Last night, and for the first time, I watched the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame live on Disney. (Side note: I know Disney doesn’t sound badass, but you can watch a lot of great shows.) But from greats like Willie Nelson, the Late George Micheal, Missy Elliot, The Spinners, Sheryl Crow, Chaka Khan and others, it was both entertaining and captivating to hear the music and to understand the background stories of the artists themselves.
But it was 4 hours long. And as I attempted to watch intently, the eyelids started getting heavy.
When I finally gave into my body begging for sleep, I turned the TV off and went to my bedroom. Now, normally I fall asleep watching the Golden Girls, but curiosity got the best of me and I turned on the Live show just one more time. I turned it on just as Ice-T was intro-ing Rage Against the Machine.
I watched a little longer.
Rewind to my first memory of hearing Rage in the 1990’s while in high school. It was at an arcade called Top Hat a.k.a. The Gathering Place. It was situated in the heart of the City of Gold and was home to a mixture of arcade games, jukebox music, a pool table right smack dab in the middle, and about 20 to 30 of us Native kids hanging out daily.
And I must have heard Rage Against Machine’s “Killing In The Name Of” run through the speaker system on average about 6 or 7 times a night.
It wasn’t the first protest song I had ever heard, but to this day when I hear it or play it, it brings me back to a time in my high school years and just jamming out to that song over and over again. The songs didn’t just have the heavy guitar and captivating riffs and heart-pounding drums that caught us up in the flow of musical brilliance. It was the lyrics that slapped you in the face and subsequently you found yourself repeating, chanting, yelling – disrupting.
And then there was Freedom… but that’s an article within itself.
While it’s not my go-to genre, but because of who I am, and where I come from, I was born with rebellious roots and I naturally gravitate to protest music. I am a woman, an Indigenous woman, and this band got the hairs on the back of my head standing at attention every time I hear the music. And last night, while watching the show, the hairs stood way up when Ice-T said “…and I think Rage has the best rock lyric of all time —‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’.”
And I know you all read that line with it screaming and playing in your head.
But I digress.
If you do get a chance to watch last night’s inductee show, and hear Tom Morello’s speak, it does not disappoint.
Just to entice you a little, here’s an excerpt from his very impactful speech:
“The lesson I learn from Rage fans is that music can change the world. Daily, I hear from fans who have been affected by our music and in turn have affected the world in significant ways. Organizers, activists, public defenders, teachers, the presidents of Chile and Finland have all spent time in our mosh pit. When protest music is done right, you can hear a new world emerging in the songs skewering the oppressors of the day and hinting that there might be more to life than what was handed to us. Can music change the world? The whole aim is to change the world or at a bare minimum, to stir up a shit load of trouble.”
End scene.
CreeGirl in a lonely world. 