Chuck D of Public Enemy fame takes us on a journey through musical time to show the political and socially conscious music of the African-American community. Each piece of music offers a complete history of the era and the thought process behind the lyrics, the instruments used and the history of the performer. There is a large span of music covered in the brief time. Music is covered from "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday and her history of her heroin use to Too $hort's song "The Ghetto" which holds the mayor of Oakland, California for raising money to return a football team to their area but not to help fight the crack pandemic that is plaguing the community.

I loved being able to hear the music that Chuck D felt defined the social movement behind the advancement of the African-American community and the work that needs to be done to advance that community further. I would have loved to have it be a bit longer as the hour and forty-four minutes and include more recent artists such as Kendrick Lamar. All in all, this is well worth the listen and I enjoyed every minute of it. ( )

Songs That Shook the Planet

I Picked Up This Book Because: Seemed like it would be interesting.

Media Type: Audiobook
Source: AudiblePlus
Dates Read: 3/5/22
Stars: 4
Narrator(s): Chuck D

The Story:

I’m feeling like I need to get the most of AudiblePlus before I cancel it later this month so I picked this up to see what it was about and it was a good choice. Music is one of my favorite things on the planet but I must confess I do not put much thought into where it comes from, why it was written, what was going on in the world at the time of a song’s birth but I do enjoy learning these things. I like the format in which we would hear about the why’s then hear the song. I think that helped make the connections the author wanted us to make. Many of these songs were familiar and a few were not but as I’ve never really studied the lyrics they were all brought into a new light. The topics seemed well researched and personal to our author/narrator. Overall I greatly enjoyed it.

The Random Thoughts: ( )