So, I need you to repeat after me.
We are here!
We are here!
Women have used their music
as a form of resistance for decades.
Taking risks.
We're ashamed that the President
of the United States is Texan.
Singing the truth, even when
the world is telling you to shut up.
I think music is one
of the most powerful ways
to put a message out there.
This girl is on fire
This girl is on fire
We're walking on fire
Music has the ability
to bypass this, this brain.
Music goes straight here.
And when something says the things
that you may not be able
to articulate yourself,
it becomes part of you.
Music is more powerful now than ever,
because it's an example
where people come together.
We have an opportunity today
that a lot of women before us
paved the way to do,
and that's to be as loud and proud
as possible.
On three. One, two, three.
f*ck the supreme court!
Silence is sometimes its own protest,
but it's born of not believing
that your words matter.
And that's where protest music,
where the songs and the lyricism
becomes so important.
God put you here
because you have something to offer.
Whether they like it or not,
you owe it.
If you're passionate about something,
show up. It's important.
The silence is our enemy.
The sound is our weapon.
When everything is so desperate,
when every day
is a matter of survival,
I don't think you can help
but be involved.
State by state, with a growing
number pushing near-total bans.
We will shape and mold this country.
I will not be molded
and shaped at all anymore.
So I don't think you have a choice.
How can you be an artist
and not reflect the times?
Ok.
I shall not
I shall not be moved
I shall not
I shall not be moved
Like a tree
Planted by the water
I shall not be moved
Music itself is a great way
to broach this topic
of, "what is the story we've
been told about America?",
in a way that people can hear.
When I first started thinking
about doing music as a career,
I didn't start out thinking,
"I'm going to be an activist."
I went to school for classical music
and learned how to be a soprano,
and I felt a little hollow.
I was like, "What am I doing?"
"What am I doing in this that
a million other Sopranos can't do?"
So I went back home
to North Carolina,
and then I started to hear the banjo.
The big discovery
which set me off on this thing
of how these... activism, history
and music kind of combine,
was finding out
that the banjo was invented
by people of the African diaspora.
And I was like, "What?"
That was the moment
where I was like,
"If I don't know this massive thing,
what else don't I know?"
I'm of a long line of women
who starts somewhere there.
I'm sitting here
having had a pretty darn good life,
and what do I owe my ancestors?
What do I owe the women
who came before me?
I think we have a responsibility.
We can't write the laws,
but maybe we can inspire
the people who do.
Not the church, not the state,
women must decide their fate!
A sweeping,
deeply consequential decision
from the Nation's highest court,
ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.
I don't think anyone
thought that could happen.
I don't think we still
have fully processed
that it can happen
and that it's happening.
This is the summer of rage.
And we will fight.
I do think the reason
we have so many big artists
being willing
to talk about reproductive rights
was because it was
such a shocking moment.
Now y'all know it wouldn't be me
if I ain't take a second
to call out these stupid a*s men.
I need everybody in the audience
right now
to say, "My body,
my m*therf*cking choice!"
My body, my m*therf*cking choice!
One more time!
My body, my m*therf*cking choice!
My body, my m*therf*cking choice!
Drop that sh*t, J Bone.
I am so sick and tired
of old men.
It's been really heartening
to see a lot of Gen Z pop stars
be so outspoken...
So many women and so many girls
are going to die because of this.
...against this really regressive
wave of patriarchy.
It's never giving a man
policing my body!
It's just crazy to me.
I can't imagine anyone
making a decision for a woman
that's not her.
It's like we've gone back in time.
I don't think that's something
I can sit back and just go,
"Oh, well. Hmm.
I won't say anything."
I had to find my ways
to be a part of it,
while not having people down
my throat saying, "What do you know?"
And it's like, actually, I'm a woman.
I know a lot more than you think.
Selena!
I think I started to recognize
my platform meant something
when I was around 16.
I had a single mother come up to me,
they were Latin,
and she was in tears saying,
"Thank you so much for being someone
my daughter can look up to,
that looks like her."
That kind of put a little bit
of responsibility on me.
And then in 2020, I felt like
I should get politically involved.
It was around election year,
and I remember
I wanted to give my platform
to other people.
And then,
I ended up interviewing Stacey.
- Stacey.
- Hello.
I instantly felt like
she was a friend for life,
and I believe that we, you know,
believe in the same things.
Please grab some friends
and vote early.
Go to Staceyabrams.com
to learn more.
If there's an election on the ballot
where you live,
make sure you show up at the polls.
Your voices matter.
My mission, my work is to amplify
voices that are marginalized,
and empower people
to organize around their beliefs.
Music can do the same thing.
The fights that we're in,
they can be overwhelming
and we lose the thread.
Music lets us find it again.
If we work,
if we fight, if we resist,
we can have more.
And this music reminds women
that we have been here before,
we have pushed through
and we will do so again.
Free our sisters, free ourselves!
The status quo is being challenged
by the women's liberation movement.
Today, it's still a man's world
and just look at it.
Women were paid an average
of 59 cents
for every dollar a man earned.
In some states, women cannot
own property in their own name.
Most women are raised
to believe their true role
is that of wife and mother.
But some women
are questioning whether this is so.
Loretta Lynn was this
well-loved popular musician.
She had won multiple awards,
had number one hits.
I mean, at the time,
country music was largely known
to be a little more conservative.
She released a song
praising the birth control pill.
This was a really
scandalous thing to do.
There's going to be
some changes made
Right here on nursery hill
You set this chicken your last time
'Cause now I've got the pill
It was this anthem
of a woman taking control
not only of her body,
but her future too.
And the song started getting banned
from country radio.
What about women, Loretta?
Have they said, "Boy, it's about time
somebody said something"?
The women are taking the pill.
I'd say 90 percent of the women.
On radio stations, on television,
"The Pill" was a huge hit.
It's still shocking to me
that she was able to do that.
With that one song,
Loretta just blew up what was
acceptable for women to sing about.
And she did it so unapologetically
that she opened doors
for other women in music.
Thank you.
Liberation is here.
No area of male dominated
American culture is spared.
Women wanted
to equally participate in society.
I'm not going to sit quietly
any longer!
And a big part of that meant
changing what a woman's role was,
and how she was perceived.
A coalition of Liberation groups
invaded the offices
of The Ladies Home Journal.
We demand that the magazine
cease publishing advertisements
that degrade women.
Here's one! Here's one!
"Made for a woman's extra feelings.
Secret deodorant."
I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much
to go back and pretend
Women are told so much,
and it gets thrown at them
in the form of advertising,
and in just the general attitudes
of family and friends and society.
In general, "You are weak,
you are inferior."
And what are the main things
that you want? Equality?
Probably the basic
underlying things.
Just a general change of attitude
toward women, in general,
and on the part of women themselves.
Well, your song, "I Am Woman,"
it suggests a toughness,
almost an aggressiveness.
- "I am strong, I am..."
- It's a positive statement, ok?
Positive.
- I am strong
- Strong
- I am invincible
- Invincible
I am woman
Songs like "I Am Woman" resonate
because they're simply celebrating
being female.
And it's this moment
where she's inviting other women
to own their power.
This idea gets carried forward into
the next generation of women artists,
who are bigger and bolder
about saying who they are
and what they want.
The music industry
is designed to be reductive,
and so women have to work really
hard to kind of break out of that.
And part of that is eagerness
to kind of express that women
have contained multitudes.
It took some effort and some
revolution and radical thinking
to present this reality or truth
that we are not one thing,
and we're not even two things,
we're a million things.
I am very meticulous
about my self-expression and my art.
I go to great lengths
to make sure that everything
turns out pure for me.
I was living in New York.
This is in the '80s.
And Valerie Simpson
and Nick Ashford said,
"We're gonna write some songs
for you." They did.
I think the first song they wrote
for me was "I'm Every Woman."
I'm every woman
It's all in me
Anything you want done, baby
I'll do it naturally
When I... I listen to the lyrics.
I said, "Oh dear."
I was so self-conscious and sh*t,
and I was like,
"I'm not every woman."
"How dare I say
I'm every freaking woman? I'm not!"
I felt uncomfortable for many,
many years singing that song,
but I had a feeling that it was
something bigger than me.
Chaka Khan, she set the scene.
She was the blueprint.
And you saw that confidence,
not just in the music,
but in the performances
from that era.
So, like Tina Turner
with "You Better Be Good to Me."
Oh, you better be good to me
Diana Ross, "I'm Coming Out."
I'm coming out
I want the world...
And Donna Summer, she really
moved the needle with videos like,
"She Works Hard For the Money."
She works hard for the money
so you better treat her right
I really believe
that music is the purest form
of identity expression that exists.
And these self-ownership anthems
were celebrating
what had been won by women,
while also demanding so much more.
A lot of that fight for more
was happening in the workplace.
You tumble out of bed
and you stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
and yawn and stretch
And try to come to life
Dolly wrote "9 to 5" as a theme song
for a movie by the same name,
which was this satire
about these three secretaries
who plotted revenge
on their super sexist boss.
She's gonna try to rope this.
She's already got him down!
If I wasn't in the scene,
I was there every day.
And I would just be like...
'Cause I couldn't
get a guitar out on the set.
So I would just kind of...
You got to have acrylic nails
to make that real percussive sound.
But I just... I thought it
sounded like a typewriter.
- Can you hear that?
- Yeah.
Working 9 to 5
What a way to make a living
Working 9 to 5
What a way to make a living
Barely gettin' by
It's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind...
With "9 to 5", what Dolly did
was take a very real subject
and make it light
and approachable and fun.
Which is kind of how she approached
a lot of things.
I'd like to know.
Do you sing in the shower?
Do I sing in the shower?
No, but I don't wash on stage either.
Dolly Parton is herself
an act of revolution.
I don't want to meet
a lot of famous people.
I'm not interested.
She's one I would want to meet.
Just to say, "Good God, you go."
The way that she came from nothing,
and the way that she has written
so many incredible songs.
And if you don't love me, leave me
And don't let it trouble your mind
"Don't Let It Trouble Your Mind."
When I'm out the door,
don't let it trouble your mind.
I'm going to be fine.
She stood up for herself.
And she looks the way she looks
'cause that's the way
she wants to look,
and she's very clear about that.
I enjoy the big hair
and the gaudy clothes.
And it's a costume.
It's part of what people
have come to know me as.
And I don't like to be ordinary.
I don't like to be stylish.
It's far too easy to be stylish.
I just loved her as a businesswoman.
She had big boobs.
Everybody talked about it.
They looked down on her for it,
and she was just like,
"This is me,
and I'm going to love myself."
I am sure of myself as a person.
I'm sure of my talent.
I like the kind of person that I am.
Dolly had plenty of reason
to be sure of herself and her talent.
She was part of a league
of female musicians
that were breaking new ground
and shattering expectations
left and right.
My whole life, I've only done
the stuff that I admired,
and if I admired it,
I tried to emulate it.
And I admired Dolly Parton
and I admired Emmylou Harris
tremendously.
One day, Emmy
called me up and said,
"Dolly Parton's at my house,
come over."
It was a 45 minute drive,
but I got there in about 20.
We did a Carter song,
"Bury Me Beneath a Willow",
and we went, "Wow."
So bury me beneath the willow
Under the weeping willow tree
I jam with other singers
all the time, you know.
But this sounded different.
If you're singing a song,
or listening to a song,
and you suddenly have a feeling
that you didn't realize you had,
that's when music is doing its job.
And it was very musically satisfying
to sing with those two girls.
The trio was this powerhouse
supergroup of women
who had really taken control
over their music and careers.
And Linda Ronstadt was not someone
who was going to be defined
by the conventions of the industry.
I'm going back someday
Come what may to Blue Bayou
I remember hearing "Blue Bayou."
I think I was probably 17.
My mom told me
that I looked like Linda Ronstadt,
and she goes,
"You should listen to her music."
She has an incredible voice,
like, "You're No Good."
You're no good
you're no good, you're no good
Baby, you're no good
Completely fell in love.
Those songs to me are so...
They're like the Taylor Swift
of that time, you know?
That powerful, like,
"Oh, yes, I deserve the best,
and I know exactly
where I want to stand and who I am."
And that's vulnerability
and strength,
and I think
that every girl can relate.
"When Will I be Loved?",
it's kind of an upbeat song,
but it makes me emotional.
When will I be loved?
She was powerful.
She was a huge part of music.
She was with the Stones,
Dolly Parton,
and she was the first woman
to headline full arena tours.
She was her own trailblazer,
and she knew deep down
that it was important for her
to get in touch with her roots
and to do something that was daring.
I think everybody did not
want her doing a Spanish album.
No ests comprometido
Canciones De Mi Padre
was a collection of songs
from Northern Mexico.
And when you decided
this would be an album,
what was the response
of your label or your agent?
Horror and disgust.
But I thought, I have sold
enough records for them.
I want to do something
I wanted to do.
I always did what I wanted to do
anyway. For better or worse.
She ended up winning a Grammy.
And the album is still the biggest
selling non-English language record
in American history.
Women like Linda Ronstadt,
who pushed to embody their heritage,
set the stage for non-English
speaking artists of today.
There is a direct line
to Gloria Estefan,
Selena Cantina, J. Lo,
and full circle with artists
like Rosalia and Karol G today,
who are dominating the charts
without making albums in English.
There's a lot to be said about women
taking what's considered normal
and turning it on its head.
When did you decide
to be larger than life?
When did I decide to be myself,
really?
I think that's what it comes down to.
You have to fearlessly
go into this madness,
and you have to find your walk.
And you stick to it.
If you stick to it
and are true to that and yourself...
I can't think of much else
that really matters.
The 90s are going to make the '60s
look like the '50s.
It was awesome to be a little girl
in the '90s,
in a time when so many
powerful women were coming up.
We had the first female
Attorney General,
Secretary of State,
and the number of women
in the Senate
had gone from two to twelve.
I can be anything I want to be.
It's the '90s.
Women were given these platforms
that they may not have had before.
But, you know, at the same time
you would see Girls Gone Wild
ads on late at night.
We saw this dichotomy
in popular culture,
and outright hostility
in the media towards women.
Monica also said
that President Clinton
would often compliment her
on her figure.
If you didn't think this guy
was the biggest liar before...
The last time I saw you, were you
this weight or different weight?
I was skinnier then.
- What's your name?
- Heather.
Woah, buddy. Heather,
she's got a fresh little crumpet.
Are you guys ready
for your foxy boxers?
If I don't get you
to show your breasts,
I will get fired.
Bands like Bikini k*ll
were not here for that.
This is for all those f*ck!
Well, it was really hard in the '90s
to be a woman in a feminist band.
There were always feminists in punk.
Always. From the very beginning.
But it had changed.
Punk started as the soundtrack
to class warfare,
and then it became about
guys who were mad their mom
wouldn't make them a sandwich.
I go, "Mom, just give me a Pepsi
Please, all I want is a Pepsi
And she wouldn't give it to me
As someone who was going to shows,
putting on shows,
very involved in the punk community,
I'm like, seriously?
I worked at a domestic violence
r*pe relief crisis center
when I was from 19 to about 24,
and that really informed
the way I wrote lyrics
and what I wrote about.
I was so full of all of this crisis
and rage and pain,
and, like, how could I process that
without music?
Daddy comes into my room at night
He's got more than talking
on his mind
Girls always get pushed to the back,
and it's all this, like, sweaty boy,
long hair, beer belly thing
in the front.
Like, girls need to reclaim the scene
for themselves, I think.
It did feel radical
and it did feel really dangerous.
Men were standing up and yelling,
"Shut up and play the song!
Take it off!"
Don't look at me! No! No!
Get out of here! Go away!
Go on! Get out! Out!
We really needed
to create community,
so we started getting names of girls
and women who came to our shows,
and then inviting them
to come to our next gig.
Eventually, me and my friend
Alison Wolfe from Bratmobile,
we were like, we're going to
have a meeting with girl punks.
But everyone had horror stories.
It started feeling like, "You know
what people want? They want support."
People started skill sharing.
"Do you want to start a band?"
"Do you want to start a press where
we put out a bunch of fan zines?"
Like, "What do you want to do?"
Eventually, the meetings
became known as Riot Girl meetings.
Riot Girl was not just
a genre of music.
It was a movement.
If you're a r*cist,
h*m*, sexist,
or just a plain f*cking as*h*le,
you will be asked to leave.
All girls to the front.
I'm not kidding.
All girls are welcome to the front!
All boys, be cool,
for once in your lives.
Go back. Back. Back.
I started saying,
"girls to the front" at shows,
because why were we printing up
lyric sheets with our words on them
to hand them out to dudes?
That's not who I made them for.
So I needed them to see Kathy's hands
on the bass and how easy it was.
How are they gonna start bands
if they're stuck in the back
where they can't even see?
We wanted to have
that physical connection,
because connection is joy.
Their movement
was about raising up women,
and "Rebel Girl" is this rallying cry
for what this movement is.
The girl thinks she's the queen
of the neighborhood
She's got the hottest trike in town
When I wrote "Rebel Girl,"
I was really working with
what it was like when I was a kid,
before I sort of got tamped down
and made to feel less than.
I remember watching my sister
ride around on her big wheel,
and I just thought
she was the coolest
and all the girls I had crushes on
in junior high in high school.
I was just thinking about
all these amazing women I knew,
and it just sort of came out.
Rebel girl
Rebel girl
This whole movement set the tone
for what would come.
Rebel Girl
Rebel Girl
I really like you
I really wanna be your best friend
Be my rebel girl
In the '90s, there was this really
angry, subversive, forceful thing
happening with punk rock.
At the same time, there were
these parallel waves of feminism
happening in other genres,
and this was especially notable
in women's hip-hop.
In the '90s, you kind of saw
a lot of gangsta rap
being more in the forefront,
and women in gangsta rap
were not multi-dimensional figures.
You had songs like,
"A b*tch Is a b*tch."
Now the title "b*tch"
don't apply to all women
But all women
have a little b*tch in 'em
During my teenage years, I was
kind of like bopping along to it,
kind of like,
"This is not quite right."
There had to be, at some point,
women breaking through
and challenging the system.
That's where we get women
like MC Lyte, Queen Latifah,
Salt-N-Pepa, sort of pushing back
against this dominant archetype.
- Who you're calling a b*tch?
- Here we go, U-N-I-T-Y
- You gotta let them know
- U-N-I-T-Y
Here we go, come on
I was very lucky that I had friends
who turned me on
to lots of different kinds of music.
And when I heard U-N-I-T-Y,
I was like, this is different.
To be talking about street harassment
in a song that's on the radio
that everyone's listening to
was absolutely out of control.
I walk past these dudes
when they passed me
One of em' felt my booty
he was nasty
She put on paper an experience
that women could relate to,
and that hadn't been done
in that way before, on a rap song.
It opens the lane
for this expression of anti.
You know, I think a great way
to spread a message
is for it to come across
as authentic.
But it's kind of where
the authenticity
feels shocking in a way
when we see it.
With the '90s, what we saw
was this reclamation of sex
with artists like Lil Kim
and Foxy Brown and Missy Elliott.
You got sex appeal
I'ma keep it real
I didn't have a deal
I'd still be worth a mill'
They were showing that women,
and particularly, you know,
Black women, can own sexuality.
There's some subversion at play.
And subversion actually is the word
that I would most apply
to artists like Salt-N-Pepa,
who flipped the script
a lot of times.
Let's talk about sex, baby
Let's talk about you and me
There's no way that musicians can,
like, sneak a message in,
and "Let's Talk About Sex"
is the opposite.
"I won't get got, I'm on the pill"
Until the sores spores
and stuff pour down your drawers
He gave it to you
and now it's all yours
I think that we need to really think
about how artists
are not just building
their own careers,
but really building out culture.
It's not just about making the music.
It's about engaging with the
community that the music is about.
We come in contact with a lot of
people that we became close with,
as far as A*DS,
you know, HIV positive.
That's what really made us
open our eyes and be like, wow,
you know,
this can happen to anybody.
As rap artists,
we have a responsibility
to the teenagers that listen to us,
to let them know
it can happen to you too.
Th early Hip Hop movement
was really rooted in poor
Black and Brown communities,
when all of these folks that are
talking about really important things
that are also in schools.
They're singing verses
that young people needed to hear.
Girls, you know you better
Being a kid, I fell asleep
to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
And I loved that album.
Her voice was so powerful,
and just how she observed the world.
That album is structured
through the lens of a classroom.
She's using that framing
as a way to talk about the importance
of talking to kids
about the ideas on the album.
She's talking about motherhood,
she's talking about career,
she's talking about
an extremely emotional breakup.
But Miss Hill
was sort of saying to women,
think twice, be careful,
protect yourself.
Her album was very much
speaking about culture,
and the experience of a woman,
as a Black woman,
and I feel like it's not really easy
to put into words
what that does for you.
But the representation
was everything.
Since Miseducation,
everybody's been begging you
to come on Lauryn,
give us something!
There's a lot that could force
an individual to compromise,
and to me, for me to make music,
it doesn't really make sense
for me to make music
if I can't make something
that has a purpose.
Lauryn is notorious, obviously,
because she's sort of retreated
from the spotlight.
The cost had been really high,
like this is the toll
of this business.
I feel really moved
by her unwillingness to compromise.
I'm still impressed by it.
It's not always the exact
same contour of fight,
but there's always something more
to be done.
We have a common bond
that should help us transcend
the next hard thing we do.
No justice, no peace!
There are certain moments of rupture,
right, that are important.
Demonstrations erupting today
in the name of George Floyd.
Protestors flooding the streets
and calling for justice.
Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died
after being cuffed and pinned
to the ground by an officer's knee.
Stop k*lling Black people!
Activism, a lot of times is just like
what's going on in your community
that kind of forces you to activate.
The shock and horror
of what happened in 2020,
was so much for everyone to bear.
A moment that big wakes people up.
It means you have to be present,
you have to be listening,
you have to be learning,
and you have to be speaking about it.
Shut it down!
I can't breathe!
I can't breathe!
I was in the bay area,
at my mom's house,
and I was seeing people
marching outside
and, you know,
on the news and on social media.
I had to turn it off because
you're just watching that video
over and over again,
and it's really painful.
I have this old guitar that I've had
since I was like nine years old,
and I just picked it up.
I started playing those cords
and singing that chorus.
I can't breathe
You're taking my life from me
It is a painful thing
to tell a dark story.
When a musician is vulnerable,
we have space to process our grief.
All right I'm not going to lie,
I'm going to cry.
I was teared up, I got chills.
People were telling me like,
"This made my 70-year-old dad
think differently."
People were telling me that,
and I was like, wow, that's insane.
Another man was like,
"I marched from Harlem to Brooklyn
with a bunch of people to this song."
I think when we create music,
it can be more selfish and then
it turns into something else.
I'm not thinking about millions
of people are going to hear this.
Music is a universal language,
and it allows somebody to help
get out what they're feeling.
And that's vulnerability
and strength.
You know, people talk about stress.
When you look at
what the legacy of that is,
the inheritance of that,
the ancestral bequeathing of that,
I'm living with that stress.
It's in my bones. It's in my DNA.
But singing helps to release
some of that.
When I went back home
to North Carolina,
I started reading
enslaved people's narratives.
It's an amazing experience
to sit in a library
looking at somebody's diary,
or a letter that they've written.
"Oh, I'm sorry,
it took me so long to write."
I mean, some things are universal.
"I was sick." You know, "I'm sorry
it took me so long to write you."
"The weather's been really crap."
"And the crops, you know,
they're doing ok."
"And we sold Sally last week.
And I bought a new dress."
It's like that. It's like that.
I didn't know what to do
with these emotions,
thinking about these women
and the lives that they had to lead.
So I started writing songs.
Probably my most well-known
one of these
is called
"At The Purchaser's Option."
I've got a babe
but shall I keep him?
'Twill come the day
when I'll be weeping
So I found an ad, and it was
for a young woman who was for sale.
At the end of the ad it says, "She
has with her a nine-month-old baby,
who is at the purchaser's option."
She has with her a baby,
you can buy it or not.
I thought about that young woman.
I imagine her lying on the bed,
her little nine-month-old baby
next to her.
She opens up her eyes, not knowing
how that day is going to end.
Is she going to be with
that little baby?
Do you love them the less
because you never know
if they're gonna stay with you?
Of course, you don't.
So all of these questions
go into that song.
You can take my body
you can take my bones
You can take my blood
but not my soul
So you can take my...
It's heavy. But I feel like
it's what I'm here to do.
Even as music
helps us process pain,
it also unites us in joy.
From the beginning
of the fight for civil rights,
there was always the music.
From the churches to the streets
to the nation's capital,
music has given people the strength
to keep going.
Lena. Odetta.
Mavis. Marian.
They showed us
that the more you speak out,
the more you can change the world.
But we've also learned
that the louder you are,
the more the forces of oppression
will try to silence you.
Dynamite exploded
on a Sunday morning.
k*lled four little girls
in Sunday school.
When the kids got k*lled
in that church...
...first you get depressed,
and after that, you get mad.
And when these kids got bombed,
I just sat down and wrote this song.
She saw the 16th Street
Baptist Church Bombing,
and she was fed up with it.
And she wrote "Mississippi Goddam."
Alabama's got me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about
Mississippi, g*dd*mn
She's just channeling
so much ancestral emotion, grief.
I can't stand the pressure
much longer
Somebody say a prayer
She's performing
to largely white audiences,
performing to people
who might not want to hear it.
We got several letters from Arkansas,
Mississippi, Alabama,
telling me that it was in bad taste.
And, you know,
how could I stoop to this?
They missed the whole point.
We also got a letter
from the Ku Klux Klan.
I think she saw that
all she could do was make art
and try to speak on behalf of others.
Alabama's got me so upset
And Governor Wallace
has made me lose my rest
Everybody knows about
Mississippi, g*dd*mn
That's it!
And then she's done,
and she bows, you know, gracefully.
And I love that.
That just shows everything.
She's a genius.
She was good friends
with James Baldwin
and other artists of the time.
They were part of a greater community
of artists, writers, activists
that were coming together
for a common cause, equality.
It's important to know
how much power you have,
and utilize it in ways
that will outlive you.
When I'm finished working,
as tired as I am,
when there are kids
who come backstage afterwards
who want to talk,
or who are moved to the point...
sometimes they're moved to tears,
I find the time to do so
as much as I can.
They are our future.
I never intend for my children
to look at me and be ashamed,
and say, "Mama,
why didn't you do something?"
I will have done mine.
We continue to benefit
from the stand that Nina took,
though I would imagine,
she'd still have a lot to say
if she saw the division
that's in music today.
Hope y'all feeling good!
Give it up for the Dixie Chicks!
I remember the uproar over Beyonc
at the Country Music Awards
performing with the Dixie Chicks.
Dixie Chicks got in a lot of trouble
standing up against the w*r in Iraq.
Daddy made a soldier out of me
There were a lot of sour faces
in that audience.
What she walked away with was the
impression that she wasn't welcome.
I think that people
painting country music
as this, like, white utopia,
it's pure fabrication.
For Beyonc, she grew up in Texas.
You know, this is her culture too.
Like, she's going to claim it.
Global superstar Beyonc
reveals the cover art
for her next album,
Cowboy Carter.
This ain't Texas
- Whoo
- Ain't no hold 'em
"Texas Hold 'Em", which made her
the first Black female artist
to reach the top of the Billboard's
Hot Country Songs chart.
Her Instagram reading,
"This album has been over five years
in the making."
"It was born out of an experience
that I had years ago,
where I did not feel welcomed."
Rhiannon Giddens,
her banjo is the first thing you hear
on "Texas Hold 'Em."
The "stay in your lane,"
the "that's not real country,"
that's just racism.
Americana, country, all of it comes
out of cross-cultural collaboration.
But if you don't know
that Black people
were a huge part
of that collaboration,
you get a really skewed picture
of what America is.
When I first started seeing
country music, I was scared.
I was like, there aren't really
any Black people in country music.
Then I Googled
Black female country singers
and I found a woman named
Linda Martell.
Linda Martell's first single in 1969
was a huge hit.
She performed on popular TV shows
like Hee Haw,
and at venues
like the Grand Ole Opry.
And before Beyonc,
Martell was the highest slotting
Black female singer
on the country charts.
Martell later revealed a dispiriting
story about that period of her life.
She had originally signed
with a label
called SSS International Records,
and was totally unaware that they
had decided to release her music
on their sister label
called Plantation.
Feeling rightfully misled
and disrespected, she left the label.
And when she tried
to take her music elsewhere,
Plantation threatened
to sue any company
that released a song with her.
She ended up leaving
the music industry,
and ultimately supported herself
as a school bus driver.
I think of music
as a matter of historical record
and a matter of history keeping,
and that particular example,
I think, was representative
of the state of the country.
I think her story is all too common.
That is actually more of the refrain
of women,
and especially Black women
in the music industry.
Not just they flamed out,
or they weren't good enough,
or they couldn't hack it.
It's like, actually they were
kind of set up for failure.
When I first started
going to record labels,
there was a president, he was
questioning if I was authentic.
He was questioning where I was from
and questioning who I was.
And I'm like,
"I grew up in Crawford, Texas!"
It doesn't get any countrier
than that!
And then he said, "Can you take
those songs that you're writing
and put a smile on it?"
I needed to downplay
everything that I was,
and I lost myself.
When I first saw
that bikini top on her
She's popping right out
of the south Georgia water
There is a movement that had
happened when I was first coming up,
called the Bro Country movement.
Everybody had trap beats
in their songs,
and they were all going
like this in their songs,
then going like this in their songs,
calling it country.
And then I was turning in songs
and they were like,
"You need to make sure that
that sounds more country,
because people are going to think
that you're not authentic."
I was watching myself struggle
as a Black woman,
and I sat with my husband
and I asked him,
"Why do you think country music
isn't working for me?"
And he says, "Because you're running
away from your Blackness."
"You're running away from
everything that makes you different."
He said, you know, "Country music
is three chords and the truth,
so why aren't you writing
country music from your perspective?"
I was like, "Why am I not?"
So I wrote a song called
"Black Like Me."
If you think we live
in the land of the free
You should try to be Black like me
It got a lot of hate.
People were pissed.
It was at the time a country artist
got caught saying *-word.
This is what's happening in this
genre. Like, you think I'm lying?
Like, this is what's happening.
And the things people said to me,
"Get your ghetto a*s
out of country music, effing *-word."
Oh, now
And now I'm all grown up
and nothing has changed
Yeah, it's still the same
You can't truly see change
until you start helping other artists
that are coming after you.
- Oh, God!
- Are you Mickey?
Hello.
I never thought that I would be able
to have these types of possibilities.
All because I just stood up
and said, no.
And I'm proud to be Black like me
Proud to be Black like me
The storytelling
can cut across genre,
but it carries a through line
of refusal to be crushed
by what seems to be a system that
does not care for your existence.
Tracy Chapman was one
of those fantastic storytellers.
She talks about
working class challenges
in a way that is universal,
but so specific.
Don't you know
they're talking about a revolution?
It sounds like a whisper
I wrote the song
"Talking About a Revolution"
when I was 16.
I received a scholarship
to go to boarding school,
and it was a really difficult
transition for me.
I found that people at the school
really didn't have a sense
of where the scholarship students
like myself, where we'd come from.
And they also really
didn't have much interest.
And I was really angry about that.
Poor people are gonna rise up
Get their share
As a teenager,
I discovered her music,
and for me, that was this moment
where all of the pent up
and sort of burgeoning
righteous indignation found a voice.
What was I upset about?
What could I do?
Those songs really told me these
are the things you should demand.
And today I come to you
as a young person,
as a young woman,
as a young Black woman
to ask you to use us.
Use the young people
of the United States of America
to pave a road
that will last forever.
Tracy gave words to it in such
lyrical and beautiful fashion
that I carry it with me to this day.
You got a fast car
And I wanna take it to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together
we can get somewhere
"Fast Car" is talking about
not just poverty,
but the cycles of violence
that are more relevant today.
It's a song about someone trying
to break intergenerational patterns,
and I just feel like
it's such a classic narrative,
needing to carve out an identity
for yourself.
There was something
about the small town angst
and desire to go somewhere else.
You got a fast car
Fast enough so you can fly away
That moment with her
at the Grammys,
there was something remarkable
about how they shared the stage.
Like, we saw Tracy first.
She was glowing.
And Luke's relationship to her
on stage
was of such reverence and respect.
Even the way he sings the song.
He doesn't change the pronouns.
He doesn't do the things that men
in general might do to feel like,
"I have to de-feminize the song."
Still ain't got a job
So I work in a market
as a checkout girl
I had a feeling I could be someone
The power of music
comes from its ability
to change its shape over time.
What began as a song
about urban poverty
could, four decades later,
be transformed
into a modern country anthem.
Any time a marginalized group
finds itself alone,
without power, un-listened to,
you can bet it has a song to sing.
And it's only a matter of time
until a voice emerges.
My name is Melissa Etheridge.
I am a mother and a wife
and a rock star.
When I turned 21,
I knew that Los Angeles
was where the record industry was.
This was 1982.
I had just come out
of the glorious '70s of folk rock.
The Eagles and Jackson Browne
and Fleetwood Mac.
So I traveled out to California.
I'm like, "Here I am!" You know?
And I realized
what's happening in Los Angeles
is a lot of hair
and a lot of spandex,
and there's no acoustic guitars
anymore.
As the weeks went by,
my money was running out,
and I'm like,
"What am I going to do?"
I was a l*sbian and I went
to some bars in Los Angeles,
and I met some ladies,
and one of them,
I went on a date down in Long Beach.
She took me to a club.
It was called the Executive Suite.
It used to be a steakhouse,
and the Russian mob had bought it,
and it was now a l*sbian bar.
They had a piano in the corner,
and I said,
"Hey, do you have live music?"
I auditioned, got the job.
I'm just like a movie
And it put me in an atmosphere
of the l*sbian movement of 1982.
These women were coming into the bars
that I played at,
and they were signing people up,
registering them to vote.
So, I was slowly being taught,
really about politics,
and we were in the midst
of the huge backlash.
There is so much hatred
and persecution
of g*y people in our society.
In the '80s, with HIV A*DS,
there was just rampant h*m*.
Ambulance drivers have refused
to take A*DS patients on occasion.
He asked one of the attendants,
who told them that I had A*DS.
And the person said, outright,
"I'm not touching him."
Just like that.
I am not HIV positive.
But what if I were?
I would be more afraid
of how society would treat me
for having the disease
than the actual disease itself.
Madonna was extremely vocal
during the A*DS crisis.
She turned out to take part
in a charity dance marathon
to benefit A*DS victims.
I'm really here for two reasons.
Number one is because
I really believe in A*DS Project LA.
And the second reason I'm here
is 'cause I love to dance.
When she released Like a Prayer,
the album had an insert
to inform people about HIV A*DS.
So, if you bought a Madonna record,
you were getting
an informational booklet.
And it essentially read,
"Here are some basic facts.
You should know about it."
And you bought it
whether you wanted it or not,
because it was
in your Madonna record.
And then, of course, after that
we saw that she went on
to become a huge activist.
I deal with a lot of topical issues,
family issues,
and, you know, what I think to be
a big problem in the United States,
and that's h*m*.
If you keep putting something
in somebody's face, eventually,
you know, maybe,
they can come to terms with it.
She was just, like, so in your face.
Because it's, like, you know,
her entire... her dance crew,
her makeup artists, her hairstylists,
she is flanked by q*eer people.
And she stood up for them,
which is everything.
Her boldness was part of a push
towards more visibility
for q*eer people.
She helped destigmatize people
in the community
and encouraged them to come out.
Gays need to have more role models,
people who are in powerful positions
coming out and saying, "I'm g*y."
I think that would be very helpful.
I had released three records
and I would do interviews,
and I did, you know, Letterman.
And I did one interview
where the guy asked me
personal questions about the songs.
And I always gave my answers
in very general terms.
They were not gender specific, ever.
When the article came out,
he had changed every
"us, them, you" to a boy.
And it made me look like
I was totally lying out of my teeth
talking about my boyfriend.
And, I said,
"I just got to come out."
I thought I would maybe
come out on Arsenio Hall.
But before I ever
had that opportunity,
I really got politically involved
with the Clinton and Gore campaign,
helping get him elected.
And so I was invited
to the inauguration.
I was up there
with all my g*y friends,
and I just said, "I'm a l*sbian."
And I'm proud to say right now,
I'm very proud to have been
a l*sbian all my life.
I could have thought
of something much more eloquent
had I knew
that I was going to come out,
but it just, boom,
it just happened like that.
I came out and people
start to do interviews with me.
Let me just talk about
the album a little bit, Yes, I Am.
Everybody's talked about
Yes, I Am.
- Does it have any connotation?
- I am, what?
Yes. I am, what?
Each of them would ask me
over and over,
all year long, day after day.
I would answer questions
about being g*y.
I guess you came out
at the inaugural ball?
Yeah, in '92, I came out.
It was like
they'd never known anyone g*y.
And I realized at the time, you know,
I want to be real thoughtful
about what I say,
'cause I think this is the first time
that they've really ever spoke
to someone who was openly g*y.
The first time I kissed a girl,
it was like...
I've been out to family and friends
since I was 17.
I've always been very upfront
about my sexuality.
I didn't understand, but I knew
that I was on a different path.
Man, I talked a lot about being g*y
for a long time!
And slowly just saying it,
and then being in the media,
just being on the cover
of a magazine,
it was big.
When we made the video
for "I'm the Only One,"
I thought it would be scandalous.
'Cause it was the first sexy,
sexy video that had two women.
They were dancing with each other,
looking at each other.
I'm like, "God, I can't wait till
they say they're not gonna play it."
Not a word!
Nothing.
It was a huge video and I was like...
Oh, that's going to be ok.
All right.
I will never
The 30 years that I have traveled
since I came out
have been amazing.
I'm g*y.
As I have seen the world
change and grow.
Same sex marriage,
legal in this country,
across every state in this nation.
The first transgender woman
to win the award.
But today, it seems like things
are going backwards.
In the middle of what should be
a joyous month celebrating Pride,
The Human Rights Campaign
just issued a first of its kind
emergency declaration
for the LGBTQ+ community.
Seventy five laws
in more than a dozen states
specifically targeting
LGBTQ+ rights.
We're not doing the pronoun Olympics
in Florida. It's not happening here.
A Tennessee bill that bans
gender-affirming care for anyone
under the age of 18,
was signed
by the State's governor today.
We're in the middle of one of
the biggest rollbacks of rights
for everybody.
That is really disturbing.
Movements to ban specific books
are increasing around the country.
The New York Times now reporting
22 states ban ab*rtion,
or restrict the procedure.
- What do we want?
- Human Rights!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
Brennan Center reporting
that nearly 100 new restrictions
have impacted voting rights
in the last 10 years.
These aren't single issues.
These are things
that connect all of us.
These are f*cked up times.
Which is why I think it's important
for us to stick together.
We all believe in freedom
Cannot rest
For me, bravery is easier when
you know what you're fighting for.
You want a world where we're
all treated equally under the law.
When I'm surrounded by my peers,
it makes me feel like
I'm a part of the movement.
Went down to the Supreme Court
And I took back
what it stole from me
Young women are such a vital
part of changing the world.
Going on
It's when the reigns
are in the hands of the young
Who dare to run
I was put on this earth to do music,
to inspire and empower little girls,
to do things
that we're not expected to do.
That fight that we had in us
the summer of 2020,
keep that same energy.
Any great things that have come
took a great deal of time.
And we still persist.
When women find their voices
and offer those voices to others,
we realize that not being silent,
it's about having the words
to tell stories that you didn't
even know you were ready to tell.
Oh, I don't give a damn
what people think.
This is what I am.
And this is the truth. My truth.
And I want to hear yours.
We who believe in freedom
Cannot rest
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LOUDER: The Soundtrack of Change (2024)
Moderators: Maskath3, sidolanters, GabrielAlejo2341