Tag Archives: black lives matter

News

Song Of The Day: Nouvelle Vague By Wake Island

Leave a comment

Detroit techno and French pop along with Arabic music influences. Mix that with themes of a Lebanese revolution, COVID-19, BLM, the death of Arab LGBT+ rights activist Sarah Hegazy, and much more and you have Nouvelle Vague by Wake Island.

The electronic duo has now released the song twice, once in French and another time in English. Their full length LP is due to drop on April 30th, 2021, and with that album, the duo explores identity and transformation through their immigrant perspective. The album features songs in English, French and Arabic and is “a tribute to the Arab community who are often faced with no other choice but to leave their homes in search of peace and freedom.”

“…we wanted to show the avalanche of events that happened to us during the year from the Lebanese revolution to the Beirut explosion, the never-ending pandemic, Black lives matter, the death of Sarah Hegazy, the dismantling of the music industry and more. All these events affected deeply us on a personal and professional level. That said, 2020 was also a year where we found love, explored new artistic avenues, opened a new studio, found new sources of inspiration and learned how to improve our lives. We felt a profound shift in our society, a rise of empathy, a curiosity about this “other” that we thought so different, but who turned out to be just like us.”

Wake Island is the duo Philippe Manasseh and Nadim Maghzal

✊ ✊ ✊ ✊

News

New Collective Of Musicians And Activists Created In Response To Police Brutality At Peaceful Protests

Leave a comment

What started in the UK has now grown into a global movement with participants and teams in the US, Brazil, Holland, Germany, Austria, and Belgium. The people behind the newly founded Black Music Movement decided they needed to use their voices as artists and respond to the brutality too often shown at peaceful protests.

“Whilst we are involved in protests, we have also set up community projects, we support artists to create material, we are working with schools & prisons and we are preparing a tour. We bring music to protests, but also bring protests to music, we use our art to educate and to strengthen and uplift communities, and we also aim to inspire and slowly change culture itself.”

Shouts spoke with organisers Juke and Phoenix who told me that while completing the process of becoming a non-profit organisation they are designing how the project can be a platform for activists and artists alike as well as an advocate for “those who have not received a fair shot at success in the creative industries due to their complexion, gender, sexuality or other forms of discrimination”.

The video below shows imagery of the organisation’s very first protest. Juke and Phoenix explained to me how important it is for the collective to “bring music to protests, but also bring protests to music”. To impact and change the culture itself is no small task which the organisers of Black Music Movement are fully aware of. That knowledge does not hinder their objectives though and the organisation is constantly welcoming new artists and activists to participate.

Check out the project’s Instagram page until their webpage is up and running.

✊ ✊ ✊ ✊

Interview

Exclusive Premiere: Debut Music Video From Jamie Holmes

Leave a comment

Some musicians make a song or two, consciously in protest, and the rest of their catalog is often something else. Others perhaps get into using their voice responsibly at some point during their career. As soon as young Jamie Holmes was in primary school, he learned about Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind” which inspired him to dive further into protest music. Later his learning path led to other legendary protest musicians such as Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. The latter he was fortunate enough to meet when he was in high school.

“…in high school, my guitar teacher was Jim Kirkpatrick. He managed to go on tour around America I think with Thea Gilmore, who was supporting Baez! Well, Jim knew how much I adored Joan Baez – I’d listen to her music for hours – so he contacted her manager and asked if I could go backstage! The show was great. Her voice is incredible, and it is the same today (if not better) than when she was still in her 20s. When I went backstage I was super nervous and star-struck, but we had a chat about my own music and what I wanted to do – it was great, and she inspired my guitar playing to become more finger-picked rather than with a plectrum – something you can hear on ‘Green Revolution'”.

The self-declared “proud socialist” told me he wants to make a difference in the world. His debut album focuses on the future, climate change, the Black Lives Matter movement, police brutality, and the strange year of 2020. The first single off the album has already gotten airplay on BBC radio and it will drop on all streaming services on the 22nd of January. The music video, which features a time-lapse recording of Jamie himself painting, can be viewed exclusively below.

EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE
Green Revolution by Jamie Holmes

Check out Jamie’s webpage for all updates on the upcoming debut album and his social media for more info: Instagram – YouTube

✊ ✊ ✊ ✊