RTJ3 x Gorillaz x Arcade fire: The sound of new wave political music

The months of political discomfort in the USA have come to a global crescendo in this past fortnight, with the inauguration of ‘The Donald’ and the subsequent protests across the western world. In similar fashion to these demonstrators, musicians too have been radicalised into action – producing a wide range of results that, through waxing lyrical, allow one to unearth the sound of new wave political music. Main examples that I like personally include Run the Jewels’ ‘RTJ3’ – released on Christmas day – Arcade Fire’s charity single ‘I Give You Power’ (feat. Mavis Staples) and Gorillaz’s ‘Hallelujah Money’ (feat. Benjamin Clementine) – both released on the eve of the presidential inauguration. 

For aggression and hostility towards the premiership of Trump look no further than ‘RTJ3’; an album that harks back to the blunt anti-establishment motif of early era Rage Against the Machine. Killer Mike and El-P  even feature RATM frontman Zach de la Rocha on multiple tracks, as was also the case in ‘RTJ2’. Lashing out base insults in lines such as “Went to war with the Devil and Shaytan/ he wore a bad toupee and a spray tan” serve as testament to the open and unbending liberal philosophy of some of rap music’s best educated. The reference to “shaytan” – the Israeli term for Satan – is evidence of the depth to their lyrics that set the ‘pistol and fist’ duo apart from the others. It is not often you find a rap artist with the courage and socially active presence of ‘Killer Mike’, who regularly departs his intellectual and political knowledge unto his followers – see his 2016 interview with Stephen Colbert for a discussion of Kingian non-violence theology. Whilst being the more unspoken of the two, beats veteran El-P remains a symbol of unsullied and pure nineties hip-hop. They released the whole album for free through YouTube on Christmas day, it has since soared to number one on the vinyl, rap, R&B/Hip-hop and Physical Album charts. An incredibly bold and hopeful message for the future of non-digital music.

Real music sells. A statement that Arcade Fire will currently be dependent on, as they try and raise money for charity through their latest single. They deliver a punchy  and predictably head-turning wall of sound around the titular lyric ‘I give you power’, and have subsequently declared the track as an anthem for the current protests. The Haitian origins of front woman Regine Chassagne has seen the band involved in benefit work before, and the band as a whole have had their say on social justice in previous songs – such as ‘We Exist’, in which a holistic defence of the trans-gender and homosexual community is made. At the very crux of Arcade Fire’s being lies the unique multicultural community on which their race-less, gender-less, even genre-less sound is based. It is through this global, all-accepting front that a powerful and truly political message can be made. Given the current air of exaggerated political correctness, the unassuming omnibenevolence of Arcade Fire is refreshing. I certainly hope they follow up this taster with an album to rival their back catalogue later in the year.

From one political collaborative to another, Damon Albarn’s roster of artists known as ‘Gorillaz’ have been fighting the power for more than a decade, so what sounds so different now? To reflect on their greatest anti-political work prior to their recent release would involve relistening to ‘Dirty Harry’, which passed comment on the Iraq war. The commercial success of ‘Demon Days’ arose from the catchy post-britpop instrumentals on the album as a whole, but the band has evolved greatly from this point onward. Their latest offering, presumed by many fans to be a filler track on their upcoming album, is a mumbling poetic rebuke to the new presidency – set against a projected backdrop of hooded white supremacists and Spongebob Squarepants. Benjamine Clementine’s face illuminated as though he is about to narrate a gruesome tale, with the puppet of the beloved 2D also featuring in Giorgi Testi’s music video. It hits you like spoken word poetry, relying on Clementine’s baritone and oddly-timed delivery for quirkiness to great success. We can expect a return to the rap orientated collaborations on the album, with Snoop Dogg and De La Soul confirmed to have returned to the studio with Albarn and co. I hope the melody and artistic expression remains on par with this first track.

The sound of political music’s ‘nouvelle vague’ is one of public empowerment coinciding with freely expressed fear and disgust, delivered for consumption by the digital age. Musicians are rallying both to educate Trump and to send a volley of insults, with electric and meaty results.