ABSTRACT
If ever there were any doubts regarding music’s significance for political protest, the wave of unrest that has swept the globe since the financial crisis of 2008 should have laid them to rest. Consider the following: the role of Tunisian rapper El Général in catalyzing the Jasmine Revolution; Manu Chao’s impromptu performance before Barcelona’s Indignados encampment in May 2011; the drum circle whose rhythms resounded through Zuccotti Park during Occupy Wall Street; the transformation of Ramy Essam’s refrain “Irhal, irhal” (“Leave, leave”) into the rallying cry of those demanding Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in Tahrir Square; Brazilian demonstrators’ playful appropriation of “Vem pra rua” (“Come into the street”), a song originally commissioned for a Fiat commercial. These and other examples too numerous to cite attest to music’s enduring capacity to mobilize individuals and encourage their participation in contentious action. At a minimum, recent events refute popular media narratives regarding the declining status of protest music since its putative glory years in the 1960s (Hajdu 2004, McKinley 2011). Yet the prominence accorded to music in journalistic accounts of the post-2008 protest wave, while salutary in some respects, has given rise to its own distortions. Only a narrow range of musical practices, performing an equally narrow range of functions, has attracted journalistic attention. This is particularly true of protest anthems, songs deemed to speak on behalf of the anonymous multitudes. Judging from contemporary press accounts, what captures the mediatic imagination above all else are those rare yet memorable occasions when musicians are able to crystallize the spirit of a movement, giving voice to its grievances and aspirations (Bohlman 2012).
