Hello, I'm Johnny O'Hanson, Jr. join me each week on In Black America as we profile current and historically significant figures whose stories help illuminate life in Black America.

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All right, y'all, we are just two weeks into January, but already this year has been

eventful. There's Trump's attack on Venezuela, or last week's ice shooting in Minneapolis,

which led to protests all across the country over the weekend.

And these protests on the street are connected to what I want to talk about today.

A new era of protest music online.

This past year in the face to do the thing that you're calling a job.

This past year in particular, there's been an uptick where I feel like every time there's a really big thing happening in the news,

ice raids, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, these have all been moments where I've seen a lot of people use songs,

and in particular these very like folk, plain spoken, guitar-driven songs on social media

as a way to kind of respond to these moments.

This trend is kind of surprising to me.

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.

It's like a throwback to what we think of as like Vietnam War, singer-songwriter era, protest

music.

So why is this new version of protest music going viral?

Stomp Clap 2.0 era is here.

Ah!

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