THE ROLE OF MUSICAL ART IN SOCIETY

I was watching a live talk show called the ‘Stream’, on the Al-Jazeera Channel, the other day. The main discussion was the role of music amid the ground offensive and bombardment of Gaza.

Among other things, the host elaborated on how the people of Palestine have survived through music, which sustained their sanity in spite of the scathingly harsh dehumanisation that is continuing to take place on the strip. When the discussion was concluded, I started thinking about the role and purpose of music. Personally, when I was studying world conflicts, starting from World War I, reading the documentation of historical events from the perspectives of Glyn Harper and Peter Hart, a military historian and others, I came to the realisation that, the definition of art, particularly music has been deficient.

The definition has been among other factors, reductionist. I say this because I came to the conclusion that, the main purpose of music is that above everything, the mouthpiece of society, which functions as a pillar of social cohesion. With the aforesaid definition, musicians should check their motives. In yesteryears, soldiers in the battle field would compose songs to express their life experiences on a day to day basis, no wonder theirs was classic composition. The likes of ‘Umshini wami’ during the armed struggle in South Africa. The migrant worker in the deep stomach of the earth in the abyss gold mines of Johannesburg, South Africa, would sing wishful songs to his dear wife and how he longs to see his young son whom he had left unborn.

Music

He would express how he would remain celibate, not defiling the marriage bed on the altar of compromise. Music to him was a medium of communication to express his longings and ills.
He would express his masculine role in society and how it has landed him to work in other countries. He would look at his wife’s picture and cry, missing her without access, music became the only access that his imagination would visit her, just for a moment. Alas! It is disheartening how music has been reductionist, to mere entertainment, celebrating and fun, let me take you back when the mother would, despite the ill fate that landed her into single parenthood or widowhood, sing a lullaby to her one-month-old child, she would hold her in her lap and sing whatever she desired for her. I get nostalgic saying this, because such moments are not worth what money can buy as they were expressed though music.

Power

Even to date, the sounds of ‘umlolotelo’ echoes my ears because my own mother sang this songs to me. It is such power that music wields on society. Thus musicians should make sure that such powers are exhausted comprehensively. Ultimately, I want to charge every musician to understand that music is not meant for the audience to self-distruct. It is unfortunate that all we hear and see in music nowadays is only for finacncial gain and popularity. Musicians should stop being popularists who are only singing to the heart, but should learn from those who precede them that you also sing to the conscience too. We are really fed up with  hearing about lust, sex, money, drugs and greed lest we self distrust. Music is more than that.

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