Music as a tool for social protest: Case studies from black lives matter and EndSARS Movements

Having reached its peak in 2020, the current wave of international protest movements has led to the failure of the well-established systems of inequality, among which the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in America and the EndSARS wave in Nigeria are the most significant ones. The essential element of the two movements was the use of music not only as a source of entertainment but as an effective tool to social protest, group identity and emotional strength. This article will delve into the complex meaning of music in these movements and rely on a comparative case study approach to examine how musicians, activists, and populations employed sound in the fight against state violence, to amplify voices of the marginalized, and create transnational solidarity. Kendrick Lamar Alright, Beyonce Formation, Childish Gambino, This Is America, etc. In the BLM context were adopted as sounds to define rebellion and circulated in protest marches, social media, and with political rhetoric. In the meantime, the EndSARS movement was supported by the political creativity of such Nigerian musicians as Falz and Burna Boy, whose lyrics recorded the mood of outrage and contributed to shifting online protests to real action on the streets. The paper contextualizes such musical interventions against wider theoretical debate on cultural resistance, digital activism, aesthetics of protest. It points out convergences and divergences in genre, audience and political reception and gives an insight into the use of music as transnational media of social criticism and as a means of democratization. In the end, one of the arguments the article makes is that protest music can still be a crucial organizing, memorializing, and imagination of justice in the 21 st century.