When Kendrick Lamar took the stage in the Super Bowl halftime show, 133 million Americans sat in anticipation for a national tradition to begin. On the surface, Lamar’s show served as popular entertainment, yet upon closer examination, many viewed his performance as a carefully constructed criticism of race, identity and social justice in America.
The themes in the halftime show included references to mass incarceration, racial inequality and unity. This was conveyed through the set built to resemble a prison yard, the choice of lyrics and the red, white and blue outfits that the dancers wore.
Lamar’s performance was not the first time artists have used music to convey messages. Music has long been a form of art used to fuel social movements, according to Berkeley Theater and Performance Associate Professor Angela Marino.
“Music can bring people together and create an expression that is forging a position that people may want to take in the world,” Marino said. “It can bring a commonality. As people come together and do that, they find each other, and they find the ways that they may want to express themselves through music. (Musical) styles then become a part of the language that can expand and even flourish in times when there’s social change at hand.”
Marino said groups throughout history have used music as a form of rebellion, protest and voice during times of oppression.
“The New Song, or Nueva Trova movement, is known for lifting the spirit in times of really deep repression through Latin America,” Marino said. “Folks in the US, in some ways, are part of that new song movement. It was very popular through the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, singers like Silvio Rodriguez touched the heart by singing about ordinary life and the commitments that people make to political change.”
Jazz is another example of an art form that has fueled a social movement, as it reflected the values of the movement, inspired protest, and provided a voice for Black artists. Professional musician and San Jose State Professor of Musicology and Music Theory Tom Langan agrees that music inspires change.
“Music brings comfort,” Langan said. “During the civil rights marches like Montgomery, when people got thrown into jail, they sang songs to bring comfort to themselves while they were imprisoned.”
“If you think about Joan Baez — where she was performing and how the contexts of those performances were taking place — you had such a strong anti-war movement,” Marino said. “It was in and through these gatherings that (that) kind of music became so close to people’s hearts and minds. In a way, it was bringing forward the kind of music that would come out of that movement.”
Beyond Joan Baez, director and founder of the Bay Area Music Project Lorrie Murray said other artists had an immeasurable impact on the Vietnam War.
“Whether it was Bob Dylan or Neil Young who were singing about when students protested at their own college and were shot at by campus police, you can’t say that music ended the Vietnam War, but it certainly changed young people’s perspectives on war and our government,” Murray said.
Sometimes, regardless of the lyrics, the act of performing a song can be a protest itself. Langan said there have been many different examples of high-profile performances that challenged the status quo.
“The last fascist government in Europe was Spain,” Langan said. “Pete Seeger got invited to come and perform in Spain in the ‘70s or ‘80s, and the government gave him a list of songs that he couldn’t sing. So he went out on stage and he told people, ‘They said I can’t sing this song, so I’m not going to sing.’ And he just started playing his guitar, and the audience — which was tens of thousands of people — started singing them with him.”
Langer also said lyrical symbolism can convey deeper meaning in a performance.
“When Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa, they allowed him to play a song,” Langan said. “The song he chose was ‘Jolene’ by Dolly Parton. The people who were there — both the guards and the other prisoners — remember it as being extremely moving. Even though the subject matter, on its face, is a woman who is afraid to lose her partner, to the people there, it was all about what they loved. It was received as ‘We’re all South African, and we all live in South Africa, and please don’t take away this place and these people we love.’”
However, Murray said the power of music to influence social movements has lessened in the digital age
“There are so many streaming services, and nobody buys an album anymore,” Murray said. “People are creating every single day from their bedrooms and posting into YouTube or Bandcamp, so it’s hard for artists to break through. And the attention span is just so short. You’re not going to Amoeba Records anymore and sifting through albums or CDs and listening to music and talking about it with peers anymore.”
Langan agreed and said the digitization of the music industry has undermined artists’ ability to create music in an authentic way.
“Music has been so devalued,” Langan said. “It’s harder now than it’s ever been for artists to make a living. It’s really hard to sing a song about working conditions if your sponsor is someone who has sweatshops. They might not want to pay you if you’re singing songs that say you should pay workers more and take better care of people.”
