Do you think there's no good protest music these days? So did I, until I started looking for it. The truth is, it’s always been out there, but it's sometimes just a bit difficult to find. Every month, I search it out, listen to it all, then round up the best of it that relates to that month’s political news. Here’s the round-up for June 2023.
1. JACK RIVER - ENDLESS SUMMER
Climate activists rallied in Sydney for World Environment Day on June 5. Eleven days later, Sydney pop star , which was . (Shameless plug: I'm also based in Sydney and .) The same day, iconic Icelandic band , which also tackles the environment emergency. “, doom-scrolling and going to hell," they said. "The world felt a bit bleak making this album, but maybe there is hope." Little hope was offered by the news three days earlier that into the ocean off Western Australia for a decade. The company said the wells near the Pilbara coast could not be fixed. But the environment regulator’s position is that indefinite leaking is “unacceptable”.
2. BOOGEY THE BEAT - COUSINS
New York City on June 7 as shrouded the metropolis. Days earlier, Canadian First Nations hip-hop producer , which features the track "The Sage Is On Fire". On it, Indigenous emcees Snotty Nose Rez Kids turn the traditional healing practice of burning sage into a Molotov cocktail as they rap: "The sage, the sage, the sage is on fire! We just want clean water, let that motherfucker burn!" The wildfires, which were , forced on June 7. But a week later, oil giant Shell announced it was dropping its supposed efforts to become environmentally-friendly and . It was doing so to "invest in the models that work - those with the highest returns".
3. MELODY ANGEL - INDIE BLUES GIRL
Amid such climate-wrecking greed, it was unsurprising when Nature reported on June 6 that an ice-free Arctic was set to become normal "within most of our lifetimes”. Slightly more surprising was the news on June 18 that a billionaire and three fellow tourists had paid $US250,000 ($365,000) each to visit the Titanic, which sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg that had drifted from the Arctic. Even more surprising was the fact they had been stupid enough to do it in a submersible that wasn't even certified and had subsequently vanished, . In stark contrast to the scant attention paid to days earlier, the over the story. Such inequality is lambasted on the new album from blues artist Melody Angel, released on June 16, which laments those living in "ghetto poverty".
4. JOHN MELLENCAMP - ORPHEUS DESCENDING
In the five days that authorities spent millions of taxpayers' dollars looking for the four rich tourists and their , about 108,000 people worldwide died from hunger. That's according to Oxfam's figures from September last year, which estimated . The search ended when debris from the sub's implosion - an apparent result of its uncertified design - was found on June 22. The day before, . A fortnight earlier on the other side of the US, camping amid soaring rents and house prices. On June 16, Grammy-winning protest singer John Mellencamp released his politically powerful new album, whose song "The Eyes Of Portland" addresses the city's housing crisis "in this land of plenty where nothing gets done".
5. AJA MONET - WHEN THE POEMS DO WHAT THEY DO
Also blasting such inequity is the , released on June 9. "If you wanted to take land from a people bent on resisting colonialism," she asserts over immaculate, snaking jazz, "insert McDonald's, Walmart or the Jones Act. Or blame it on a storm of a woman named Maria, who grew up in Spanish Harlem, who reminded us of the western story that as the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. Never mind the wealth that ain’t so common under the foot of US force, the way loss runs through steep hill sides or rivers swell the veins between vacant towns. We blame the thirsty but not the corporations that tax water, the shocking doctrines of profit over people." On June 21, it was reported that in Phoenix, Arizona, were now making big profits as climate change meant new housing estates were running dry.
6. BANTU - WHAT IS YOUR BREAKING POINT?
As Aja Monet skewered the suffering of African Americans, the hit new lows. "Cholera largely disappeared in developed economies with modern sewage systems," reported Bloomberg on June 15. "Its return near Pretoria shows ." A fortnight earlier, South African protest musicians BCUC released their new album recorded in Soweto, describing it as "". That was followed by the new long player from Nigerian group BANTU, which includes the song "Africa For Sale". "See our government selling land and people," they sing. "Slave masters, middlemen never stop their evil. Dem go sign secret contracts wey no make sense at all. Give away our sovereignty for peanuts and shopping malls." The album came as Bloomberg reported that "to help slow global warming".
7. RANCID - TOMORROW NEVER COMES
Excoriating the exploitation of Africa in a similar way is the from "one of the ", Rancid, released on June 2. On "The Bloody & Violent History", they recall , the site of the first military land action overseas by the United States, to reclaim American slaves in captivity, in 1805. "Who orchestrates the orchestrators," they sing, "intimidates intimidators, when you can't trust the lawmakers and the grifters and the takers? Watch your back! The bloody and violent history of the Barbary Coast." Back in Rancid's home state of California on June 5, 240 Black workers alleged rampant . Their testimonies filed in Alameda County Superior Court alleged frequent use of racial slurs and references to the San Francisco manufacturing site as a plantation or slave ship.
