A collaborative piece about different forms of protest music across time and geography
Originally published on Global Voices
Image courtesy of Sydney Allen. Made via Canva Pro.
This post is part of Global Voices’ September 2026 Spotlight series, “Protest in Democracy.” With this Spotlight, we seek to explore the many forms of protest, the tactics states use to delegitimize and suppress them, and the complex relationship between protest and democracy. You can support this coverage by donating here.
For nearly as long as there have been governments and a ruling class, there has been music aimed at mocking them, demanding change, and airing grievances. Music can be a powerful form of resistance — particularly in anti-democratic contexts where direct action can be risky. Music offers people a way to subvert those in power, connect with others on an emotional level, and a catchy, memorable tune can spread faster than any political speech or slogan.
While most people consider protest music a relatively modern phenomenon — songs against racial injustice and violence throughout the 20th century, anti-war anthems of the 1960s, independence ballads — these are only the latest examples in a long history of humans using music to voice their discontent.
As early as the 1st century BC, Roman texts reference “bards,” as esteemed members of Gaulish society. These figures were respected, learned musicians who used verse, music, and satire to share stories as well as songs of praise and mockery. They had immense power to sway public opinion — even for or against the ruling monarchs and chieftains — which caused fear among those in power and, after an intense persecution campaign, nearly caused them to be wiped out altogether by the 6th century AD. However, the tradition persisted and continued to be an important form of resistance during colonial times in later centuries.
Anti-slavery hymns, shared orally by enslaved peoples, are another form of musical resistance that dates far beyond the modern musical era. Though these songs and genres were highly varied throughout the diaspora — Kaiso in Trinidad and the Caribbean, Spirituals in the Southern United States, Capoeira in Brazil, to name a few — all had elements of coded messaging, cultural preservation, and criticizing slave owners while promoting hope for freedom.
As one researcher, Professor Alan Finlayson, who has been investigating protest songs throughout history, said in an interview with the University of East Anglia:
“One thing we found across the centuries was people complaining about those in charge: monarchs, military commanders and MPs. For over 400 years people have been singing about their rulers’ self-indulgence, laziness and lack of concern for ‘ordinary’ people.”
This trend — people using song to critique those in power — is just as, if not more powerful today, as social media and streaming platforms allow protest music to reach new audiences all over the world. As part of Global Voices’ September Spotlight, “Protest in Democracy,” members of our community will be sharing examples of protest music past and present from their communities in this collaborative article.
Improviser poets in Kyrgyzstan speak out on behalf of the people
In a similar vein of the bards of Ireland, in September 2026, Kyrgyzstan’s online space became filled with discussions of censorship by the government, after one of the most famous and prolific tokmo akyns, a specific type of Kyrgyz improvisational poet, Aaly Tutkuchev, claimed that he had been removed from a concert celebrating the country’s independence day in the northwestern city of Talas.
He explained that he was initially invited by local officials and agreed to perform at the festivities, but was told that his name was removed from the list of artists after interference by the central authorities at the last moment. The governor of Talas later explained that Tutkuchev was removed from the program because of a new conceptual direction for the concert that did not involve tokmo akyns, not because of censorship.
Following the public outrage and support, Tutkuchev thanked people and shared that he has “grown used to being crossed out [by the government],” and that he only prays that God does not cross him “out of people’s hearts.”
In Kyrgyzstan, where people have lived as nomads for thousands of years and oral literature has been a central part of culture, tokmo akyns like Tutkuchev hold a special place in the nation’s social and political life, making them close to ordinary people. They also step up in times of crisis and grief, producing songs that unite people and help them get through difficult days.
A perfect example of this is a farewell song called “Chyngyz olbos bolsochu” (If Chyngyz could be immortal), performed in 2008 by Elmirbek Imanaliyev at the funeral of the most famous Kyrgyz writer, Chyngyz Aitmatov, which helped people deal with the loss of arguably the most accomplished and beloved Kyrgyz writer.
For centuries, tokmo akyns have both entertained folks with their songs, which they make up on the go, and acted as their spokespersons in front of rulers and governments, raising problems and condemning injustice.
Tutkuchev himself did so on two occasions in the last six years, which led to the most recent incident. In 2020, whilst performing in the capital, Bishkek, in front of the former president on Independence Day, Tutkuchev went off script and sang about endemic corruption in courts, customs service, and high-level officials, prompting organizers to repeatedly signal to him to end his performance.
Here is a YouTube video with the song.
In 2022, after the government started jailing activists for their posts on social media, Tutkuchev performed a song about how the government has become paranoid and started detaining young people and elderly women, making the situation worse and undermining peace and unity in the country. The arrested people spoke against handing over the Kempir-Abad water reservoir as part of the border delimitation agreement with Uzbekistan.
Here is a YouTube video with the song.
Tutkuchev’s stature and popularity most likely saved him from detention, but some of his lesser-known colleagues did not fare so well under Kyrgyzstan’s current political regime, which came to power in 2020 and steered the country toward authoritarianism. Among them is Bolot Nazarov, a tokmo akyn who worked with a team of investigative journalists and turned their corruption-investigation findings into songs in Kyrgyz.
Here is a YouTube video with Nazarov’s song addressed to Tashiyev.
Nazarov was detained in 2022 and 2023 on fabricated charges, which claimed he distributed drugs and stole a horse. He was eventually acquitted but had to spend several months in temporary detention. The arrests took place against the backdrop of the investigations Nazarov covered in his songs about corruption schemes involving the family members of the former security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev, who was in office at the time.
This literary form of protest allows tokmo akyns to serve as a bridge between the government and the people, channeling public sentiment in an artistic, non-violent way. Their popularity among people and their status as living symbols of national culture can provide a degree of immunity from persecution and make government officials more receptive to criticism that might otherwise be easily dismissed.
Songs of protest down under
Australia has a long history of songs of protest and resistance going back to early colonial convict days.
Amnesty International Australia has posted 10 songs of social change with brief summaries, including YouTube versions. They include Indigenous classics such as Yothu Yindi’s “Treaty,” Paul Kelly/Kev Carmody’s “From Little Things Big Things Grow,” and Midnight Oil’s “Beds Are Burning.”
Helen Reddy’s 1971 feminist anthem “I Am Woman” is also one of their picks. Others not on the list include anti-war ballads Eric Bogle’s World War One ballad “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” and Red Gum’s Vietnam song “I Was Only 19.” Many Aussies would also add Cold Chisel’s “The Sanh” to that list, a pro-peace anthem about an Australian veteran returning home after fighting in Vietnam.
The revolutionary song of Nepal
“Gaun Gaun Bat Utha,” meaning rise from every village, is a song of protest that used to be performed at democratic campaigns during the party-less Panchayat regime in Nepal (1961–1990).
Composed by Shyam Tamot and sung by the duo of Raamesh and Raayan, the song served as an anthem during student protests.
The group of four youngsters, including Raamesh, Raayan, Manjul, and Arim, called Ralfa, toured Nepal singing “Gaun Gaun Bat Utha” and “Gariba ko Chameli,” protesting against the Panchayat regime. The songs talked about social inequalities and injustice.
Rapper in Togo triggered a nationwide movement
In Togo, rapper Aamron (Tchala Essowè Narcisse) became one of the faces of the 2025 protest movement. Active on social media, particularly TikTok, he had been sharply critical of Togo President Faure Gnassingbé's government.
On May 26, he called, ironically, for people to “celebrate” the president’s birthday on June 6. He was arrested at his home in Lomé that same day. On June 5, he reappeared in a video apologizing to the president and saying he had been placed in a psychiatric hospital, a version rejected by his family and the opposition.
His arrest was one of the triggers of the 2025 protests of June 5–6, which were met with repression, violence, and further demonstrations on June 26–28, which left at least seven people dead according to civil society groups.
Aamron was released on June 21, but arrested again on September 19 and placed under judicial supervision, with his passport confiscated. Beyond Aamron’s individual case, his arrest illustrates the traditional role of rap music and performance as a form of resistance in a semi-authoritarian context.
Misha shares his story and songs
As part of Global Voices video podcasts, we recorded an interview with Russian activist Misha, who is currently seeking asylum in Spain. Misha, a trans person, poet, and musician, has recorded a number of protest songs, as well as an album titled Everybody is Free. He explains that the music is helping him work through the trauma he has experienced as a queer Russian peace activist.
One of his songs, “Fuck the war,” is a tribute to what never was: the Tatu girl band, who were instructed by their producer to “act queer” on stage, and who for a while became a symbol of hope for the Russian (and, at that time, even global) LGBTQ+ community. Since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Tatu has done a complete 180 politically. They have gone from a pro-LGBTQ+ symbol to a homophobic group supporting Putin’s regime and the war with Ukraine.
Below is the link to the single “Fuck the war”:
In a way, their switch illustrates the path Russia has taken since the early 2000s (embracing all “western” culture deemed “cool” or trendy, including queerness) to denying and repressing all dissent and proclaiming themselves as beacons of “traditional” Russian values, which exclude and reject LGBTQ+ people.
And here is the link to the full interview:
From black sarees to silent studios: The story of protest music in Pakistan
By Rai M. Azlan
Protest music in Pakistan has never respected who’s in charge.
If we look at the history of Pakistani pop culture, General Ayub Khan’s government gave Pakistan an early lesson in what happens when an artist says no. In 1965, the actress and dancer Neelo was summoned by the Governor of West Pakistan to perform before the visiting Shah of Iran. She refused, was forcibly brought to the Governor’s House, and, accounts differ on the details, collapsed or attempted suicide rather than comply.
The leftist poet Habib Jalib turned the episode into verse almost immediately, and the line raqs zanjeer pehen kar bhi kiya jata hai (“dance can be performed even in chains”) became a shorthand slogan for protesting. When Neelo’s husband, filmmaker Riaz Shahid, cast her in the 1969 film Zarqa, Jalib’s poem was set to music and folded into the script almost unchanged, turning a private act of refusal into a song every Pakistani of a certain generation can still hum. Find the full song “Raqs zanjeer pehn kr b kiya jata h” below.
Two decades on, under a far harsher dictator, came Pakistan’s most iconic act of musical defiance. On February 13, 1986, classical singer Iqbal Bano walked onto a Lahore stage in a black saree banned by General Zia-ul-Haq as un-Islamic — and sang Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s outlawed poem “Hum Dekhenge” to 50,000 people. The government cut the sound system; bootleg cassettes carried it forward anyway.
Repression didn't end with military rule, though. In 1996, under an elected government, state television banned Junoon’s “Ehtesaab,” widely read as an attack on Benazir Bhutto’s administration.
During the 2007–2009 Lawyers’ Movement, the band Laal set Faiz and Jalib’s poetry to music and became the movement's soundtrack. This was an introduction to the legendary poets for many young people.
By 2011, protest music had moved to YouTube: Beygairat Brigade’s “Aalu Anday” mocked politicians and generals by name and went viral, prompting the state to block the sites hosting it.
There's a second, quieter danger worth naming: Musicians silenced by militants rather than governments. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as the Taliban gained ground through the 2000s, at least thirteen Pashto artists were murdered between 2008 and 2017. In 2016, celebrated Sufi qawwal Amjad Sabri was shot dead in Karachi; a Pakistani Taliban faction claimed responsibility, citing alleged blasphemy.
Today, new political protest music is rarer, not for lack of grievances but because the list of actors capable of punishing a song has grown, and the cost of being heard has risen with it.
