Music and politics have a long relationship with each other. Musicians use music to express emotions and their thoughts because it is the platform they are most comfortable with. Once we get past the “Oh that song sounds cool,” “Wow that was pretty,” we should open our ears even wider to listen to the messages they are placing right in front of us.
Music makes everything easier to digest. Lines of sorrow and hope become “catchy” when there’s a cool beat behind it. Take away the filters and noise, and what are you left with? Their words address what they are passionate about, and what they want the world to hear. This is not something new, going back to the days of Billie Holiday to H.E.R. playing on the radio today, the message still stands.
“Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”
-“Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday (performed 1939)
These words swayed through the crowd of the Café Society club as Billie Holiday performed that night. Originally a poem by a Jewish school teacher Abel Meeropol, “Strange Fruit” leaves little to imagination when it comes to subject matter. Within the first verse, the lines depicted the lynching of Black men in the South. At a time where white supremacy throughout the nation began to surface as organized groups, coming out with these words, be it the original poem or popularizing it as a song, took courage. The performance took an emotional toll on Holiday. Not only the original message of the poem, but with each performance, the personal meaning for Holiday took hold.
As the audience, we must consider the life of the performer and remember, they are only human. They struggle with their own personal issues, and if we only see them as entertainment or those that bring us topics of thought, we are not doing them justice. Billie Holiday struggled with addiction and past trauma from her childhood, and every time she performed she had to channel that emotion. Asking a musician to do that, is not a task done lightly. Sadly as time went on, Billie Holiday’s life was taken by that very addiction, but her legacy reigns till today. With all the emotion she poured into each performance of “Strange Fruit”, she and the song became the catalyst for a number of civil rights activists.
Over 80 years later, with the events of 2020… how do you even fit that into a paragraph? Through the decades the rise in Black Artist-Activists have turned on the spotlight for the racist acts that many turn a blind eye to. Be it the microaggression at stores, deep rooted systematic racism, or the blatant racist brutality, Black musicians are writing it into their music. On June 18, 2020, H.E.R. released a song titled, “I Can’t Breathe”, in response to the multiple police killings of unarmed Black people.
“That kind of uncomfortable conversation
Is too hard for your trust-fund pockets to swallow
To swallow the strange fruit hanging from my family tree
Because of your audacity
To say all men are created equal in the eyes of God
But disparage a man based on the color of his skin
Do not say you do not see color
When you see us, see us
We can't breathe”
- Last verse of “I Can’t Breathe” by H.E.R. (2020)
Lines that we can’t just say “Oh I don’t know what she’s talking about,” H.E.R. lays down the truth, plain and simple. People are dying, and suddenly some are just turning a blind eye. No. Listen to her words. In the last verse of the song (reference excerpt above), H.E.R. mentions the “strange fruit hanging from my family tree.” This is a clear reference to Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, but the context around that line points to those who go deaf when racism becomes a topic. Over 80 years, and some still refuse to listen to their words.
Black artists are telling us their stories. Their pain and emotions are not for our enjoyment, it is to listen to and act upon. The time of silence never was, as they have been singing the lines in front of everyone for years. It was the audience who were not listening.
by Kyle Morrow - February 24, 2021
Posted via Pitch & Tonic