GrandMaster Flash, an innovator of many DJ techniques, performing on his turntables in the 1980s. Source: https://bit.ly/2FOTcAi
Throughout the 20th century, music has been attacked by politicians and parents alike for infiltrating the minds of the youth. From Punjab to Lesotho, this article tracks the ongoing campaign against musicians in the 21st century.
As far back as the 1920s, music has been criticised as a corrupting force, with these campaigns targeting jazz, swing, narcocorrido, garage and funk to name a few. It’s been over 70 years since the moral panic of 50s Rock n’ Roll and music is still at the forefront of political ire. Artists face censorship to this day in countries like India and Mexico, and while there is little evidence to support politicians’ claims, new legislation continues to be enacted.
As expected, the genres targeted tend to be popular among marginalised communities and the youth. They are also related, perceived or otherwise, to narcotics, sexual activity and/or violence. While earlier charges tended to be more moralistic, the rise of gangsta rap in the late 80s signalled a new cultural turn that influenced music globally. The promotion of violence, specifically gun violence, more than sex or narcotics, became the leading allegation. “There is little to no credible evidence that musical genres cause gun violence,” says Iain Overton, journalist and expert on armed violence, “across very different settings and styles, violence consistently predates the music and rises or falls with other more obvious factors such as gun availability, policing, economic exclusion and the strength of justice systems.” However, the vilification of music continues. In this article, we take a look at a variety of genres from across the globe to see how the timeless skirmish between musicians and their governments continues to this day.
Punjabi Hip-Hop
Punjabi hip-hop gained mainstream popularity in the early 2010s, melding traditional Punjabi folk with U.S. hip-hop. The protagonists of the genre are culturally their own, aligning with the typical patriarch of Jatt machismo – the agricultural caste of Northern India and Pakistan. In their gritty, opulent music videos, populated by guns, women and expensive cars, these rappers retain their traditional routes as characterised by land ownership and hyper-masculinity. However, while fingers are pointed at these rappers, weapons, or shastars, are symbols of justice within Sikhism and figure prominently in Punjabi ceremonies. And the routes of Jatt maschismo can be found far earlier, in the favouring of Jatt soldiers by British colonialists.
While the genre has been celebrated for modernising folk music, the 2022 murder of its leading star, Sidhu Moose Wala, cemented its reputation for violence among state leaders. In 2022, politicians attempted to intervene, imposing a ban on the display of firearms in these music videos (in public and online also). However censorship failed to produce positive results, with the High Court noting the persistence of guns in both music and public settings. A similar ban enacted by the High Court in 2019 was also criticised for being ineffective after musicians easily circumvented the state-specific laws by recording in different parts of the country.
Funk Proibidão
Funk Proibidão emerged in the bailes (street parties) of Rio’s favelas. Meaning ‘strongly prohibited’, the music centres around a Miami bass structure and is highly influenced by hip-hop and electro, with lyrics that often praise drug traffickers and criminal activities. State efforts to suppress bailes in the early 90s resulted in these events taking place deeper inside the favelas where drug traffickers exerted control. Thereafter, as funk became incorporated into the illicit economy, proibidão emerged as a distinct sub-genre. In Rio, censorship transformed the economy surrounding proibidão into a lucrative one, largely centred around shows at bailes rather than music sales.
The criminalisation of funk proibidão has “flip-flopped” throughout the years, with a Rio legislative assembly enacting five separate laws between 2000 and 2010. Across Brazil as a whole, there were 130 legislative proposals seeking to criminalise funk between 2002 and 2025 and these have not ceased. In the first five months of 2025 alone, 63 proposals were put forward and one of the genre’s best known artists, MC Poze do Rodo, was arrested for “glorifying crime”. Today, much of this music is still hard to find online as it carries charges under the ‘crimes against public peace’ law.
Lesotho Famo
Modern famo, taking off in the 1960s, developed in the drinking dens of migrant Basotho miners. Famo has been described as a form of spontaneous oral poetry, accompanied by frantic accordion playing and rhythmic drumming. In the mid-1990s, organised criminal groups reopened South Africa’s gold mines, offering work to the many unemployed Basotho migrants. Famo musicians often worked in the mines and the two became intertwined. Factions, like the Seakhi and the Terene, made up of fellow musicians and fans, began to develop around specific artists and these quickly morphed into gangs.
As organised crime was generally more profitable than famo, artists soon leveraged their influence to enter into the criminal world instead. Fighting for a larger fan base through music, in an environment where many fans work in illegal mines, became a way to fight for control over a larger number of workers. However government responses to the violence tend to focus on the symptoms rather than the root causes of poverty, work scarcity and judicial ineptitude. In 2024, the government criminalised 12 famo groups before banning their music altogether. Homicide rates did not fall.
An Ongoing Struggle
The fight for control amidst an ever changing world continues, and musicians seem to still be at the forefront. Whether it be allegations of incitement to violence or the degrading of social values, the belief that music can affect the behaviour of the masses is clearly a popular one. “Music is visible, emotive and easy to scapegoat,” says Iain Overton, “it seems far politically simpler and more digestible to point to lyrics or performers than to confront the hard issues.” Besides a political pointing of the finger, these efforts towards censorship also speak to fears around the quickening pace of social change, the waning influence of religious institutions, technological development and, concomitantly, the loss of tradition. But musicians are simply one drop in a much larger pond of cultural heritage, making censorship futile at best and dictatorial at worst. So perhaps it is time to discard this century-old playbook, to face the real factors at play, and, in doing so, protect those musical objects so integral to human history.
This piece is based on research completed by the author for a previous article by Action on Armed Violence.
