Brittany Luce

When I think of protest music, I think of like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, you know, their heydays were more than half a century ago.

Here's Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, reporter for NPR Music, who wrote a story on this trend.

Hello, hello.

I'm Brittany Luce and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

So first, I want to know, who are some artists that you've been watching that you spoke to for your story?

Like what are the kinds of things they're singing about?

It feels like there's like aesthetically some overlap there between like

this kind of folk protest music and country music.

And country music is like so popular right now.

So it's like the aesthetic is already kind of like coming back.

And given our political climate where so many people are feeling upset,

it makes sense that a political message would also come and emerge at the same time.

It's like the music aesthetically is kind of begging for it.

And also like the times are kind of begging for it in a lot of people's minds as well.

That folk music, protest music sound, Pete Seeger or like Joan Baez.

Why do you think that kind of musical style became less popular until now?

Because I will say, like, I know that people like Joan Baez and literally Pete Seeger, like Pete Seeger was playing, I feel like up until the day he died, he was playing at whatever protests would have him still.

But still, that musical style was not like the style of the day, you know, for a long time.

Why do you think that kind of musical style became less popular?

And why do you think it's coming back now?