Black artists reflect turmoil in music

By MARK KENNEDY

AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK

When he entered the recording studio this spring, Grammy and Oscar-winning rapper Common had plenty to vent about – and it all came out.

Police shootings. Institutionalized racism. Mass incarceration. Fouled water supplies. Wage gaps. Black Lives Matter. Inner-city violence.

“Things just felt more urgent for me,” Common said of “Black America Again,” his 11th studio CD and easily his angriest.

His album dropped not coincidentally on Election Day. It became just the latest politically charged record by black artists this year – others include Alicia Keys’ “Here,” Solange’s “A Seat at the Table” and, of course, “Lemonade” by sister Beyonce, who made headlines with the black-empowerment themes in her video for “Formation” and during her Super Bowl halftime show – reflecting the power, and sometimes disillusionment, that black people are feeling through music.

“I definitely believe that artists are just becoming more aware,” said Common, who is not new to socially conscious rap. “It feels like it’s a critical time where you have to be aware even if you’re not necessarily so into politics.”

Frustration has pervaded almost every corner of music, from the British artist Michael Kiwanuka’s soulful “Black Man in a White World” to Childish Gambino’s psychedelic-funky “Boogieman” and the soft uplift of India.Arie’s “Breathe.”

“These artists are dealing with a lot of things that they see in their lives and in the world around them,” said University of Arizona religious studies professor Alex Nava, who explores spirituality in hip-hop. “Maybe it will galvanize and revitalize the more radical spirit of music.”

Tip “T.I.” Harris has always had songs with a political edge but this year took it further. Motivated by the police shootings of two young black men over the summer in Minnesota and Louisiana, Tip in September released the six-song EP “Us or Else” which focuses on social justice and police brutality. The video for one song, “Warzone,” re-enacts the way several black men died at the hands of police, but uses white actors as victims to question the role race played. He expanded his EP into a full, 15-song CD this month, “Us or Else: Letter to the System.”

“I didn’t plan on making it a project. I just started recording records based on how I felt. I just felt I should be doing something,” the rapper said. “At the time, I didn’t feel like anyone was speaking to it and I felt compelled to do something.”

The social activism has spread beyond music. Chance the Rapper backed anti-violence measures in Chicago, used his concerts to register fans to vote and joined Solange and Alicia Keys in celebrating the victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose protests helped halt construction on the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Solange’s new CD is also a meditation on being a black woman in America.