There can be no protest without music. Whenever people have been fed up about anything, they have sang. And sang. Protest music, for centuries, has been the refuge of the oppressed — a weapon against social and political unrest and a solace for those in pain. In fact, sometimes, protest songs have helped snowball small gripes into huge movements. The biggest protest song of them all has to be ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ by Bob Dylan (who else!) — a song that was adopted by civil rights’ movements world over and has become quite the anthem against oppression today. Much before Dylan, there was Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’, which was apparently the first time a protest song became ‘popular’. A moody song that uses the metaphor of fruit to depict hanged black men, it was the civil
unrest anthem before anthems. In the same vein, several strident songs have been sung during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests.
One among them by Chennai-based rapper Rahul Negi, who goes by the name ‘Madara’, has gone viral. Madara’s burst of anger, aptly titled ‘Tukde Tukde gang’ rages against the system and its ineptitude in no uncertain terms. This is not the first time the brave Madara has put out his fury. His earlier single ‘Madara-Mareech’ is another political satire with the refrain ‘tu chup kar’ punctuating his depiction of all the ills that plague our society.
Evidently, we are in dire need of more such ‘madaras’.
Play By Ear will showcase a potential earworm every week for you, the discerning listener, who is on the hunt for some musical serendipity and is keen to explore genres beyond pop and Bollywood.