Music

As Socialist Review went to press, Mike Skinner, aka The Streets, was a hotly tipped favourite to capture the Mercury Music Prize, one of the British music industry's most prestigious awards. Either way, Skinner has enjoyed a meteoric rise since he first burst onto the scene in 2002. His first album, Original Pirate Material, also received a Mercury nomination, but was somewhat surprisingly pipped by Ms Dynamite. Subsequently he has been compared to Bob Dylan, Samuel Pepys, Dostoyevsky, Philip Larkin and 'Gil Scot Heron relocated to the [Birmingham] Bullring'.

In the last few months The Others have played a Love Music Hate Racism gig at the London Astoria, been declared 'the most worshipped new band in Britain' by NME, released their first single, 'This is For the Poor', and played a gig in a tube carriage. Alison Philcock talked to singer Dominic Masters.

The single makes a very clear statement. Where do the lyrics come from?

Posing this question is not simply an act of wishful thinking here at Socialist Review. Rather it reflects a genuine debate that is finding an echo in sections of the music press. For example, Mojo magazine's lead feature in April was 'One Hundred Great Protest Songs'. It included a blazing red cover with a picture of a militant looking John Lennon and the headline 'Revolution in his Head'. Elsewhere the Scottish Arts magazine Product ran a cover article entitled 'Protest Pop: How radical music rocks the world'.

A couple of years ago documentary film-maker Ken Burns made a widely acclaimed series entitled Jazz: A History of America's Music. It was part of a trilogy of subjects - the others being the Civil War and baseball - that examined the core elements that contributed to the development of US society. Jazz was chosen as the only authentic art form to originate in the US. However, the series was not without controversy.

Artists such as Jay Z, Nas, Eminem and Missy Elliott have become household names, while the production talents of P Diddy, Dr Dre and Pharrell Williams are in constant demand. Nor has this impact been solely confined to music. The 'uniform' of low-slung jeans, Timberland boots, expensive trainers and designer tracksuits has become de rigueur among youth from Brooklyn to Brixton.

Paris first graced the airwaves in 1990 with his black nationalist, anti-establishment LP The Devil Made Me Do It. Two years later he cemented his name as one of hip-hop's most militant lyricists with Sleeping With the Enemy, which was originally due for release before the presidential election in 1992, but suppressed by the recording establishment until the November after the election. The album was shrouded in controversy, with one song in particular - Bush Killa, a revenge fantasy about the assassination of then-president George Bush Sr - raising ire.

Being any kind of conscious artist under 21st century imperialism is fraught with contradictory tensions. Aesthetics v politics? Art v propaganda? Individual v the masses? Local v global? Innovation v tradition? Particular v genre?

Music and politics are frequently fused. What is striking about the Unpeople is the sheer extent to which this is the case, their debut album marking a welcome return of agitprop - the open use of music as a medium for agitation and through which to deliver both a complex analysis and inspiring message.

Fusing art and politics has never been so easy. The growing global anti-war movement means that great anthems of hope and inspiration, which celebrate the joy of mass resistance, can be recorded. This fundraising CD, which is available from major retailers as well as activists, does just that. For me there was only one choice for best song--'The Unpeople', which brillantly samples John Pilger, edges it over Asian Dub Foundation's use of Tariq Ali's melodious tones.

In the US, amid a climate of patriotism and mass censorship of any dissent, huge selling artists such as singer Mary J Blige and rapper Nas have come out firmly against the war on Afghanistan and the threat to Iraq. The reworking of Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' by MTV Allstars (Christina Aguilera, Bono, Ja Rule, Alicia Keys and many more) featured a video clearly identifying poverty, racism, Aids and Third World debt as the backdrop to the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.