Musical Resistance: A Playlist

By ActionAid, MOVE Global Social Movement Centre (The)

This playlist features resistance songs by musicians, poets and activists, inspiring solidarity, hope and collective action through music.

Contents

Introduction

This playlist from On the Move, the newsletter of Global Platforms, ActionAid’s network for youth-led global activism, features songs of resistance by musicians, poets, activists and freedom fighters. Created to inspire solidarity and hope, these songs remind us that sound is memory, sound is movement and no one struggles alone. Sign up to the newsletter.

Music is the weapon. – Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti

Listen to Songs

Darbet Shams – شو بيضر الأمل (What harm can hope do?) [Palestine, 2022]
A track by the Palestinian band Darbet Shams (“heat stroke”), reflecting how, even in times shaped by fear and fragmentation, people continue to come together — holding on to each other, and turning shared experience into collective strength.

The Abyssinians – Declaration of Rights [Jamaica, 1971]
Written nine years after Jamaica’s independence from British colonial rule, this song is a spiritual and revolutionary anthem calling for unity to fight for rights.

Gal Costa – Divino, Maravilhoso [Brazil, 1968]
A Tropicália anthem performed with visceral energy, warning against complacency during a violent dictatorship.

Emma-Jean Thackray – Our People [UK, 2021]
“We are all our people / Not matter who is in your bed / Not matter where they drew your borders / Not matter how you make your bread / My matter is your matter / We are one and from the same”