Rebel Musics: Human Rights, Resistant Sounds, and the Politics of Music Making

Susan McKnight is an administrator of the Courts Technology Integrated Justice Project at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General.

“It is our contention,” editor Ajay Heble states, “that music can
(and does) enable us to … to take new risks in our relationships with
others, to work together across various divides, traditions, styles, and
sites, and to discover genuinely new ways of relating to the world
around us.”

This excellent compilation of essays explores music that is concerned
with human rights, political protest, and yearnings of hope for society
and the planet. The essays cover almost every type of music from Rage
Against the Machine to gospel, with discussions of blues, jazz, the
native sounds of Violeta Parra and Victor Jara, and the indigenous
sounds of Cuba. In discussing the politics behind the music, the
contributors address the current burning issues of decaying democracy,
human-rights abuses, political upheaval, and environmental destruction.
Each essay is accompanied by extensive footnotes and a list of works
cited.

Daniel Fischlin is a musician, a professor of English at Guelph
University, and the co-author of Eduardo Galeano: Through the Looking
Glass. Ajay Heble, who also teaches English literature at Guelph,
founded the Guelph Jazz Festival and has written several books on
jazz-related topics.