Mike Connery
Stephan Smith
Hillary Maroon
Ebenezer Bond

Music and politics: like oil and water? Activists increasingly use music and youth culture to politically engage new audiences. And a recent resurgence in “protest” music indicates that songwriters and sound artists continue to express their values, through lyrics and formal innovation—but to what ends? How can music and the communities and networks of performers and listeners it creates contribute to a culture of progress and change?

The artists and activists on this panel will examine the disparate ways that music, musicians, and youth networks and communities can be mobilized to raise awareness of issues, raise money for specific causes, brand politics as “cool,” and frame music and youth culture as forces to be taken seriously.

Mike Connnery, co-founder of Music for America, a national network created to politically mobilize youth culture, will share his ideas about the ways that politics and culture can effectively be mixed. Folk musician and activist Stephan Smith will discuss strategies for using the global justice movement as a tool for booking and distributing new music and discuss ways in which he has successfully incorporated social justice education opportunities into concerts and tours. Hillary Maroon, musician and founder of New York City-based collective Jazz Against War, will share her experiences organizing concerts to raise money for specific political organizations. Moderated by Ebenezer Bond, founder and director of World Up!, an organization which mobilizes community through hip hop culture.