Inspiring In The Name
Rage Against The Machine are a four-piece rap metal band founded in 1991 in California.
Well known for their anti-authoritarian anthem Killing In The Name, written about the use of religion in everyday politics, Zach de la Rocha and his crew have always interested me with their use of politics in music.
The main sentence sung throughout the song, "f**k you I won't do what you tell me" and the song as a whole has adorned many a wall in many a city and become perhaps one of the most well known songs in rock. Rage are known for their music first, lyrics second.
Most politics in music is set down to punk rock. It started off back in the first wave with bands like The Clash. Not necessarily a band thing, but it's quite inaccessible for most listeners.
Some bands that sing about socio-politico issues usually have a radical background in their choice of politics to an extreme such as being overly controversial on purpose (anyone remember Leftover Crack dedicating one of their albums to the Columbine killers?) and highly alienating.
Heads up to anarcho-punk for doing this; I'm a punk rock fan but I can't stand some of the more hardcore bands like Millions Of Dead Cops, DOA, Conflict and Nausea.
This is where bands like Rage Against The Machine step in. Other bands such as Sublime with their song April 26th 1992 and Against Me! have made politics in music highly accessible, and not just sticking to the various stereotypes and clich?s associated with it, but pushing it forwards to a new audience.
Consistent figures include Jello Biafra who first appeared in the Dead Kennedys, and Henry Rollins, a spoken word artist not to mention the former lead man of Black Flag who takes to the mic by himself to raise important political issues that need to be addressed. Both have spoken about Mumia Abu Jamal, the West Memphis Three and T.W.O.T: The War On Terror- that one always cracks me up.
RATM are well known for their hard-hitting combination that includes such influences as early funk musicians and original rap artists like Cypress Hill and Black Sabbath, but their outspoken views are well known.
Michael Moore, the author of Dude, Where's My Country? and director of Sicko, a film about the US Health System, is perhaps one of the best known leftist authors and public figures in America. He and RATM took to Wall Street outside the US Stock Exchange for the video shoot of Sleep Now In The Fire. This was a day when Wall Street announced record profits... and record lay-offs.
They fervently argued that "Rage Against The Machine will not play Wall Street". Yet, alas, they did, and closed the Stock Exchange in the process, but no money was harmed. A mock version of a programme closely related to the US take on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? plays throughout the video, with contestants answering questions like "How many people live on less than $1 a day?" and "How many Americans have healthcare?".
A logo of a red star on a black background is RATM's logo, taken from the original flag of the Zapatatista Army Of National Liberation who de la Rocha has given a platform to in order to introduce them to a wider audience. Voice Of The Voiceless and People Of The Sun is written about them.
Chipias is a province in Mexico, home to an overwhelmingly large majority of native Indians to the region, one of the poorest in Mexico, and has been struggling for autonomy from the main Mexican State. Their ideas combine libertarian Marxist, libertarian socialism, libertarian municipalism, native Mayan thought, and are somewhat of a post-modern revolution. They abstain from using weapons in conflict.
They use the 'net to publish all of their statement, an armed revolutionary group without any weapons following complete grass roots, comprised of indigenous Mexican Indians, most of them farmers. Zach de la Rocha is of hispanic descent himself, his father being one of the artists from Los Fours, a Chicano art group. A sign upon entering the Chiapas region of Mexico reads:
'You are in Zapatista rebel territory. Here the people give the orders and the government obeys.'
At the National Republican Convention as recently as 2008, RATM played at the Target Centre, but upon arriving were told to turn away by Police. Tom Morello, the guitarist of the band and also The Nightwatchmen pointed out that earlier bands that had played like Anti-Flag didn't need a permit to play, and the police didn't stop them from playing.
This raises a question, were they afraid of Rage Against The Machine and their music? Is there lyrical content that controversial? Were they afraid of the music and the effect it would have on the people? Four blokes with some instruments and some rhyming rap?
If this had happened in a place such as Pakistan or even China, there would be a public outcry all over the world for the police's treatment. They got on stage and played to thousands of people, a spontaneous demonstration occurred and 102 people were arrested for rioting.
Throughout their existence, Rage Against The Machine have been doing things like this. They're highly critical of US foreign policy and have been widely outspoken for their views on the (illegal, may I add, according to UN law) invasion of Iraq. They've burnt American flags on-stage, and between songs the band members talk of the causes they support, from the Peruvian guerilla movement, they've upset the men on Saturday Night Live for something as small as hanging the US flag upside down.
Tom Morello has been interviewed numerous times in leftist newspapers, even being on the front page of the socialist British newspaper, The Morning Star.
No strangers to controversy, many have poked fun and claimed them hypocritical for their signing to Sony Records. But this raises another question: is selling out to reach a wider audience bad? Anti Flag did that and they were disowned by most of their old fans; the same goes for Green Day.
Would Noam Chomsky object to his books being sold in Borders? How about Michael Parenti? I don't think so. These men aren't preaching to the converted, but they're educating people through their books and their spoken word CDs, it's good that you can buy such different products in a place that serves Starbucks.
Radio Free Los Angeles was vehicle in protest against the re-election of Clinton which saw one of the lowest voter turnouts in American History. People popped up on the radio like Chomsky, Mumia Abu Jamal and Moore cut up with music from the band and the artist Flea from funk-rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Cypress Hill.
This two-hour segment was widely promoted throughout the US and available on fifty radio stations. It provided a wake-up call against the US Government; a political and musical gathering point for people who felt disaffected by the government who is more interested in corporate means rather than helping their people.
Rage Against The Machine provide a different perspective on a world that we live, a perspective that we need. A powerful voice in a sea of generic bands, unafraid to bring up sensitive issues and criticise both the US Government and the UK Government for their war crimes abroad.
We live in a world where we're encouraged to be a consumer, where we're subjected to more than 2000 advertisements a day and where an unhealthy lifestyle is actively promoted through the ready availability of fast food products. A world where corporations withdraw their jobs here and move them abroad, textile industries employing foreign workers for as little as 3p an hour for their work for maximum profit back here in the UK.
Companies encourage children to buy their products for 'lifetime loyalty' from the consumer, such as Ronald McDonald. Soft drink companies like Coca Cola are said to have privatised Indian water depriving thousands of people in an already unstable region, and allegedly hire paramilitary mercenaries to assassinate the leaders of unions.
A county city delegation, including some city officials, did some investigating of their own and found:
'To date, there have been a total of 179 major human rights violations of Coca-Cola's workers, including nine murders. Family members of union activists have been abducted and tortured. Union members have been fired for attending union meetings. The company has pressured workers to resign their union membership and contractual rights, and fired workers who refused to do so'.
Most troubling to the delegation were the persistent allegations that paramilitary violence against workers was done with the knowledge of and likely under the direction of company managers. It is argued that the physical access that paramilitaries have had to Coca-Cola bottling plants is impossible without company knowledge and / or tacit approval.
In a world where things like this happen but we give more air time to figures like Paris Hilton and the break-up of Peter Andre and Katie Price, it's liberating to hear bands like Rage Against The Machine.
It's liberating that such a band are a vehicle for social and political change, that they're so popular and so many kids my age, just like me are thinking "Hey, this isn't right. . ." and becoming interested in politics. Liberating, and utterly inspiring.
