"It wasn't New Labour, my politics A-level or the Tipp-Exed Woody Guthrie slogan this machine kills fascists on my friend Simon's bag that set me on the path to activism. It was a CD single I found in a west London record shop, which I only picked up because it was by a bunch of brown guys. It was the summer of 1998, and I was 17 years old and browsing records in the Harrow Virgin Megastore,"
"I played the CD on my cousin Vimal's stack hi-fi system, and afterwards was changed for ever. Sitting on the edge of his bed, reading the lyric sheet, I was shocked and furious at what I had heard. Maybe it was the buzzsaw guitars, mixed with the furious rapping, the Bollywood sample and the jungle drums, but that heady mix of music made me want to stand up and do something."
"The story of Satpal Ram terrified me, just as the murder of Stephen Lawrence terrified me. It was evidence that my worst fears could come true. That violence still stalked our streets, and there were people out there who wanted to kill people like me. I had grown up very aware of injustice. My mum once held a sit-in at her local newspaper to protest against racial bias in their crime reporting."
A CD single by Asian Dub Foundation catalysed the narrator's activism by presenting the case of Satpal Ram, a South Asian man jailed after defending himself in an alleged racist attack. The song's fusion of buzzsaw guitars, furious rapping, Bollywood samples and jungle drums provoked shock, fury and a sense of urgency to act. The Satpal Ram story, together with the murder of Stephen Lawrence, reinforced a fear of street violence and racial threat. Family history of anti-racist protest and legal challenge shaped the narrator's awareness. Music and protest encounters converted feeling into active engagement against injustice.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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