Politics with soul
Radical music can be a powerful force for change. Adam Ma’anit explores the world of political music.

Rock star kidnap
Polyp dreams of a show which asks the questions YOU want answered.

Even our enemies deserve music
Jeff Chang takes heart from a new generation of political musicians.

No compromise
A tribute to Nina Simone.

SOUND facts

Pariah beats
Julian Silverman explains how Dalit communities in India use music to subvert the caste system.

Music rebels
Political music pioneers Dmitri Shostakovich, Remitti, Víctor Jara, Cui Jian, Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, Mercedes Sosa and Miriam Makeba.

Culture bandit
Music has always played an important role in Zimbabwe’s popular uprisings. Adam Ma’anit meets Thomas Mapfumo – one of the country’s most celebrated music agitators.

Songwriter, musicmaker, storyteller, freak
Folksinger Ani DiFranco is undermining corporate patriarchy.

Acting in concert
Sound advice for action, inspiration and organization.

Elvis Costello once said: ‘Writing about music is like dancing about architecture: it’s really a stupid thing to want to do.’ With that in mind, we are hoping to mitigate some of our folly by including a free CD. Certainly not the most original idea we’ve ever come up with, but nonetheless a first for the NI in all these 30 years we’ve been raging against the machine.

But taking Elvis’s point, it probably helps to have something to listen to when reading this magazine. So before you read on, pop the included disc into a CD player and turn it up so the neighbours can hear it too. They won’t mind, honest!

Be warned though. Since it’s an anti-war compilation, it may not play well on equipment manufactured by companies with arms-trade links. If you own one of those (Philips, Hitachi, etc) try to play it anyway: maybe one of the songs will penetrate the corporate fog and inspire them to disinvest. Who said music couldn’t change the world?

Bono did actually. The lead singer for Irish rock band U2 said recently that he had given up on the power of music to change the world and decided to go about trying to change it the old-fashioned way: by lobbying those in power. It’s entirely possible that he’s right. Then again…
Nah!

Adam Ma'anit
for the New Internationalist
Co-operative
adamm@newint.org

Special thanks to Mudge and Kelly from Peace Not War for producing the CD for us and for their contribution to the global peace movement.