June is African-American Music Appreciation Month – originally proclaimed as Black Music Month by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. With rallies and marches for racial justice and an end to police brutality taking place all across the US – and across the globe – we’ll honor Black Voices of Protest from all around the world on this weekend’s edition of The Rhythm Atlas. There is a rich tradition of protest music, and you’ll hear songs from the 1960s to the moment we’re living through right now.

Some of the songs featured include: Miriam Makeba singing “Soweto Blues” – written by Hugh Masekela about the Soweto Uprising and massacre of 1976 in South Africa; “Get Up, Stand Up” – the enduring call for human rights written by Peter Tosh and Bob Marley; Fela Kuti & Africa 70’s song “Zombie” – a blistering attack on those in the military who mindlessly follow orders; Rhiannon Giddens’ recent version of “Freedom Highway” – a Civil Rights era song written by Pops Staples that was inspired by the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965 and also references the horrific murder of 14 year old African-American Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955; and the powerful song “Hell You Talmbout” written by Janelle Mońae and members of the Wondaland Artist Collective – David Byrne and his multiracial American Utopia band perform this song that invokes the names of some of the many African-Americans who have been killed by the police or white terrorists.

I hope you can tune in as we honor Black Voices of Protest from around the world.

You can read more about African-American Music Appreciation Month at the National Museum of African American History & Culture – a museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.