Music and Global Politics

Discs of Dissent! Sounds of Subversion! "Music and Global Politics" is an arts and ideas-theme based podcast combining an exploration of politics and political philosophy alongside music listening and appreciation. Ranging across all genres and countries, fusing rigorous concepts and fascinating ideas with exciting and iconic musical sounds. Our aim is to think philosophically about music as a political text, from tone poems to tropicalia, from gospel to grunge, and opera to hip-hop. From Thailand to Tallinn, from Soweto to Surabaya and from Mumbai to Mobile, we traverse the world. We guarantee your eardrums a-tingle and your brain cells a-quiver, with something special to take away you wont get anywhere else. We feature lectures as well as interviews and tackle hard hitting contemporary developments alongside those long overlooked and historically significant. Each episode has a set theme that furthers challenging ideas and highlights musical ideas and compositions. Please join us and like, rate and subscribe. For the cost of an overpriced coffee on our patreon page we will gladly dedicate an episode in your honor. Find us at musicandglobalpoliticspod.com Happy and bold listening ahead! Please consider joining RSS and use my link here: https://rss.com/?via=f3da93

Music and Global Politics is a arts podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 42 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Music and Global Politics, a arts show with 42 episodes published.

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  Episode #1

  The Jews' Blues: Musical Symbiosis and Cultural Antiracism

  Aug 4, 202656 minS5

  Welcome to a new season and new approach on Music and Global Politics. After lectures and interviews, we now present dialogues and essay readings. Today's episode on the Jews' Blues gives some answer to the question: have you ever wanted to mine deep the roots of today's globally dominant pop culture. Answer, it is found at least in part, in the Black Jewish musical symbiosis. Today's theme is especially appropriate in our pre-pogrom times, as we witness the pernicious persecutory pattern persisting. So stay tuned for a meditation on musical symbiosis and the politically antiracist Africanist school of mid 20th Century American Jewish cultural and intellectual thought and action,. If you enjoy the electronically generated dialogue, stay tuned for a full essay reading, before which you will hear John Coltrane's transcendent sheets of sounds, turning the Broadway schmalz of "My Favourite Things," into avant garde jazz and improbably into his biggest radio hit. Stay tuned for the end to hear George Gershwin on an historic 1931 recording by the composer himself of his pivotal "I Got Rhythm, " just a few years before his untimely demise in 1937. In the following, you will hear the argument that nostalgia for a ‘Black- Jewish’ alliance in the United States is misplaced. Instead, Jewish immigrants to the United States from the Tsarist Empire and African Americans in the U.S. South were briefly bonded by recognisably similar experiences of marginalisation and migration. Their encounter formed an alternative America and led to an explosive outpouring of cultural and intellectual creativity wherein Jews modelled and pioneered modern antiracism. If you would like to read an article version of this episode please check out: https://fathomjournal.org/the-jews-blues/ Please, pretty please do support us on PATREON at musicandpoliticspod and/or shoot an email to musicandpoliticspod@gmail.com

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  Episode #9

  Kabbalah Girls: Mystics Madonna, Britney and Ariana Grande

  Jul 7, 202655 minS4

  "I wish they all could be Kabbalah Girls!" Miracle waters and mysterious red strings, scanning ancient texts instead of actually reading. One of the more curious tales of democratising mysticism is surely the move into Kabbalah by the reigning Girl queens of provocative glam and uninhibited sexuality: Madonna, Britney Spears and now at least somewhat Arianna Grande,. From the start they mixed in a dose of the naughty Catholic schoolgirl with classic 3rd wave feminism of girl power and deliberately pseudo adolescent girlie culture. Madonna took on the name Esther, donated reportedly up to $30 million dollars to the Kabbalah Center, specifically the K school and the program "spirituality for kids." She would introduce Brittney Spears who studied for a few years and had a Kabbalah themed wedding in 2004. Arianna Grande turned away from strict Catholic teaching on Homosexuality and embraced formulas for manifesting offered by the Kabbalah Center even crediting it for her success. Come learn about Kabbalah basics, what are the Sefirot? What is this Jewish version of divine incarnation, and the controversy over how old it actually is and when it started. It would come as a surprise if not a shock to middle aged rabbis who kept the secrets carefully guarded for centuries, so much ash that Kabbalah became the very prototype for hidden mystical traditions inside major world religions.The attraction of female pop stars makes perfect sense for the mystical map of the Sefirot or spheres reveal the emanations of the divine into the earthly sphere beginning with the earthly female, moving into and onto even the sexual members themselves both female then male. This is quite the alternative model of the made human of the divine than that offered by Catholicism's notion of of original sin, in other words . unavoidable condition of inherited guilt transmitted specifically by sex became a foundational doctrine of the Catholic Church. So here we have another compelling case of mysticism making musical innovation combined with the cultural politics of 3rd wave feminism. Please stay tuned at the end for an intro and more background on this podcast, "Music and Global Politics". In addition to Madonna's "Isaac" from her "Confessions on a Dance Floor," album, check out her video for "Die Another Day." For Kabbalah Center reading check out Yehuda Berg's "72 Names of God," for a more scholarly approach look up Gershom Scholem's "On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism."

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  Episode #8

  Americana Music, MAGA and the Southern Jewish Experience with Mark Rubin

  Jun 21, 20261h 11mS4

  "I recommend you find you a gun, it's too late it's already begun....your neighbours hate you and always did, all this time chomping at the bit." Chilling and arresting lyrics from the Americana raconteur, punk-bluegrass veteran and self-described "Jew from Oklahoma, Mark Rubin. Loudly sounding the warning bells of fascist return, Rubin mines deep into the Americana underbelly of prejudice and mayhem but also the fount of musical wisdom found in folk. A former roadie for the Flaming Lips, he was a co-founder of the classic Americana band "Bad Livers" who pioneered alternative bluegrass in the late 1980s. A master of tuba and the string bass, he hosted radio in Austin, and produced music for Richard Linklater. HIs most recent work out of New Orleans, finds him mining radical Yiddish traditions of resistance poetry and partisan activity on his two most recent releases: 2021's "Triumph of Assimilation," and 2025's "Dispatches from a World Gone Mad." Strangely enough, he mines the Southern Jewish experience to make sense of MAGA today. He is drawing upon the work of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience opened in 2021 in New Orleans where he contributes in a supervisory role. Perhaps this unique minority perspective of this group gave them something of a head start in facing that not so subtle climate of intimidation, southern gothic horror of terror wrapped in the homespun. It is in the South where we find a next chapter of the Anglo tradition of the iron first inside the soft velvet glove, whose ways could not prevent the greatest flowering of musical genres in the modern world. We discuss it all directly from New Orleans Congo Square, a musically sacred patch of ground where drumming from the Kongo met stringed melodies from Senegambia which over time led to jazz, blues and rock and roll. Happy listening ahead. Please check out Mark's website and band camp below, where you can find a string of his latest single releases: https://www.jewofoklahoma.com https://jewofoklahoma.bandcamp.com/

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  Episode #7

  The "Devil's Music"?: The Genius of the Blues at the Heart of Modern Music

  Apr 19, 20261h 6mS4

  Welcome back to Music and Global Politics. Like and subscribe, rate and review and support . Patreon/Gmail: musicandpoliticspod. Become an RSS member yourself using this link here: https://rss.com/?via=f3da93 In this episode we ask, is blues the core of Jazz, is it even the mother of all modern music? Is as BB King once said that "Jazz is the Big Brother of the Blues" or that Blues is High School and Jazz is College? Well its social and economic roots cannot be denied, a rural music versus the city one of the agricultural Delta not the bustling Port City, based on poor cheap transportable instruments, e.g. guitar and harmonica. Surrounded by an aura of suspicion as the "devil's music," the subterranean reservoir of Voodoo that lay beneath was never entirely hidden. ` A highly profane music of work and the carnal life, it is the first person singular voice of existential challenge. Musically, based around the pentatonic scale and non-tempered “blue” notes. These are crafted out of regular microtonal bends on the notes, most often on the 3,5,7 notes Out of this fairly defined 12/16 Bar,3 line AAB form, literally thousands of hit songs emerged, an inexplicable alchemy. These semi-tones create a sense of ambiguity between major and minor. Not published nor orchestrated, even the identities of that very first generation of Missippii Delta players remain shrouded in mystery. For all the myth around Robert Johnson, he was last in a long line of forebears unknown to the after world. : For musical selections today, two masters of the electric blues showcasing each of the primary instruments, Muddy Waters on Guitar and Sonny Boy Williamson on Harmonica. Suggested reading : · Songs of Slavery and Emancipation, Callahan , Kelley, et al. · And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, Joe Boyd · http://www.shmoop.com/blues-history/ · http://www.scaruffi.com/history/blues.html Suggested Listening : Cross Road Blues - Robert Johnson Blind Lemon Jefferson - Match Box Blues W.C. Handy "St. Louis Blues" On The Ed Sullivan Show Bessie Smith - Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out Son House – Preaching Blues

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  Episode #6

  Rock Religion: How Spirituality Displaced Politics at the end of the 60s

  Apr 5, 202639 minS4

  Welcome back to Music and Global Politics. Like and subscribe, rate and review and support . Patreon/Gmail: musicandpoliticspod In honour of Easter, Passover and Qingming tomb-sweeping festival today , we move to matters of the spirit: Did the political tragedies and disappointments of the late 60s convert energy for change into energy for the spirit? Did intimidation and fear of violence enforce this retreat into less earthly matters? Or did the transcendent awakenings of entheogens and the psychedelic experience cry out for metaphysical not political answers? The Grand Tour to the Ancient World instead became a trek to inner worlds, known as the "Hippie Trail," with overland passage through a safe and friendly Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan often by school bus culminating in India and Nepal. The Beatles stay with the Maharishi in Rishikesh studying Transcendental Meditation opened the global floodgates for a youth ready to rush their energies as spiritual seekers rather than revolutionaries.While the Beatles had an acrimonious split with the Maharishi, less well-known is that their American colleagues in art-pop, the Beach Boys actually went on tour with the Indian Guru, and titled a song promoting his consumer friendly technique of Transcendental Meditation. George Harrison made an even greater contribution to ISKCON - the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, known as "Hare Krishna." He bought the movement their first house in England, Pigget's Manor in Letchmore Heath, near Watford, in Hertfordshire, renamed Bhaktivedanta Manor, after the Hindu tradition of devotion the movement aligned itself with. Though inherently musical, already using chanting for transcendence, Harrison also produced and performed on the London branch's recording of the Hare Krishna mantra, an unexpected pop hit, peaking at #13 in England and remaining on the charts for 9 weeks. From the opposite side of the musical spectrum, the jazz world, Alice Coltrane the widow of the saintly saxophonist John, was not content to remain a spiritual apprentice, and instead founded her own ashram. For four years Doja Cat actually lived at Sai Anantam Ashram in Agoura Hills, California with her mother. Highlighting her remarkable gospel-jazz fusion, Alice recorded cover 20 albums of such spiritual jazz, an excerpt of "Om Shanti is coming right up, recorded under her new name Turiyasangitananda , which translates to "the Transcendental Lord's highest song of Bliss" Stay tuned until the end to hear an excerpt from "the Source Family of Father Yod" a spiritual counterculture commune that made a frenzied form of devotional psychedelic rock, recording over 60 albums worth of material. The track "Godmen," by "Children of the Sixth Root Race," a clear reference to the Theosophical movement, the foundation of all New Age philosophies. Here are a few more suggested resources to continue your journey!:  KRSNA  Hare Krishna! (Documentary Film)  Raga (Film)  Yoga for the City (Documentary Short)  Spiritual Revolution, 2008 (Documentary Film) · BBC George Harrison Fact or Fantasy interview · George Harrison - Vatican Blues The Beach Boys 'Transcendental Meditation' – The Beach Boys - All This is That George Harrison - Awaiting on You All

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