Song 20: If I Was President, Wyclef Jean

I find Haiti politics very confusing. Wyclef Jean was allowed to vote in the Haiti election but not allowed to run. While campaigning in Haiti for another candidate, he was either shot or "cut by broken glass".

This is a blog about political music, but please take the time, right now, to read Graham Greene's The Comedians, set in Haiti under the rule of Papa Doc Duvalier and then make up your own mind who you think should be able to be president of Haiti.

Here's If I Was President, with the terrifying line "I'd be assassinated on Saturday" and the true "then go back to work on Monday."

Song 29: Don't Feel Right, The Roots

Album after album, The Roots deliver a song or two with political heat and light. The Return to Innocence Lost from their breakthrough Things Fall Apart will make you weep after it's through making you ill. Rising Down from the album of the same name tells the story of the earth spinning out of control (metaphorically). The song featured here, Don't Feel Right from Game Theory, was suggested by one of Halifax's best journalists, Metro reporter Alex Boutilier:

It’s a song about the invisible hand, specifically about how the invisible hand lifts a big invisible finger to entire sections of the population.

Song 44: Definition, Black Star

Black Star (a Talib Kweli and Mos Def project) only made one album. They touch on politics starting with their name, which is a reference to the shipping line of Marcus Garvey, the leader of 1920's pan-African movement.

After the deaths of artists Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G., this album, with its message of love, passion and the call to represent and do good, filled a lot of people with the sense that the most important time in history is the moment you're in.

Here's Definition, their dedication to 2Pac and Biggie:

Song 50: Hard Rain, Bob Dylan, K'naan and J. Period

In 2009 J. Period and K'Naan made a mixed-tape and did what hip-hop does so very well - sample great music and new material to make a modern powerful composition. They called the mixed-tape The Messengers after three artists that changed music and act as a source of inspiration for K'Naan: Bob Marley, Fela Kuti and Bob Dylan.

From a HipHop DX interview with the artists:

J. Period: If people hear good music they can instantly put that next to bad music and they know which is which. For me, the more people push the envelope in this way, the more Hip Hop goes back to where it began. It was always about taking the breaks and finding the best bits and pieces everywhere. It didn’t matter where it was from. You just put them together in a way that is fresh and new. In essence that is what I try to do with mixtapes. That’s what we’re doing here but on steroids because we have completely different things that are powerful on their own. 

K’Naan: Both Black Thought and Wyclef [Jean] were in the room tonight. Both of them had the same thing to say to me about the project and how they’re really inspired and moved. They wanted to do something. They wanted to go and create. That’s ultimately the job of art. It’s to make us feel like we need to do something.

Song 55: The Proud, Talib Kweli

Amadou Bailo Diallo was born in Liberia in 1975, just 3 days after me. He  grew up in Liberia, Guinea, Togo and Thailand. He liked to read, play soccer and was fluent in 6 languages. He studied in Thailand and Singapore and France. He believed an education meant you could achieve anything. He moved to the United States when he was 24 to continue studying computer science. One early morning in New York City, outside his apartment, while reaching for his wallet, police officers fired 41 shots at Amadou, and hit him with 19. Amadou Diallo is buried in a village in the highland region of Guinea.

The Dialo shooting has been written about by many artists, including Bruce Springsteen's haunting American Skin (41 Shots) and the furious 41:19 by Public Enemy.

Talib Kweli's The Proud deals with a wide range of topics from terrorism, war, violence, guns, racial profiling, and Amadou. It's both haunting and furious. 

Song 70: Yes We Can, will.i.am

The Barack Obama campaign had no involvement in the production of the song or video, but the President serves as the lead in the call-and-response hip-hip version (from a speech given in New Hampshire) of the song released by will.i.am.

The slogan Yes We Can is an English translation of the United Farm Workers' slogan "Si, se puede".

Song 82: Soldier, Erykah Badu

A political music blog wouldn't be complete without hearing from at least one non-voter. They exist! Political hacks and flacks reading this blog - they exist! You won't understand them, but try.

Here's Erykah Badu from a 2008 interview:

I don’t vote. For many reasons, that I’d rather not say on tape. I trust the political system to be what it is. It’s a structure to keep the country running, a boat to get us from one side to the other, and it has the country’s best interests at heart. Not the people’s.

But general public, general public, please get involved in politics, however you define 'politics'.

To my folks on the picket line
Don't stop til you change dey mind
I got love fo' my folks
Baptized when the levy broke
We gone keep marchin' on
Until you hear dat freedom song

Think of Erykah Badu's whole 1998 album New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) as a State of the Union address by a citizen. Here's Soldier:

Song 83: Jesus Walks, Kayne West

God. Guns. Gospel Music. Violins. Violence. Faith. Commerce. A Children's Choir. A Song for Sinners.

To the hustlers, killers, murderers, drug dealers even the strippers

(Jesus walks with them)

To the victims of Welfare for we living in hell here hell yeah

(Jesus walks with them)

Song 87: Forgive Them Father, Lauryn Hill

Beware the false motives of others
Be careful of those who pretend to be brothers
And you never suppose it's those who are closest to you, to you
They say all the right things to gain their position
Then use your kindness as their ammunition
To shoot you down in the name of ambition, they do

From the album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the song Forgive Them Father is a beautiful critique of men who value money and power over all. Like in Song No. 94, forgiveness for trespass is possible. But forgetting? Lauryn Hill will never, never trust them again.

By the way friends, Canadian women make up 22% of the House of Commons, and there are 22 women on this Top 100 Political Music Countdown. Want to change the debate? Elect more women to office, and send me more music by women.