7 Times Black Music Was Code For Freedom: The Evolution Of Black Revolutionary Music

In 1939, not even three-quarters of a century after Black people took their final steps in this country as slaves, Billie Holiday released “Strange Fruit.” It was an uncoded charge against white American domestic terrorism–and a departure from the love songs the popular jazz singer had been known for. The song carried no intention of masking its commentary about lynchings in America. Holiday sang the words clearly: Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze / Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees..”

Holiday was warned to stop performing the anti-lynching anthem by America’s first “drug czar,” Harry Anslinger. So racist was this man that the very senators who’d appointed him said he should resign. He didn’t and Holiday refused to stop performing her song–but her substance use–an outcome of her repeated childhood rapes–was used against her. 

Anslinger took her Cabaret Card which effectively barred her from her profession. According to scholar Dr. Farah Griffin, Holiday loved nothing more than singing. Taking away her ability to perform–unlike what happened with white performers who struggled with addiction like Judy Garland–instigated increased substance misuse. 

Holiday died at Metropolitan Hospital in New York City on July 17, 1959 of heart failure, a result of the cirrhosis she’d been diagnosed with. Anslinger had sent his agents to the hospital to place Holiday under arrest as she lay helpless in her final weeks of life. She was 44. 

To speak a language is to assume a culture and take responsibility for a civilization ~ Franz Fanon

Coding, Decoded

It’s one of Black people’s most satisfying ironies: through music, using the language that was forced upon them by their white oppressors and kidnappers as aural encryptions, hidden maps to physical and intellectual freedom. 

During the brutal centuries before the Civil War’s conclusion, the ingenuity of enslaved Black people became  a tool for revolution and freedom right in front of their white slave owners. Prohibited from openly expressing their desire for freedom, music became a covert means of communication: spirituals and work songs encoded messages of hope, resistance—and plans that allowed them to escape. 

White slave owners found singing slaves amusing, never realizing what was happening until long after it happened.  Songs like “Go Down Moses” and “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” sung in the cotton fields were not just spiritual hymns; they were hymns embedded with directions to freedom via the Underground Railroad, advice on evading capture and spiritual encouragement for those seeking liberation. On the surface they appeared to be Christian hymns, but underneath, they were a sophisticated system of resistance and communication.

 

As much as “Strange Fruit,” remains a musical bar in unapologetic resistance to white supremacy, the government’s treatment of Holiday for using her art to reveal the ugly truth of racism was–and perhaps, at times still is–a visceral reminder of why Black Americans have historically coded messages in songs. In 1960 when Ray Charles released his cover of the 1930 Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrel’s  (who were white) love song, “Georgia on My Mind,” white folks in the South never considered Charles’ truth: he was singing about the terrorism of Georgia he’d grown up in.

Make the Revolution

Today, both secretly and boldly, Black music has continued to challenge racism and the conditions foisted upon them—from the Staple Singers’ songs like “I’ll Take You There” to almost all of Bob Marley’s songs and all of Gil Scott Heron’s work including “The Revolution Will Not be Terrorized,” to Lauryn Hill’s 2014 “Black Rage,” the powerful remix of “My Favorite Things.” 

Hip Hop as a genre was a direct response to the socio-economic conditions facing Black communities in urban America, and it became a powerful tool for social commentary and political expression. 

Even still, at times it also carried forward the tradition of coded language. In Decoded, Jay Z’s sort-of autobiography, the rapper and businessman explained his own use of lyrics containing layered meanings and references to historical events, cultural symbols, and social struggles. This complexity made it a powerful medium for conveying messages of resistance and empowerment.

If you fashion [the revolution] with the people, the [revolutionary] songs will come…~ Sekou Toure

 

But when the energy of the culture backed Black musical artist—as it did during the Civil Rights and Black Power Eras, and during the activism of the Reagan period—codes fell away giving us revolutionary anthems like Nina Simone’s “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.“

In the late 1980s and 1990s we had Tupac’s unapologetically political lyrics and Public Enemy openly calling Black people to action with their second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, which included ““Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” and “Rebel Without a Pause.” In 1990, they released Fear of a Black Planet which included “Fight the Power.”

Today, Kendrick Lamar, whose popularity exploded as the Movement for Black Lives did, is considered to be the leading political Hip Hop artist. After watching the 58th Grammy Awards in 2015 when Lamar’s third studio album, To Pimp a Butterfly, was nominated for seven Grammys and collabs Lamar did with other performers garnered an additional four. Lamar earned the most Grammy nominations for a rapper in a single night and the second most by any artist in a single night, and walked away with four Grammys including Best Rap Album.

The legendary cultural critic, Greg Tate, who shockingly died on December 7, 2021, said in an interview shortly before his passing that “… Kendrick Lamar…[had a] non-stop commitment to artistic excellence, and introspective self-reckoning.” When To Pimp a Butterfly dropped, Tate reviewed it for Rolling Stone, writing that it was “… a masterpiece of fiery outrage, deep jazz and ruthless self-critique.”

But for all the incredible and uncoded messages from Black artists,  we cannot forget the danger that Black people have—and continue to—face for speaking the truth.  So much of Black American music has been forced to hide behind metaphors to mask their righteous indignation. But without them doing that, it’s likely true that the uncoded lyrics we’ve heard, might never have come to pass.  

Here are 7 times songs hid their revolutionary intention meaning in plain sight–so one day no Black artist would have to:

“Wade in the Water” – Negro Spiritual

If you had to trace Black American music to its source, “Wade in the Water” could arguably be that song. With enslaved Black Americans looking to escape the atrocities and brutality of slavery, they looked to abolitionists to assist them along the Underground Railroad. “Wade in the Water” was a veiled set of directions to let slaves know when and where to go when it was time to run. The title and refrain were a code to run through the creeks and rivers so that the dogs couldn’t find them with their scent. 

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” – Negro Spiritual

Like “Wade in the Water” and “Go Down Moses,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” used Biblical references as a disguise for slaves’ intentions to escape the plantations. The chariot, transportation used in the Old Testament, referred to the Underground Railroad. Jordan, the promised land where the Hebrews landed after 40 years in the Wilderness, represented the North, where the slaves would receive their freedom. The song’s refrain would be later incorporated into songs by other artists like Parliament and Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan. 

“Chain Gang” by Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke wrote one of the most important protest songs of all time, 1964’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” after hearing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” That song went on to become an anthem, with Cooke singing about the everyday plight of Black men growing up poor and being shunned by the white man. But before he realized that an artist could be more blatant about social issues, he had to disguise his intentions with metaphors. One such song was 1960’s “Chain Gang.” On the surface, most thought it was just a clever way of Cooke to insert how rhythm can be heard in mundane aspects of life, or just a story about an inmate longing to see his lady again. But the freedom Cooke hid in “Chain Gang” dealt with the literal freedom of Black men who served harsher sentences and the symbolic freedom that eludes those same men when they are outside. While the pop song went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, few people realized it was Cooke’s commentary on the imprisoned Black men working like slaves of old. 

“Mississippi Goddam” ~ Nina Simone

In 1963, when a bomb went off at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four little Black girls, Nina Simone, who was gaining success as a jazz and pop singer/pianist, couldn’t take it anymore. She wrote and recorded “Mississippi Goddam,” and premiered it at New York City’s Carnegie Hall for her 1964 album Nina Simone in Concert. Without getting specific, she addressed her anger with the bombing with the lyric “Alabama got me so upset.” She talked about her disgust with racist Governor George Wallace with the line “Tennessee made me lose my rest.” Its choral refrain, “Everybody knows about Mississippi, Goddam,” was a coded look back on the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till. 

“Alabama” ~ John Coltrane

Nina Simone wasn’t the only artist who was moved to react to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. Saxophonist John Coltrane, known for his innovative work as a side man for Miles Davis, began to push music forward with his own quartet. Moved by the death of the four girls in the bombing, Coltrane composed “Alabama” for his 1964 album, Live at Birdland. Coltrane transposed the rhythm, cadence, and timbre of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s eulogy of the four girls to compose the tune’s melody. 

“Flyin’ High (In the Friendly Sky)” – Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye’s 1971 album What’s Going On is considered by many as one of the greatest albums of all time. While many songs featured lyrics that clearly spoke about police brutality, child neglect, and financial prejudice, one of the songs on the album addressed substance abuse in a far more poetic way. “Flyin’ High (In the Friendly Sky)” personified drug addiction in the shadow of the Vietnam War. “I know I’m hooked, my friend, to the boy who makes slaves out of men,” described the discovery of being addicted and the madness one goes through when they can’t obtain drugs. 

“Sign O’ the Times” – Prince

By 1987, Prince was more known for his provocative songs and persona, thanks to songs like “When Doves Cry,” “Little Red Corvette,” and “Kiss.” But he still found time to address social and political issues with songs like “Controversy,” “Ronnie Talk to Russia,” and “America.” The lead single and title track to his 1987 album, Sign O’ the Times, was the first time he earned a big hit addressing such topics, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. His lyrics of “a big disease with a little name” were commentary on the growing AIDS epidemic, while his antecode about his cousin going from “reefer” to “horse” in a matter of months expressed how weed led to heroin addiction. 

“Black or White” – Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson and his brothers believed that their music could unite people all over the world, releasing songs like The Jacksons’ “Can You Feel It” and Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.” For his 1991 album, Dangerous, Jackson got more deft about his commentary on social issues. The album’s lead single, “Black or White” seemed on its surface to be an anthem of racial unity. However, it was a veiled indictment on white bigots who didn’t like race mixing. During the song’s opening lyrics, Jackson sings, “Boy, is that girl with you;” a representation of southern whites talking down to Black American men. Later in the song’s bridge, Jackson sings, “I ain’t scared of no sheets,” referring to the Ku Klux Klan. 

“Certainly” – Erykah Badu

Erykah Badu helped usher in the era of Neo-Soul music with her 1997 debut album, Baduizm. While much of the album dealt with issues of love and self-awareness in a forward-facing manner, some songs found her speaking about taboo subjects with covert language (“Otherside of the Game” deals with a woman who’s in a love affair with a “complex occupation,” aka drug dealer/hustler). One of the standout cuts is “Certainly,” a song that harkens to the Billie Holiday lounge singer vibes. To most, it’s a story of a woman being misled by a man with ill intentions. However, the song is about slavery and relations between Black Americans and America itself. “I was not looking for no love affair, but now you wanna control me” depicts the nefarious ways that Blacks were stolen and how they were forced into Stockholm Syndrome over time. 

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