Nuff Said!, was a major hit in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The following year, the 5th Dimension’s "Medley: Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)" would embed "Hair" further into public consciousness. But Simone, as usual, was ahead of her time: "I did that tune ‘Ain’t Got No’ just when the show came out," she said on a promotional interview LP that accompanied Black Gold. "Long before ‘Aquarius’ and all of that."

Black Gold also features a cover of psychedelic folkies Fairport Convention's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" from their 1969 album Unhalfbricking. Sandy Denny wrote the wise-beyond-her-years ballad ("So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again / I have no fear of time / For who knows how my love grows?") when she was only 19; Simone was attracted to the song’s theme of self-examination.

"It’s a song not meant for me," she explained of "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" on Come Together With Nina. "I sing it to make people reflect about their lives. I know what I’m doing and why I must do it. And so time does not exist for me as it does for most people."

Simone certainly didn’t live like most people following the release of Black Gold. In 1970, believing that "Mississippi Goddam" and its ilk hurt rather than helped her career, she fled what she later called the "United Snakes of America" for Barbados. Then, in 1974, she relocated to Liberia, where, as What Happened, Miss Simone? lays out, her daughter Lisa Simone alleged she experienced physical and mental abuse from her mother. In the mid-1980s, Simone lived in various European cities, where she experienced a brief career resurgence before her death in 2003 at age 70.

Black Gold remains a nexus point in Simone’s life and career—between her early innovations and later provocations, between her incisiveness as a songwriter and her genius as an interpreter. "There’s a great deal of rapport between the audience and myself that has been missing in so many of the previous albums," she said of Black Gold on Come Together With Nina, adding, "There’s a great deal of electricity in this album."

Without a handful of brilliantly chosen, left-field covers as a conducting agent, that current may never have been transferred, her alchemy unachieved. But as usual, Simone made black become gold.

The Impressions' "People Get Ready" At 55: How Curtis Mayfield Created A Musical Balm For Black America

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Little Richard performs at the Apollo Theatre in 2006

Little Richard performs at the Apollo Theatre in 2006

Photo: Theo Wargo/WireImage for Consilium Ventures

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Little Richard Was The Lightning Storm That Awakened Rock

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The screamer-songwriter was like nothing America had ever seen, and his unbridled joy made rock 'n' roll come alive
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
May 10, 2020 - 10:21 am

In your mind's eye, picture a few rock superstars: Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner, Elton John, AC/DC, Prince. Chances are you thought about one of them in the past week. Now picture none of them picking up an instrument, none of them writing a tune, none of them entering your life. If Little Richard hadn't been born in 1932, this would arguably be the world we live in—a passable, but perhaps joyless place.

Little Richard didn't just play the piano passionately, or sing about joyful subjects. He was like an alien dispatched from Andromeda to administer humanity a joy inoculation. Imagine 1950s America getting an eyeful of him: his circus-freak pompadour, his gender- and race-ambiguous makeup, his flash of sequins. Just as exotic was the tortured glossolalia he screamed as if he was on fire: "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom!" from 1955's "Tutti Frutti." But as the first chapter of nearly every rock biography will attest, pent-up girls and boys all around the war-torn world read him loud and clear.

The artist born Richard Wayne Penniman, who died Saturday (May 9) at 87, wasn't the King Of Rock 'N' Roll (that's Elvis Presley), and he wasn't its founding father either (that's Chuck Berry). Watch the 1931 film Frankenstein: If rock music is Promethean Man in the watchtower lab, then Little Richard is the electrical storm that animates him, and the terrified populace is ... well, the terrified populace. But while a mob eventually cornered Frankenstein's monster in a windmill and set it ablaze, Little Richard's impact was, and still is, uncontainable. 

Soon after Little Richard dropped "Long Tall Sally" in 1956, Paul McCartney decided it'd be the first song he sang in public. When asked to describe his life's aspiration in his high school yearbook, Bob Dylan wrote: "To join Little Richard." A pre-Ziggy Stardust Bowie took notes on his hairdo, among other things. Hendrix would join his band in a decade and form The Experience a year after he left. Tina Turner based her early vocal delivery on Little Richard's. Elton John heard him and closed the menu of life choices: "I didn't ever want to be anything else." AC/DC singer Brian Johnson once described him in Genesis 1:1 terms: "There was nothing, and then there was this." As for Prince, the "gestures vaguely at everything" meme will have to do. Little Richard was a bell nobody could unring, and his chime still resonates unceasingly.

Even among his fellow rock 'n' roll pioneers, Little Richard was something strange and different. While Presley was a humble country boy and Berry was a poet with a guitar, Little Richard was a living remix of Baptist and Pentecostal church and the minstrel shows, traveling circuses and drag revues on which he cut his teeth. Beginning when he was 18, he had a few false starts in the studio: Incensed by his flamboyance and perceived impudence, Peacock Records owner Don Robey beat Little Richard so badly, he required surgery. Undeterred, Little Richard sent Specialty Records a demo two years later; producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell described the tape as "looking as though someone had eaten off it." After Little Richard repeatedly called their staff begging them to listen to it, they relented and set up a recording date at J & M Studio in New Orleans. 

Read: Remembering The Life, Legacy And Music Of Little Richard: Rock Pioneer And GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient

Still, the recording session wasn't working; Little Richard was frustrated that his sound wasn't catching fire. He remembered "Tutti Frutti," a naughty song he had absentmindedly written while working as a dishwasher at a Greyhound station. He cleaned up the song's sexual references, and after a lunch break, he let it rip with that nonsensical, unforgettable refrain. The exuberant resulting single, which was a watershed for black vernacular in a pop song, hit No. 2 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Chart and was added to the Library Of Congress National Recording Registry in 2010. In 1998, "Tutti Frutti" was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.

"I wrote 'Tutti Frutti' in the kitchen, I wrote 'Good Golly Miss Molly' in the kitchen, I wrote 'Long Tall Sally' in that kitchen," Little Richard later explained to Rolling Stone in 1970 about the bus stop gig; he followed up "'Tutti Frutti" with those just-as-exultant barnburners. The cover of his 1957 debut album, Here's Little Richard, featuring a close-up of Richard in mid-scream that would make Edvard Munch proud, is the ultimate truth in advertising: There's zero ambiguity about what the music inside will sound like.

And that sound was unbridled liberation—from whitewashed suburbia, from hellfire religion typified by the preacher in 1978's The Buddy Holly Story, from the anodyne pop on the airwaves. (The Billboard pop chart in 1954 was full of downtempo tracks by Rosemary Clooney, Kitty Kallen and The Crew-Cuts.) After Little Richard experienced a religious conversation and left secular music in 1962, coming back to a music scene dominated by the British boys who idolized him, like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, was no easy task. After flower power and Woodstock made his provocations seem quaint, he soon became a thing of the rock 'n' roll revival circuit.

A zip code away from his macho peers, Little Richard was a rock star that LGBTQ folks could look up to before coming out was the norm, and he galvanized Bowie and Prince to tear up the rulebook of gender expression. And his unspoken message, whether to those in a bind over their sexuality or not, was abundantly clear: No matter who you are, scream it out. That scream was one-size-fits-all for the human experience. When you hear Macca howling like a maniac on "I'm Down," "Hey Jude" and "Oh! Darling," understand that The Beatles' keyhole to jubilation—and therefore, everyone's—had a Little-Richard-shaped key.

The songs Little Richard co-wrote or interpreted all have the same feeling of anticipation, which is applicable to every stage of life: the last minutes of school on a Friday, the beginning of an unforgettable night out, the first blush of romantic attraction. He's ready to cause trouble, but the good-natured kind—the kind that doesn't put anybody down, but instead drags everyone off the couch and into a raucous block party. His songs exist at the perpetual "here we go" moment, the exhilarating flash on the rollercoaster when your stomach plunges.

We're gonna have some fun tonight. Everything's all right.

Remembering Elvis Presley: 5 GRAMMY Facts

Aretha Franklin in 1970

Aretha Franklin in 1970

Ron Howard/Redferns/Getty Images

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From Aretha Franklin To Public Enemy, Here's How Artists Have Amplified Social Justice Movements Through Music

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We also examine powerful protest songs from Mahalia Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, James Brown and N.W.A
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Jul 2, 2020 - 10:39 am

The year 2020, as difficult (and deadly) as its been for so many, has become a moment of reckoning. The nation is facing the shutdown and health crisis of coronavirus, pervasive acts of racist violence against unarmed Black people, and countless injustices for people of color, LGBTQI individuals and women and those within the intersectionality of these identifies. Today, in this climate of social unrest, powerful protest music of the past resonates once again.

As we stand in this pivotal moment, let's look back on some of the songs and moments that defined the civil rights movement and beyond, as Black artists and allies reflected the dire need for justice and inclusive representation, and protestors took their music to new heights.

Mahalia Jackson

Known as the Queen of Gospel, Mahalia Jackson is credited as one of the first artists to take gospel music out of the church. She used her powerful voice to record a massive catalog of religious music during her career, choosing to never dip her toes in secular music. Jackson befriended Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1956 National Baptist Convention and later performed before many of his speeches, in Selma, Montgomery and, most famously, immediately before his famous "I Have A Dream" speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, which she directly inspired.

She was the final musical guest during at the March, singing "How I Got Over," a powerful gospel song, popularized by the Famous Ward Sisters, about overcoming racial injustice. Not only did the song have deep resonance with the Black audience members, it was Jackson herself who moved King to improvise the most famous "dream" passage of his speech. According to King's adviser Clarence Jones, Jackson shouted out; "Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!" King pushed his notes to the side and Jones told the person next to him, "These people out there, they don't know it, but they're about ready to go to church."

Given its power, Jackson sang the song many times during her career, earning a GRAMMY for Best Soul Gospel Performance at the 1977 GRAMMYs for it.

Did You Know That Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Won A GRAMMY?

Aretha Franklin

18-time GRAMMY winner Aretha Franklin was one of the many successful soul and gospel singers inspired by Jackson and the path she paved, even performing at her funeral in 1972. The Queen of Soul got her start in music singing in her minister father's church. It was there where Franklin was introduced to civil rights activism. While many of her most beloved hits were covers, she had a unique power to reimagine a song all her own and resonate with so many. "Respect," originally recorded by Otis Redding in 1965, is one of these, which became her first No. 1 hit when she released it in 1967. A powerful anthem asking the listener for "a little respect," it became a protest song for both the feminist and civil rights movements of the time. As Pacific Standard states, "it captured a cultural moment Franklin had herself been fighting to achieve."

The outlet also notes that "Chain Of Fools," an original song, followed in 1967 as another feminist anthem, but found new meaning among Black U.S. soldiers fighting "a white man's war" in Vietnam. In 1972, Franklin recorded a rousing rendition of Nina Simone's 1969 civil rights anthem "Young, Gifted and Black," giving her album the same name, a powerful symbol of Black pride. That same year, Franklin later released live gospel album, Amazing Grace, including renditions of "How I Got Over" and "Amazing Grace." "Respect," "Chain Of Fools, "Young, Gifted and Black" and "Amazing Grace" all earned Franklin GRAMMY wins, evident of how deeply they resonated with America.

'Black Gold' At 50: How Nina Simone Refracted The Black Experience Through Reinterpreted Songs

Harry Belafonte

At 93, Jamaican-American actor, singer and activist Harry Belafonte has been a powerful force and barrier-breaker in U.S. culture since the '50s. Inspired by the emerging social justice-minded folk music of the turn of the century, he made it his life mission to "sing the song of anti-racism," as he said in 2017, to use his voice to highlight the music of the oppressed. Seeing Woody Guthrie perform lit this fire within the Harlem-born artist, inspiring him to visit the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. to listen to Alan Lomax's field recordings.

His third album, 1956's Calypso, was led by one of his most beloved songs, "Banana Boat (Day-O)," a call-and-response Jamaican folk song sung by dock workers (he spent part of his childhood living with his grandmother there). His version took the U.S. by storm, hitting No. 5 and inspiring five other artists to cover it, who all earned Top 40 hits in 1957. The album, as its title suggests, was filled with upbeat calypso music, a genre with roots stemming from those enslaved by the 17th century Caribbean slave trade. At a time when Elvis Presley and other White rock artists ruled, Belafonte's Calypso outsold both of his records that year, spending thirty-one weeks on top of the Billboard 200.

Belafonte also became a pivotal member of the civil rights movement, as a close friend of King, performing at many of his events and offering financial support to fund voter-registration drives, Freedom Rides and even the March on Washington. "I was angry when I met [King]. Anger had helped protect me. Martin understood my anger and saw its value. But our cause showed me how to redirect it and to make it productive," Belafonte writes in his 2011 memoir.

Pete Seeger

"For Mr. Seeger, folk music and a sense of community were inseparable, and where he saw a community, he saw the possibility of political action," the New York Times wrote in Pete Seeger's obituary in 2014. "His agenda paralleled the concerns of the American left: He sang for the labor movement in the '40s and '50s, for civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War rallies in the '60s, and for environmental and antiwar causes in the '70s and beyond."

In the '50s, the folk artist adapted "We Shall Overcome" with several other activist, including Zilphia Horton, who taught an updated version of the gospel spiritual "I'll Overcome" to union organizers. Seeger's version became an important rallying cry of the civil rights movement. Many other activist/artists of the time recorded and sang the powerful song at various events, including Jackson and folk acts Peter, Paul and Mary and Joan Baez, the latter who sang it during the March on Washington.

Seeger always used his music to speak up on the big issues of the time; in 1941 he wrote "Talking Union" with members of The Almanac Singers (both acts recorded it), "an almost literal guide to union-building," as Time put it. During Vietnam and the Cold War, respectively, he released anti-war anthems "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" (1967) and "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" (1955). The latter has been covered many times over the years by Earth, Wind & Fire, Dolly Parton and more, with folk/pop act Kingston Trio's 1962 version first hitting the mainstream and reaching the Top 40.

Bob Dylan

"How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man?" a 21-year-old Bob Dylan begins on his beloved 1963 song, "Blowin' In The Wind," another anthem of the civil rights movement. It is the opening track of his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which also features "The Death of Emmitt Till," "Oxford Town," "Masters of War" and other explicitly political songs examining injustices of the time.

Like Belafonte, he was inspired by Guthrie's political brand of folk, but it was his then-girlfriend, Suze Rotolo (pictured on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album cover), who moved him towards activism and playing political rallies. He wrote "The Death of Emmitt Till" in 1962, about the Black teen that was brutally murdered by White men for alleged whistling at a White woman, shortly before singing it at a fundraiser for the Congress of Racial Equality, which Rotolo was involved with.

During the March on Washington the next year, Dylan performed several songs, including "Only a Pawn in Their Game," which he had recently written about the civil rights activist Medgar Evers killed just months earlier. He also performed the heart-breaking song at a voter registration rally for Black farmers in Mississippi later that year. In January 1964 he would release the track on his next album, another socially conscious project, this one earning a GRAMMY nomination, The Times They Are A-Changin'.

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James Brown

In August 1968, a year before Simone released "Young, Gifted & Black" and just four months after King was assassinated, the Godfather of Soul James Brown delivered the funky Black pride anthem "Say It Loud – I'm Black And I'm Proud." As UDiscoverMusic notes, "The tone of the civil-rights movement had so far been one of a request for equality. Brown, however, came out defiant and proud: he isn't asking politely for acceptance; he's totally comfortable in his own skin. The song went to No. 10 on the Billboard [Hot 100] chart and set the blueprint for funk. Like later Stevie Wonder classics of the '70s, it was a political song that also burned up the dancefloor; an unapologetic stormer that would influence generations."

In 2018, on 50 years after the song's release, Randall Kennedy, a Black law professor at Harvard, explained the power of the song in that moment, and today: "It was precisely because of widespread colorism that James Brown's anthem 'Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud' posed a challenge, felt so exhilarating, and resonated so powerfully. It still does. Much has changed over the past half century. But, alas, the need to defend blackness against derision continues."

The iconic song recently saw a massive boost in streaming numbers as part of Spotify's Black Lives Matter playlist.

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N.W.A, Ice Cube & Dr. Dre

When N.W.A released "F*** Tha Police" in 1988, their hometown of Compton, in South Los Angeles, was rife with police brutality and racial profiling. One of the hardcore rap group's most controversial songs, it struck a chord with in their community, as well as with other Black people living in over-policed inner-cities around the country and frustrated youth of all colors. Directly denouncing the police's abuse of power, the song was largely condemned by the mainstream, causing the group to receive a cease-and-desist letter from FBI and to be arrested for playing it at a Detroit show in 1989, as shown in the Straight Outta Compton biopic.

"We had lyrics. That's what we used to combat all the forces that were pushing us from all angles: Whether it was money, gang-banging, crack, LAPD. Everything in the world came after this group," Ice Cube said in an interview. "We changed pop culture on all levels. Not just music. We changed it on TV. In movies. On radio. Everything. Everybody could be themselves. Before N.W.A … you had to pretend to be a good guy."

In 1992, Rodney King was brutally beaten by LAPD officers who were later acquitted, sparking the 1992 Los Angeles uprising. This not only highlighted the truth and urgency of N.W.A's lyrics, it further solidified it as a rallying cry against the daily violence and racism Black people across the country faced. That year, Ice Cube released his third solo album Predator, along with its biggest hit, the laidback "It Was A Good Day." As HuffPost notes, "he raps about how to cherish moments like chilling with your homies to enjoying your mom's food to NOT get harassed by the police." Dr. Dre followed with his 1debut solo album The Chronic in 1994, and on "Lil' Ghetto Boy" he and Snoop Dogg rap about the dark challenges faced by a formerly incarcerated Black man on parole, powerfully sampling Donny Hathaway's 1972 classic "Little Ghetto Boy."

"Fight The Power": 7 Facts Behind Public Enemy's Anthem | GRAMMY Hall Of Fame

Public Enemy

New York political hip-hop outfit Public Enemy originally recorded "Fight The Power" at the request of then-emerging filmmaker Spike Lee, for his 1989 film Do The Right Thing. It plays a prominent role in the poignant film that explores racial tensions in Brooklyn's Bedford-Sty neighborhood, as the only song character Radio Raheem plays from the boombox he proudly carries at all times. As HipHopDX writes, the song is "indisputably a call to action, [as] Chuck [D] commanded people to stand up against systematic oppression." "Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant sh*t to me you see / Straight up racist that sucker was / Simple and plain. / Mother f*** him and John Wayne / 'Cause I'm Black and I'm proud," Chuck D raps with authority, both calling out White heroes and nodding to a Black hero, the Godfather Of Soul.

The powerful track finds inspiration from both Brown and the Isley Brothers, who released a song called "Fight The Power" in 1975, it also takes direct influence from them. According to Genius, it features around 20 samples, including Brown's "Say It Loud" and "Funky President (People It's Bad)," and interpolates The Isley Brothers' song. "I wanted to have sorta the same theme as the original 'Fight the Power' by the Isley Brothers and fill it in with some kind of modernist views of what our surroundings were at that particular time," Chuck D explained. The music video (watch above) begins with news footage from the March on Washington, followed by Public Enemy organizing their own march and rally in Brooklyn.

The song was released on the film soundtrack and on their 1990 album, Fear Of A Black Planet, on which they also called out racism in Hollywood and in the police on "Burn Hollywood Burn" (featuring Cube and Big Daddy Kane) and "911 Is A Joke," respectively. This summer, Public Enemy returned with the fiery "State Of The Union (STFU)," calling out the rampant racism of the current White House administration.

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Brianna Agyemang & Jamila Thomas

Brianna Agyemang & Jamila Thomas

Photo: Flo Ngala/Billboard

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#TheShowMustBePaused Creators Brianna Agyemang & Jamila Thomas Talk Vision, Next Steps

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The two young music executives behind the movement that became "Blackout Tuesday," discuss their vision for a more just music industry in a recent interview
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Jun 11, 2020 - 2:43 pm

Last Tuesday, June 2, the music industry came to a sudden stop for #TheShowMustBePaused movement envisioned by Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas. While the message may have been muddied by brands and others posting black boxes, the mission was effective—major labels and music orgs closed shop for the day and joined conversations on making real change.

Today, in an in-depth interview with Billboard, the two New York music executives share their vision for moving the industry forward and the important purpose behind the pause.

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"We're taking it one day at a time. No one thought [we] could black out the industry, but they couldn't keep Brianna and me from trying," Thomas, who's the senior director of marketing at Atlantic Records, said.

"We're the least expected, but we're here for a reason—and we're not going away," Agyemang added; she's the senior artist campaign manager at Platoon, Apple's artist-services division.

"We had found out about George Floyd's killing, after those of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, at the hands of police. It was just a really heavy week for the Black community. And people still had to work. It didn't seem like anyone had a chance to really take in what was happening in the middle of the coronavirus, which was also attacking the Black community disproportionately. It was just a lot while trying to keep the show moving. So I called Jamila that Friday [May 29] and said we should take the day off, that it's not business as usual. Then we came up with the tagline #TheShowMustBePaused and some graphics," Agyemang explained, sharing the emotional week that pushed them to action.

"As our friends began posting, it spread like wildfire. Then people started reaching out, asking, 'OK, where and when do we want to pause?' It just kind of centered ourselves as a community. We wanted to make sure that if people were willing to take that pause along with us that we—if they were asking what they could do on Tuesday—would help provide them with things to do. So we went into planning mode."

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For their "day off," two women hosted a digital summit that brought together music professionals of all stripes to talk change, with almost 1,500 joining the productive conversations.

"We held three different discussions during that one day. We reached out to people directly, sending them invitations to join us for a community conversation. The turnout was overwhelming, with nearly 1,500 people joining overall, from top-level executives, artists and lawyers to interns. The idea was to talk to everyone about developing a realistic plan for moving forward," Thomas told Billboard.

"Urban artists occupy most of the music charts, and we celebrate the genres [R&B/hip-hop] at industry events and the GRAMMYs. But when that community takes a hit, it seems like it's every man for himself. You can post something if you want. Or you can donate. But there's never a united front. Progress is needed in the work space, and progress is needed in the streets.

There's no better time to do it than now, because the country is literally in a moment of transition. And music has to be at the forefront of that because of its influence. It starts with us working together. All those partners coming together on that call and blacking out on Tuesday was the first time that has ever happened. If we can just keep that same spirit going, then change will come," she added, explaining the topics they delved into during the summit.

"After the summit, there were so many announcements from labels and other companies. I felt inspired from this."

"The conversations were done in a safe space because we wanted to make sure people felt comfortable talking, being vulnerable and sharing their feelings or providing solutions and ideas," Agyemang said. "I wished we had had more time to talk that day. What I loved most is that it felt very positive. While we do have things that need to change, it didn’t feel like it was impossible based on those conversations. It definitely feels more like a whole music community now than I will say it felt in the past."

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And those boxes? It was never part of the plan. There was nothing they could do to stop people from posting them, so they focused on making sure the resources to take action were clear and accessible.

"Our graphic copy explained the reason for the music business blackout. And at the bottom was the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused. That was always our hashtag. But it was like the game of telephone: Things get muddled in the communication," Agyemang explained. "The goal was not to mute ourselves. The goal was to take a break from your daily nine-to-five duties to refocus and recenter. And that meant that you could take a pause and just breathe. Or take a moment to think or use that time to focus on what you could do within your community to make a change and help make progress as well."

"People move so fast online. So we quickly took action to tell people about things they could do on Tuesday to help. We had to double down and tell our friends that we wanted them to communicate where people could donate, where they could march, pray or speak to a therapist. We had put together information for the summit we were holding that day. We wanted to let people know that now that we have you here, we want to talk to you all. That this wasn't a date to be silent," Thomas added.

This is just the beginning for the powerhouse pair and the collation of changemakers they've already formed—they are actively planning the second phase of action for #TheShowMustBePaused.

"We didn't put our names on the original graphic because it's not about us. It's about a movement for all of us. We're humbled by all the support but we're also not afraid. We're assuming this leadership role, honored that people trust us to lead them to the next steps, working together as a community," Thomas stated.

"We literally stopped major companies for a day to come up with plans on how to help the black community and move forward. It has been a success thus far, and it has only been a week. We're just going to continue to move in a positive direction," Agyemang noted. "When George Floyd died, it was like, 'Here's another thing after Ahmaud Arbery, after Breonna Taylor, after COVID-19.' [Tuesday] was a way for people to release and pause, because in the end we have to fix it and we have to heal as a society. And we can do this by changing the future."

Read the full interview here, and visit theshowmustbepaused.com for more info on the initiative and how you can take action.

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