- It is early in the morning in Centre County, Pennsylvania, when my interview with Martin Perna, Founder of Afrobeat group Antibalas, begins. Perna is relaxed, a little tired from the early wake-up call, and he has a lot to say. “The group has become something of...
- “Personal liberty is inviolable. No one may be detained, inspected, or searched nor otherwise subjected to any restriction of personal liberty except by order of the Judiciary stating a reason and only in such cases and in such manner as provided by the law . Any...
- The Times They Are a-Changin’ is a song written by Bob Dylan and released as the title track of his 1964 album of the same name. Ever since its release, the song has been influential to people’s views on society, with critics noting the general yet...
- New Year’s Day is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is included in their 1983 album War and it was released as the album’s lead single in January 1983. Notably, this was U2’s first UK Top 10, their first single to chart in America and the...
- “I am sorry if you don’t understand what we are saying in our songs, I will try and explain”, said Aliou Tourè, lead singer of Malian band Songhoy Blues, mid-concert in Sala Bikini in Barcelona, less than a month ago. The atmosphere in the room was festive,...
- In honour of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, recurring tomorrow, 25th November, WiB looks at Tracy Chapman’s “Behind the Wall”, a song dedicated to the victims of one of the most common forms of gender-based violence: domestic abuse. Tracy Chapman is...
- One Love is a reggae song by Bob Marley & The Wailers from their 1977 album Exodus. It was first recorded in a “ska style” by Marley’s original group, The Wailers in 1965 and was released as a single. In 1977, Bob Marley & the Wailers released the updated version on the Exodus album which became the...
- Seldom do the circumstances require and endorse the use of the adverb “seldom”, furthermore repeatedly, and even more seldom do the circumstances require and endorse the use of the noun “glee”, furthermore appealing to its original definition, namely a seldom felt emotional state of unconditional delight,...
- “Emel Mathlouthi’s voice feels as if a bird’s heart was set on fire by the deepest point of the ocean, a fire that none can extinguish except the highest point of the sky. But the bird does not want its heart to stop burning, so the...
- Idioteque is a song by English rock band Radiohead, featured as the eighth trachk from their 2000 album Kid A. Although never released as a single as with all other songs on the album, it has since become one of the band’s most famous and popular songs...
- According to Shakespeare’s King Lear, “when we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools”. After coming into this world on the 17th of January 1991, amidst the start of the bombardment of Iraq during the Gulf war, Hamza al-Ghanem...
- “If a man is able to submit himself to nature, then nature will react to his needs. Almighty nature is all powerful and all loving, for the laws of nature are for the creation and evolution of all beings and creatures throughout the cosmos. There is...
- ‘Any person who is physically restrained (by imprisonment or otherwise) from expressing (in any form of words or symbols) an opinion which he honestly holds and which does not advocate or condone personal violence’. (Amnesty International founder Peter Berenson coining and defining the expression ‘Prisoners of...
- Asma Othmani, a Tunisian singer, took an old traditional Tunisian song of the Mizwad genre called “Yama Lasmar Douni” (“Oh brown is bad”) and made a new interpretation of it adding a piece of spoken word called “Tounes Alwen” (“Tunis of Colors”) written...
- Phil Ochs was an American topical folk singer-songwriter, most active, politically and artistically, in the 1960’s counterculture era. His strenuous advocacy of peace, freedom, equality, social fairness, human rights and human dignity inspired nearly all of his music, and that very same music, in turn, inspired...