Music and politics (2004)

Résumé du document

Art is often seen as a way to escape from reality, to enter a new universe, and indeed it is. Art has to create emotions, to make people understand how irrational their life can be or sometimes just to make the beauty hidden from their eyes appears. And nobody knows how Art manage to touch so deeply almost everyone. We can understand the artists but Art remains a mystery. Why do these three notes evoke so many things? With Art, Man discovered he had the possibility to create things he would never understand. Art is a piece of eternity and Man needs to believe he can be eternal. That's why it's an original subject to try in this survey to link what seems to be so abstract with a pragmatic and human science: politics. To make this relation appear, we will restrict our work to the specific part of art which is music. This lout syllogism gives the direction of our reflexion. Particularly in the 20th century, examples are numerous of this strong link between music and politics. There are many reasons to this which we probably won't manage to count all, but our modest aim thought a so large subject is to show how music is deeply rooted in the social context. As Jacques Attali said, "music is an attribute of political power". That's why, in history, music has been widely used by diverse politicians and governments, and for diverse reasons. We will try to understand how music can be useful for politicians.

Extraits

[...] So, we note with those examples that music can be used to express a will for leaders: a will of domination, of superiority, a will of distinction What is important here is that music is used to symbolise an idea. Music is a way for nations to express their identity. And so, music can be a political tool. Music is a way to control ideas Music has also been used throughout history by politicians to manipulate people. We will see 2 ways to do that: censorship and propaganda. [...]

[...] In 1993, Denis Sassou N'Guesso made an advert on TV with a song of Koffi Olomidé, a famous musician in Congo. This has improved his popularity, and so he repeated the operation in 2002 with Werra Son, another famous singer, who made several concerts for him. Now, other politicians have understood the importance of music, and some of them have even created their own musical bands: “Bana Poto Poto” supports the mayor of Poto-Poto, the most important district of Brazzaville; “Look Maurel” supports the mayor? Ou major? of Makélékélé, another district of the capital of the Congo . [...]

[...] Music has a great importance in politics, but not only in Congo. If you think about the last presidential campaign in the USA, we can remember that famous artists have also been committed to support different candidates by making concerts, with notably the tour “Vote For Change” where Bruce Springsteen, REM or Pearl Jam played in the most uncertain states to encourage people to vote for John Kerry. In such an uncertain election as this one, we can imagine that this method can have important consequences and we can easily understand why it is used. [...]

[...] First we can quote the example of Fela Kuti who uses music as a great political weapon. In 1969 Fela and his band Koola Lobitos went to Los Angeles and discovered James Brown, the Black Panthers and Pan-Africanism. When Fela and the band, re-named Nigeria 70, returned home to Africa they not only had a new name but also a new-found political consciousness and a new sound--a blend of Jazz, Nigerian Highlife, and raw, dirty Funk--that Fela called "Afro-Beat." Thanks to tracks like "Expensive Shit," with its outspoken lyrics criticizing the oppressive military regime, and to the free shows he played weekly (and all night long) at Kalalkuta's "Shrine" club, Fela, who was almost never seen without an enormous marijuana spliff in his mouth, became a sensation among Nigeria's huge population of poor. [...]

[...] Since they are only interested in their sales and their profits, they put bands under pressure. Now the only commitment we can find in Rock music is often related to majors or CD-piracy. The committed artists are now self-produced. Thus their lyrics can be more subversive and committed. But they do not reach as much people as if their records were broadcast by majors. And thus their "political power" is very limited. The link between music and politics is now anecdotic. [...]