Chuck D

"It's really pretty frustrating to see this shit keep happening and see racism fucking out there. It's a part of who this country is," an impassioned Ivan Neville says on this week's People Have The Power. In an incredibly powerful episode, Neville talks about how racism directly influenced the  new Dumpstaphunk album, 'Where Do We Go From Here.' 

In the midst of the pandemic of the last year, Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee found her musical bliss again while making the band's new album. 'The Bitter Truth.' "I feel a new sense of belonging where I am.," Lee  tells Steve Baltin on this week's People Have The Power. 

Shakey Graves' influential debut, 'Roll The Bones,' turns 10 this year. And to celebrate he has reissued the album, releasing it to streaming services for the first time. It's perfect timing for the Austin-based Graves to revisit the past because as he tells host Steve Baltin on this week's People Have The Power, Graves hasn't been prolific during COVID. He has used the time to take a break.

He talks about the break, selects protest songs from Pink Floyd, Sam Cooke and more, his admiration for David Bowie and why it took him a minute to become a Bruce Springsteen fan on this week's show. 

"Of course I have a fond affection for that song obviously for personal reason," Bruce Hornsby says of Tupac's 'Changes,' one of his six protest songs of choice on this week's People Have The Power. "That song is my song, 'The Way It Is,' with new words. I love the lyrics, such a positive message, such a soulful message. And now again it's achieved this pantheon status where I've been sent several videos from around the world, one of the most beautiful ones came from New Zealand, where there are these protests and Tupac's ;Changes' is playing and hundreds of people are singing along, they know every word. "

"Music has a very particular role to play in social protest and in social movements. So I look at the songs in terms of what is their use and how are they useful," Joan Osborne tells host Steve Baltin on this week's People Have The Power. Osborne talks about her new album, 'Trouble And Strife,' and much more. 

"Hearing great songs that make you move has been a huge part of what's inspired me to make this record. I really wanted to at some point in my life make a record that felt like I could move my body to it and have fun,"  Julia Stone says on this week's People Have The Power of her forthcoming 'Sixty Summers,' her first solo album in eight years. 

During the course of this week's People Have The Power James picks several protest songs, including Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," which he says, "That's my favorite album of all time."

He elaborates on the significance of the song both culturally and in his work. "Right after George Floyd was killed and I was in Los Angeles at the protest I saw several people holding up signs with lyrics from 'What's Going On' on them. That song and that record, to me, are the pinnacle of human achievement musically," he says.

So how does it influence his own work? "Everything about that record is what I aspire to be with music. I feel like that record haunts my dreams," he says. "That record, in my mind, is untouchable. So I'm always looking to it as the cornerstone of the building I'm trying to build. "

"My first one was 'Get Up, Stand Up,' but I crossed it out because I was like, 'That's too obvious.' There's another one called 'Slave Driver,' which is less obvious that I like. In my deeper cuts that would be the one,'" Ziggy Marley says of why he chose his father's "Slave Driver" as his dad's protest song on this week's People Have The Power. 

"I remember when Beyonce went on tour and Feminism is in big lights in the back. I was asked by so many journalists, in this sort of goading way, to undercut her,  'What do you think of Beyonce saying feminism with her booty shaking?,'" Ani DiFranco recalls on this week's People Have The Power. "I’m like, 'Wow, you just want a cat fight, don’t you? What is up with that?' It’s beautiful, it’s absolutely beautiful that, for me, any woman that’s going to claim the F-word, I want every woman who believes in their right to self-determination to call themselves a feminist. "

From feminism to her favorite New Orleans foods, DiFranco covers a wide range of subjects in this hour-long talk that also touches on Billie Eilish, writing a play and much more. 

"A lot of these songs that have been deemed protest songs, they're fucking great songs anyway. You're just waiting for an excuse to go out and sort of sing them. So 'Ohio' would be one of those. They're really made to help you express it cause you don't know what to say," Wayne Coyne says of what makes a good protest song on this week's People Have The Power.