A lot of angry, anti-establishment, anti-racist records felt like they shot at me to wake up
Dead Prez filled in the blanks, especially on Let’s Get Free’s prologue track. ‘Wolves’ features a visceral speech by Uhuru Movement’s chairman Omali Yeshitela 
Read this dead prez was right about everything | AFROPUNK
Which track felt like a big political awakening for you?
Not one track in particular but Fugazi filled a massive gap vacated by my dad leaving when I was 14. Their ethos and business model were a guiding force in how my own morality and politics were formed. Early teens would have been a supremely formative period anyway but I could have easily fallen into a cycle of nihilism and self pity, Fugazi taught me that good people existed and could continue to exist even in the face of overwhelming odds.
If I’m picking one song : Cashout. The Argument is peak fugazi and this song is typical of their ability to deliver a powerful message with nuance and beauty and without resorting to sloganeering
Might be a DiS cliche but 12 year old me was really energised by the anger and vitriol Oberst had here over the Iraq war.
The cowboy presidents
So loud behind the bullhorn, so proud they can’t admit
When they’ve made a mistake
Obviously this one
Courtesy of hearing it on the Peel show
When I first discovered ‘Strange Fruit’ I must have played it 20 times in a row.
Yeah, it had a big impact on me and got me into a whole obsession with the global history of protest music when previously I’d only really felt around the edges with contemporary stuff during the anti-apartheid protest wave
Like this
And this
Also, in primary school I wrote out all the lyrics to this in my ’rough book’ but I think I wrote ’p***ing’ so as not to swear 
I’ve spent a fair bulk of this year researching for a podcast series on the history of music, protest and social movements for the Human Rights org I work at. I have a good playlist somewhere if anyone wants me to post it?
Not sure about “woke me up” - it would be hard for anyone remotely conscious not to be aware of these issues already, but the genuine emotion in it hits hard in a way that shouty political punk stuff (not to be sniffed at btw) doesn’t.
Think we might be similar age
Interesting because I would have never have thought of them if you hadn’t mentioned them but the Nelson Mandela and Sun City tracks definitely were part of being politically engaged from a young age. I think I was aware and engaged on those issues anyway (and in other issues like nuclear power, miners strikes etc) but they definitely amplified those things so that you weren’t just a weirdo if you talked about these things with your friends.
absolutely, they provided a super important function
Peter Gabriel’s Biko was a big one too, there’s an amazing video of him playing this live on one of the Amnesty tour dates in 1988 but it seems to have been removed from yt
btw, I have this book & I highly recommend it to everyone
Probably quite a few Dylan tracks opened my eyes, Hattie Carroll, Oxford Town and the like as I’d go on to read about the real life stuff behind them. Always particularly remember being slightly obsessed with the story about Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and the injustice around it. Tune as well.
Uncool answer but U2s Sunday Bloody Sunday I’m sure was part of me looking past the standard BBC reporting on the troubles
I think film was probably more of an influence on my political engagement at a young age though tbh.
A lot of songs by the Dead Kennedys. I was about 13 or 14 when I first heard them, the music was electric but the lyrics hit hard. More than that, the lyrics expanded my mind, I’d never really felt like that listening to music before. Fortunately their records came with a lyric sheet in one way or another, they sound easier to decipher to me now but maybe that is my own familiarity with them now. The way they dove into on bootleg tapes, etc on Nicaragua, the way they evolved their songs to reflect current changes back then, the updating of California Uber Alles to We’ve Got A Bigger Problem Now. They just seemed like a mirror of reality in a world that appeared to be lying to me.
Right Guard will not help you here…
Yeah there’s a good few Dylan tracks that really opened my eyes and got me reading up on various things.
‘Who Killed Davey Moore’ is one of my favourite Zimmerman protest songs.
Same here. This one comes to mind in particular
Remember my dad playing Freedom nonstop when it came out and telling me what pieces of shit Reagan and Bush were.
I was getting into music for myself, as in beyond radio music and what my parents had listened to, at age 11-12, and it was at the height of political rap metal. Body Count had replaced Cop Killer with a reworking of Freedom of Speech, RATM were massive, bands like Biohazard, and Senser seemed to be mentioned all the time in the rock zines, even bands like Clawfinger were trying to, although I’m not quite sure they thought hard enough about the first song on their debut album…
Anyway, I’m gonna answer with Downset. Their eponymous debut is 10 blunt, very angry screams against inequality, sexism, racism, police brutality and more. There are a few lyrics, which almost 3 decades later are a little questionable, but I think this album more than anything else probably opened my childish eyes to the world.
ps, I distinctly remember the first time I heard that Wolves prologue. Very powerful stuff.
I bought ‘Less Talk, More Rock’ by Propagandhi the week before my 18th birthday. In all admittance, I bought because I downloaded a few tracks off it and really dug the tunes, and this one was my favourite, and at the time I thought of the title and general ethos was more about refusing to be a ‘lad’ in the sense of someone who defined themselves by their masculinity in a very extroverted way.
Not going to give myself a pass for the 10 years that followed. I very much mistook the idea that because I wasn’t just going out to get laid every night that I was somehow excused from being a bit of a toxic guy, and I was (probably still am. I’m a Cishet guy as far as I can tell, so it’s all entrenched but at least now I’ve pretty much taken a step back from trying to insert myself into people’s lives in a way that only benefits me)
But in the last 10 years or so, I’ve started, but never been entirely able, to reject, some of the aspects of myself that I know I can’t shake off. In an ideal world, I would like to not have a nationality (I’m British) or be a man, but these are things I just can’t ignore. So I just try to remember that I am both of these things with all the privileges that come from it by default and try not to be problematic about either of them. Gonna make mistakes along the way, but I’m going to try and acknowledge them.
