Corrigé synthèse CCS - Protest Songs

	The impact of hip-hop and protest songs on society
	By influencing writers like Shakespeare or voicing minorities’ concerns, protest songs have helped shape societies. Two columns, one published in The Economist in 2008 , the other written by Luxmoore and Ellis in The Guardian in 2016, an op-ed by K.O. Romano in Spinditty dated 2016, and a cartoon by Mark Lynch released on 5 May 2010 in www.artizans.com explore the evolution of protest songs with the examples of hip-hop and rap. Can protest singers turn lyrics into action?
	Songs are a tool that have allowed minorities to express themselves. In The Guardian, Luxmoore and Ellis assert that folk music voices people’s concerns as exemplified by the ‘Sweet Liberties’ project’ with four singers performing songs about freedom, past and present at the Parliament, or by African-Americans using hip-hop to call for social and economic improvement in the nineties, as explained in Spinditty. Dyson, a professor quoted by The Economist’s columnist, refers to hip-hop as ‘pavement’ and ‘committed poetry’ empowering the voiceless with speech, a notion also illustrated in the cartoon through the long list of issues tackled by the artist in his song.
	Yet, however strong hip-hop or folk songs might be, they do not always rock the boat as expressed by John MacWhorter who underlines, in The Economist, that this music may not be as disruptive as expected, since the lyrics are more commercial arguments than weapons to raise awareness. By drawing attention to the influence of fashion, financial profit, and social media on hip-hop , Luxmoore and Ellis show that it has lost its persuasive power, compared with the 70s or 80s when Bob Dylan or Joan Baez’s songs were committed against the Vietnam War. This limited impact of hip-hop or rap songs on society is also ironically evoked in Lynch’s cartoon in the singer’s excessive list of evils to cure, an impossible mission.
	However, if not radical weapons, protest songs remain game-changers. If a veteran folk artist like Martin Carthy, as mentioned in The Guardian, commits himself into composing new songs about current agricultural issues, it is the sign of a renewal. Although the societal impact of hip-hop is minimized by The Economist’s columinst, it remains a pillar of the American culture, as asserted by Mrs Romano in Spinditty. To her, rap is still a prevailing symbol of struggling communities in America. And while hip-hop may not have deeply altered society, it has definitely become an integral part of American culture.