Resistance in Music
Root Tones: Resistance in Music
In this issue of Root Tones, we are going to explore the concept of resistance in music. In order to do this we must define what resistance is, and how it can be expressed through music.
“Resistance Music” is something that most of us have come to be familiar with in the 20th century. This is music that expresses the resistance of various groups of people against various forms of oppression. Over the course of the last century there have been many popular genres and artists that we associate with resistance music such as Fela Kuti using Afrobeat as a vehicle, and Bob Marley us- ing Reggae as a vehicle. There have been many artists that h a v e written songs and expressed their “resistance” to oppression in the genres of Folk, Rock & Roll, Soul Music, Punk Rock, Jazz, Hardcore music, and Hip-Hop to name a few.
From the perspective of the Kemetic civilization, we see the qualities of the God-Child Heru reflected in humans who are fighting to protect the good from the forces of evil. We see Heru acting as a defender who is fighting to preserve the good. Playing the role of “The Defender” is an important part of a Human Being’s identity in its pursuit of an evolutionary path which ends up reflecting its struggle between its default position of weakness and corruptibility and its objective of reproducing the Divine World.
When analyzing the idea of “resistance music”, the least that can be said is that it is music with a purpose. And if it is music with a purpose, that purpose is more fundamentally an issue than the music itself. Following that logic, if the “music” in the term “resistance music” is a means to an end, then many of the points discussed in this article could be addressed without mentioning music itself.
In today’s modern politicized world, “resistance” is a political concept. In order to understand that, we must define what politics is. In Kemetic culture we don’t argue whether humans must submit to an authority. It is clear that we must, but the question is, to what authority do we submit? In our understanding, it is very simple. We are part of the Earth, we must fit into its harmony, and therefore, nature is our master. Nature does not leave a human being with many options. If we are truly in tune with our environment and are working towards a harmonious dialogue with the existence, then this understanding and approach is irrefutable. As humans, our situation becomes dangerous when a human being thinks that it can create its own artificial system of power, authority, and logic separate from nature, that humanity must submit to. This is what we can call politics. A superimposed structure of power and authority created by people, which exists independently from the laws of nature. When we look all over the Earth in modern societies, we can clearly see that human beings are forcing each other to submit to politics, and the fruits of this submission are the explicit cultural failures we see currently throughout the world.
Let’s face it, people are terrible to each other. If you give a human being a good enough reason to commit evil, they will do it, and commit a crime against a member of their own species. When ob- serving history, it is common to see that at one point, there will be one group of people suffering from the oppression of another group of people, only to then become the oppressor of yet another group once they have postured themselves and gathered enough strength to stand on their own two feet after the downward force of their oppression has began to lift. It is not necessary to cite examples of this because it is so common, and if you have a shred of honesty inside of you then you will see this phenomena played out around us amongst many groups of humans, and even in our own communities.
We call this phenomenon the action/reaction cycle. In Meritah we have a proverb that states;
If a donkey kicks you what do you do? Kick back and be a donkey? If you are not a donkey, you will learn not to stand so close.
This is how a human being operates without their Ancestral culture. Our Ancestors left us a profound culture which gives us a chance at disciplining ourselves and containing these evil aspects of the human being.
To a thinking person who is facing the dilemma of being attacked by a person who has gone crazy by eating poison, the solution will not involve eating that same poison. Unfortunately when it comes to politics which employ a type of warfare that involves the emotional and the psychological field, the poison itself is not literally eaten, but transmitted through the emotional and psychological fields by anger, fear, exposure and conditioning. This becomes a dilemma for the human being because unless they are aware of the action/reaction cycle and the necessary vigilance needed to avoid these traps, then they will be doomed to carry the poison transmitted to them.
By the time the downward force of the oppression has begun to lift from an oppressed people, generations have passed, and not only are the emotional wounds deep, but the oppressed will also have adopted a significant amount of the mentality of their oppressor.
As we say; “You can’t use kaka to clean kaka off of yourself.”
It is only the oppression of one group of humans by another group that stimulates the need to express some form of resistance against that antagonistic offense in order to maintain one’s psychological, physical, or emotional stance.
Evidently, the psychological, physical, and emotional expressions of resistance can work in concert at varying degrees to define the characteristics of one’s resistance.
The question that must be asked is; “What is the true and effective definition of resistance?”.
In the world of rational and thinking people, a thing can only be called a thing if it is that thing. If you are referring to a cat, you don’t call it a dog. If you are referring to a bird, you don’t call it a rock. Therefore if you are going to call something “resistance music” it had better be effectively helping people to resist against a tangible aspect of the oppression with the goal of restoring the stability or position that was lost due to the oppression.
The terrifying reality that comes to slap most conscious people in the face presents itself with two big traps.
1. Complaining about a problem does not mean that there is an effective solution present.
2. How you feel about something does not constitute a tangible solution.
The idea of “resistance” can become a very abstract concept and lose its positive effect, especially when it comes to its application in mu- sic which is being expressed to preserve or restore one’s goodness. It could be said that the term “resistance” is in itself flawed for this application for two reasons.
1. Resistance is itself a reaction, and using it as the definitive concept makes the battle less about defending something and more about reacting to something and thus rendering the effort extremely susceptible to the action/reaction cycle.
2. We are speaking about preserving something, and defending something, and therefore the shear action of resistance is completely independent from, and not linked to, the necessary actions that constitute a tangible solution for our problem.
Additionally, when it comes to resistance music, it is usually associated with a music “scene” that consists of human beings who follow a certain type of lifestyle and adhere to some type of philosophy. This may include wearing specific types of clothing, wearing certain hairstyles, usage of a lexicon of terminologies when speaking, adhering to a variety of habits, as well as having specific opinions and viewpoints about things.
It is very important to move from focusing on the music scene, and beginning to focus on what it is actually that we are trying to preserve/defend.
When examining musical genres and their scenes which have supposedly “revolutionary” roots, in most cases, their current situation displays the hallmarks of commercialization and drugs. A fate all too common for these supposedly progressive movements. If commercialization or drugs doesn’t kill the underground portions of these movements, then the beasts of emotions, pride, politics, superstition, youthful rebellion and hope are present to clean up the stragglers.
This is so common that it almost appears as though these supposed revolutionary movements were created in order to keep humans from returning back to their origins, from reclaiming what was once theirs, as well as to keep them locked in madness so that they can be easily controlled.
Unfortunately the sad truth is, that even a movement which had been started in all purity and goodness, if left in the hands of man, his politics and his emotions, has the tendency of degenerating to the point of its demise in this same way; almost as if it is abiding a natural rule of law.
If we analyze what it is that needs to be restored and what it is that needs to be protect- ed, we will always come back to our Ancestral culture. This is the thing that was systematically stripped from our communities by numerous waves of physical and mental colonization, religion and modern ideologies, and it is the thing that gives us the tools to successfully fit into the harmony that nature presents.
If we can remember and live by the truth that nature is our master, if we can be conscious of the action/reaction cycle at all times, if we can focus on defending and preserving something tangible, and if we can be ceaselessly vigilant in avoiding the traps in the emotional and psychological fields, then we may be able to cease being that donkey, evolve from a philosophy of “resistance” to an approach of “preservation” and start our journey on the refreshing and long path of representing something noble and great, rooted in the reality of existence.
