Bryan at Mackncheeze

Mack-n-Cheeze Music Presents: Artists As Agents Of Change

Agents of change use music to challenge culture and inspire.

There comes a point when some songs stop being background noise and begin challenging the way we see the world. A lyric comes to close home with things we have avoided, and the music is no longer there simply to entertain us.

That is when the artist becomes provocative.

An audience often says it wants artists to be honest. What they usually mean is honesty they can live with. The trouble begins when a singer names the prejudice in the room, questions a popular belief, or describes life in a way that leaves the audience with nowhere comfortable to hide.

“Strange Fruit” described the bodies of lynching victims hanging from trees. Nina Simone wrote “Mississippi Goddam” after the murder of Medgar Evers and the Birmingham church bombing. Her anger is right there in the performance.

Still, we should be careful about giving music more power than it has. A song does not rewrite laws or rebuild damaged communities. Plenty of protest music has been applauded by people who never changed a thing about how they lived.

That does not make the work useless.

An artist can put words to what others have felt but could not express. Music can make an issue personal enough to escape the safety of theory. It may disturb someone, confirm a suspicion, or give courage to a person who thought they were standing alone.

Artists do not control what happens after the final note. Their part is to tell the truth as they understand it, knowing that some people will listen and others will walk away.

The listener has to decide what to do with it.