The one person Chuck Berry thanked God he could see
For as long as there has been creativity, there has been expression within that creativity, something which is very important. It’s from this idea that protest music grows.
Protest music has taken many different forms, sometimes it was vocal, and then there were other instances when it was done as a form of instrumentation. The latter was a result of artists not being able to truly speak their mind in a way that would be accepted, and so they made music which was a reflection of how they felt about the world around them. Two of the most popular kinds of music that subscribe to this are noise music and free jazz.
Upon first listen, you might think that these kinds of music are pretty inaccessible, but that was the whole point. People weren’t supposed to listen to the music and extract anything from it; rather, the inaccessibility was the important message. That was supposed to be a musical representation of how the artists making the music felt, it was a reflection of society without going into detail about it.
These days, noise music is used in many different ways, as it doesn’t just have to be inaccessible but instead can be a representation of plenty of emotions. “The noise music scene is like a non-academic version of something that was academic,” said noise musician Jonathan Snipes, “You get the feeling that with a lot of early noise music there wasn’t a language to judge whether it was good or not: it was about the process and the act of doing this unlistenable thing and any result was acceptable.”
He continued, “Then the next generation heard those recordings, developed taste in them and said ‘oh let’s cut these together and make them beautiful’.”
So, protest music has the potential to evolve and change, but does it have the potential to actually incite change within society? Some people think so, others disagree. William S Burroughs subscribed to the former ideal, as he was once quoted as saying that artists are the true bringers of change in the world.
“Artists to my mind are the real architects of change,” he said, “And not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.”
One of the biggest political moments in recent decades was when Barack Obama was elected as president. While the colour of somebody’s skin shouldn’t play a role in their capability as a politician, it does, and so it was truly a historical moment when Barack Obama was elected as the first African American president of the United States. Obama always seems to have his finger on the pulse when it comes to music, as he used it as a big part of his political campaigns in 2008 and 2012. He also publishes a playlist of what he’s been listening to every year.
While a politician can have an interest in music, due to the nature of protest music, so too can an artist be interested in politics. One of these artists was Chuck Berry, one of the original pioneers when it came to rock ‘n’ roll and someone who at a moment in time also represented change and hope for many. Most musicians, when talking about the things they were excited to see, discuss other musicians, but for Berry, the biggest thrill he got was when he saw Barack Obama get elected and had the chance to meet him. That intrinsic link between society and music is something which it seems will always exist.
“I never thought that a man with the qualities, features, and all that he has, [could] be our President,” said Berry, “My dad said, ‘You may not live to see that day,’ and I believed him. I thank God that I have.”
