Music has long been a powerful tool for activists to reach out and connect with the people willing to listen. Through songs and performances, artists have mobilized listeners to their causes, creating and spreading change.
Rock Against the TPP, a touring concert designed to spread awareness about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and energize people to protest against it, used this musical legacy to its full potential on Friday at Spontaneous Celebrations in Jamaica Plain. Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future and one of the lead organizers of the concert, explained the significance of the TPP.
“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a massive, massive thing to fight,” Greer said. “It’s backed by essentially every multinational corporation in the world. These companies have billions of lobbying dollars to spend to try to push this agreement through Congress.”
The TPP’s goal is to globalize American trade, promote new jobs and boost the American economy, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative website, but economists and activists decry the bill for doing the exact opposite. Protesters say it will, among other things, make outsourcing easier, lower the environmental standards for global companies to follow and severely impact people’s right to freely use the internet, according to the Rock Against the TPP website.
Despite the size and importance of the TPP, however, it has remained largely unknown by the public.
Catherine Houston, mobilization coordinator of the Women of Steel, an activist branch of the United Steelworkers and the volunteer leader for Rock Against the TPP, explained some of the difficulties for many activists.
“It is an equal opportunity problem event that will touch every person’s lives,” Houston said. “The challenge has been that even though it seems like this is something that most people would really know about, the alarming part is how many people still don’t know.”
The high-energy rock of Massachusetts band Tigerman WOAH began the show. Band members spoke briefly between sets, engaging with the audience and reminding them that they had gathered for a reason. After the band’s last song, guest speakers took to the stage and started to list their grievances with the trade bill, some using spoken word poetry and others opting for speeches and chants.
While their styles of delivery varied, their message was the same: the TPP cannot be allowed to pass through Congress and become law.
After the first group of speakers finished, the concert turned back to the music, this time the blend of pop and soul of the New York artist Bell’s Roar. After her segment, the next round of guest speakers began. Again, each adopted a different style and energy to their words, but the energy and passion of high school seniors drew just as much applause as the measured and powerful words of Houston, who had represented USW in the first group.
The crowd proved to be just as diverse, ranging from parents and their children to college students to experienced activists. Amanda Reveles, a senior in the Boston University College of Arts and Sciences, noted this phenomenon.
“It creates a sense of community and understanding each other through music and what that means for all of us,” Reveles said.
The gathering of people across age groups and familial status was, in fact, one of Greer’s biggest goals for Rock Against the TPP, he said.
“I’ve been using music as a tool for supporting movements for social change since I was in high school,” Greer said. “It’s very clear to me that music and culture are an important part of how we can bring people together and raise awareness about issues that are affecting all of us.”
When the second group of speakers left the stage, the Boston-based Foundation Movement followed up, inserting some soulful, hard-hitting raps into the mix. Taína Asili and her troupe, Taína Asili y la Banda Rebelde, followed up with rock songs filled with reggae and Latino flair. Her conviction against the TPP has stemmed from a long history of activism and a love of the environment, she said.
“For me, stopping the TPP is important on a lot of fronts,” Asili said. “One of them for me is, as an environmental justice activist, a concern about the ability of the TPP to allow corporations to sue governments for potential loss of profits, thereby intimidating our government from passing laws that would protect our environment, protect our workers and protect our food.”
While the concert was filled with emboldened speeches and displays of musical prowess, the message against the TPP still stood out. Taqari Patterson, a freshman at Bunker Hill Community College, explained what might happen if the community ignores the duty to protest, using it as a call to action for the younger generation.
“This affects you,” Patterson said. “What’s happening right now might not affect you now, like maybe you’re not old enough to vote, but one day you will be, and you’ll be f—-d.”
