Music Video – Letter to the Free is a product which possesses cultural and social significance. It will invite comparison with other music videos allowing for an analysis of the contexts in which they are produced and consumed

This is a targeted CSP and needs to be studied with reference to two elements of the Theoretical Framework (Media Language and Media Representation) and all relevant contexts

“Letter to the Free,” like “13th,” addresses the issue of mass incarceration in the United States, “The 13th is an amendment that says slavery is abolished unless someone commits a crime… It’s evolved [and] is now targeting black and brown people across America for mass incarceration. It’s an epidemic that’s destroying America in many ways. So, for me to write a song about this, it’s fulfilling. It’s what I want my music and art to be, part of the enlightenment, part of moving things forward.”

When we first think about political protest, what comes to mind?
○ Attempts to change to laws or legislation
○ Organised political movements
○ Public protests
○ Petitions, marches

Cultural hegemony functions by framing the ideologies of the dominant social group as the only legitimate
ideology.
● The ideologies of the dominant group are expressed and maintained through its economic, political, moral,
and social institutions (like the education system and the media).
● These institutions socialise people into accepting the norms, values and beliefs of the dominant social
group.
● As a result, oppressed groups believe that the social and economic conditions of society are natural and
inevitable, rather than created by the dominant group.

Lyrics

‘Not whips and chains, all subliminal’

‘Shot me with your ray-gun
And now you want to trump me’

‘And we gonna free them, so we can free us’

POSTCOLONIALISM:

has a kind of hook or link into empire and colonialism

great literature has a timeless and universal significance [which] thereby demotes or disregards cultural, social, regional, and nations differences in experience and outlook’ (Barry, 2017: 194).

The arguments around postcolonial critical thought ‘constituted a fundamentally important political act’ (MacLoed, 200: 16)

Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993

The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism

The mode is characterised by ‘the desire to contain the intangibilities of the East within a western lucidity, but this gesture of appropriation only partially conceals the obsessive fear.’ (Suleri, 1987:255)

‘an economic system like a nation or a religion, lives not by bread alone, but by beliefs, visions, daydreams as well, and these may be no less vital to it for being erroneous’V. G. Kiernan

 ‘the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience’ (1997:3)

Jacques Lacan:

The other:  we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. 

Letter to the Free was released by Common in 2016, and it was less for entertainment than it was for sending out a political message. It was made for a documentary called the Thirteenth which documents black American culture and the legacy of slavery, and highlights the mass imprisonment of black Americans.

Common is an American Hip-Hop artist and rapper, known for intelligent and positive lyrics that were performed in a spoken-word style.

“Slavery’s still alive, check Amendment 13
Not whips and chains, all subliminal” – References the law that you can become a slave if you commit a crime, and how he believes this to be morally wrong and constituting to slavery’s resistance to dying.

“Barren souls, heroic songs unsung” – talks about how so many people, particularly of the black community, could have achieved a lot more if not for how they are treated – “heroic songs unsung”

“Tied with the rope that my grandmother died” – depicts how the slavery of old is still in effect today with similar principles.

Jodie’s powerpoint – https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/media23al/wp-content/uploads/sites/58/2022/01/Music-as-Political-Protest.pdf

Cultural hegemony: power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means. Letter to the Free’s lyrics could be seen as cultural resistance in response to this.

Post – Colonialism

Postcolonialism is specifically looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism.

The Shadow of Slavery

Postcolonial critical thought emerged as a distinct category in the 1990’s, with an aim to undermine the universalist claims that ‘great literature has a timeless and universal significance [which] thereby demotes or disregards cultural, social, regional, and nations differences in experience and outlook’

The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism

Edward Said was a respected academic. He asked if ‘imperialism was principally economic‘ and looked to answer that question by highlighting ‘the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience’ (1997:3) He came up with orientalism.

Jacques Lacan

THE ‘OTHER’

Key Concepts:
● Cultural resistance
● Cultural hegemony
● Subcultural theory

– Key idea: The political, personal and cultural are always intertwined.

– The idea of resistance and political protest.

– Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change. The media can change how people see the world.

– Antonio Gramsci: Italian philosopher writing in the 1930s.

Key Terms:
● Hegemonic: Dominant, ruling-class, power-holders.
● Hegemonic culture: The dominant culture.
● Cultural hegemony: Power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means.
● Ideology: Worldview – beliefs, assumptions and values.

Jodie’s Presentation

Letter to the Free – Common

• Lonnie Rashid Lynn, known by his stage name Common  (formerly Common Sense), is an American rapper and actor.
• Common’s first major-label album Like Water for Chocolate (2000), received commercial success. In 2003, he won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song for the Erykah Badu single “Love of My Life”.
• Commons genre of music he records is Hip Hop, Neo Soul and Progressive Rap.
• He achieved mainstream success through his work with the Soulquarians.
• Common signed a major label record deal with MCA Records and relocated from Chicago to New York City in 1999. He began recording almost exclusively with a loose collective of musicians and artists (dubbed the “Soulquarians” by central figure Questlove).
• Commons net worth is $45 million.

Letter to the Free Lyrics:

‘Black bodies being lost in the American dream’ – This explains that the dream for America is to be equal and racist free however black people are being taken out of the community and sent to be prison making America a white supremacy.

‘Slavery’s still alive, check Amendment 13’ – This expresses that slavery is still alive and is not used as a punishment but used because ‘they’ are black. Amendment 13 is “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” meaning, slavery should only be used if someone has committed a criminal act. As well, people with power, e.g white racist police officers are arresting black people for no reason, due to them being a different race.

‘Prison is a business, America’s the company’ –

‘Instead of ‘n***a’ they use the word ‘criminal’ –

13th Netflix movie (2016)

• 13th explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.
• The movie was directed by Ava DuVernay and was distributed by Netflix.
• 13th was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards.
• The 13th documentary made $566 USD in box office.

Postcolonialism

Postcolonialism specifically looks at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism.

Postcolonial criticism challenges the assumption of a universal claim towards what constitutes ‘good reading’ and ‘good literature’; questioning the notion of a recognised and overarching canon of important cultural texts.

The Shadow of Slavery:

Key figure: Edward Said who wrote a book about culture, imperial power and colonialism. His book is called Orientalism.

Quote (Edward) – ‘the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism‘.

Jacques Lacan was a intellectual French philosopher and psychoanalyst. He expresses that we can never discover ourselves as we cannot see ourselves from the outside, from a 3rd person perspective. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. (You see yourself differently the way someone else sees you, in both looks and perspective.)