Discs of Dissent! Sounds of Subversion! "Music and Global Politics" is an arts and ideas-theme based podcast combining an exploration of politics and political philosophy alongside music listening and appreciation. Ranging across all genres and countries, fusing rigorous concepts and fascinating ideas with exciting and iconic musical sounds. Our aim is to think philosophically about music as a political text, from tone poems to tropicalia, from gospel to grunge, and opera to hip-hop. From Thailand to Tallinn, from Soweto to Surabaya and from Mumbai to Mobile, we traverse the world. We guarantee your eardrums a-tingle and your brain cells a-quiver, with something special to take away you wont get anywhere else. We feature lectures as well as interviews and tackle hard hitting contemporary developments alongside those long overlooked and historically significant. Each episode has a set theme that furthers challenging ideas and highlights musical ideas and compositions. Please join us and like, rate and subscribe. For the cost of an overpriced coffee on our patreon page we will gladly dedicate an episode in your honor. Find us at musicandglobalpoliticspod.com Happy and bold listening ahead!
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With the tradition of revolt in France alive in well, it is a good time to turn to France's decisive role in Jazz, perhaps the most critical after the United States itself. In the discussion that follows, we will discuss how many pioneering Jazz musicians made France, not the US, their homeland, how the first Jazz dictionaries were compiled in France and not the US and how the most radical theses on the politics of Jazz emerged in France and again not the US. Somewhat of a preview for an upcoming episode which features author John MacPhee's new book Barricade Sounds.
In this short, graphic volume, Josh MacPhee explores the role of music and sound in the student and worker revolt of May 1968 in France through the lens of the vinyl records that emerged out of—and were produced to comment on—the struggle. From the chanson enrages that sung on the barricades, the birth of an independent and politicized music infrastructure in France, the explosive emergence of free jazz and rock scenes, and the enduring legacy and embedding of the sounds and aesthetics of '68 into experimental and pop music to this day, this book and our upcoming discussion will illuminate the impact of liberatory politics and action on our audio landscape.
A major corrective in our episode today is understanding so-called "Gypsy" Jazz, the Francophone world and Europe's first original Jazz genre. You will hear the swinging lilt in Django Reinhardt's "Minor Swing," which sounds akin to swing jazz of that same era, but the instrumentation and harmonic modes are from another world entirely. Then you will hear at the end of the episode the sound of the railroad of boundary and border crossing transit as it evolves into a march rhythm reflective of early Chinese Jazz influenced by the Russian military presence a result of both White Russian exiles but also the development of a branch of the Trans-Siberian railroad through the Manchurian capitol of Harbin. While Django's innovative guitar virtuosity influenced all who touch the instrument way beyond the boundaries of jazz, so too did these early Chinese jazz composers like Lin Jinhui, who formed the first all Chinese Jazz band, the Breeze Dance Band, which would inspire Chinese language popular music up until today. What started as Jazz evolved into Mando and Cantopop.
Questions covered to include:
Why we should stop saying "Gypsy Jazz" (instead say Jazz Manouche
Why Shanghai was perhaps the most exciting city in the world in the pre-war era?
Why so many American Jazz greats adopted France as their homeland?
5 Oct 2026
The Future of Music?: CENO, Imblem, Reframing Royalties and Fandom
What happens when independent artists no longer have to wait for a record label to fund them?
Los Angeles independent rapper CENO has an album coming November 6 called The Album.
It hasn’t been released yet.
But 6 figres has already been generated around the project.
No major-label album release. No hit record driving the numbers. No millions of streams.
How does an independent artist generate six figures before the public has even heard the album?
The answer involves a new platform called Imblem and an entirely different way of thinking about the relationship between artists, their audiences, creative works and royalties.
But the $ is only part of the conversation.
The bigger question is what this could mean for the future of the music business.
If an independent artist can build substantial financial support directly around an unreleased project, what happens to the traditional label negotiation?
What happens to A&R?
What happens when fans can do more than stream, like and comment?
And what happens when an artist walks into the room already having demonstrated that people are willing to put real money behind the project?
In this episode with Ceno, we discuss:
• How an unreleased independent album generated $420k • Why he believes fan participation could change artist leverage • What Imblem is and how he used it • Why the traditional music financing model may be approaching a major disruption • Whether followers and streams are actually the best measurements of an artist’s value • The difference between having fans and having people financially committed to your success • His personal journey and the life experiences behind The Album • Why each song represents a different chapter and mental state in his life • What happens on November 6 when the experiment meets the marketplace
There’s music here.
There’s technology.
There’s money.
There’s controversy.
And there’s a much larger debate about who gets to decide which artists and creative ideas deserve a chance.
What if the next major disruption in music isn't how we listen to it — but who gets to participate in its success?
Two great freestyles by Ceno come right before and after the interview and stay tuned until the end to learn more about the podcast.
16 Sept 2026
Revisiting Symphonic and "Revue" form Jazz of the 1920s
Welcome back to Music and Global Politics, please like and subscribe, support and share!
The follow is a lecture on how Jazz went global just as it went orchestral. In the 1920s just as Broadway composers sought to integrate Jazz, audiences across the world. Occurring just as the devastation of World War One gave way to the Roaring Twenties, it is an oft overlooked fact, that the first global audiences to have encountered Jazz would have done so via a stage revue. Jazz also enjoyed the timing of arriving just as traditional formal dance in Europe faced steeped decline. This multi-act sketch form would appear today more like a Broadway musical with dance and comedic elements, however without a fixed dramatic plot or book. From the Southern Syncopated Orchestra in the UK in 1919, to the Jazz Kings to Paris in 1919 or Leoni Leonidoff producer of the landmark 1925 European tour of the African American musical revue Chocolate Kiddies, which featured Sam Wooding and his Orchestra alongside early compositions by Duke Ellington. Crucially, Gershwin’s experiments positively inspired African American composers to think bigger musically. James P. Johnson’s ‘Yamekraw: a Negro Rhapsody (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avt9dDCII5M),’ of 1927, was conceived in response to Gershwin. Edward Kennedy ‘Duke’ Ellington’s ‘Black and Tan Fantasy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAPCH-JsMV0)’ of that same year goes one step further in homage and directly quotes Gershwin’s iconic upward clarinet trill in its brass section. The contours of critique of Gershwin have not evolved much in a century. What was denounced as ‘middle class meddling,’ in the 1920s, is now subjected to the taunts that it is ‘corny and Caucasian (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/26/arts/music/george-gershwin-rhapsody-in-blue.html).’Can we even consider Bernstein's West Side Story, latter day attempt at this form, the great road not taken in American musical history. One of the legacies is that arguably Europe proved a more stable and supportive home for Jazz than almost all major cities in the USA. Please enjoy Eric Satie;'s "Transatlantic," an emblem for this time and Stravinsky's Ragime for 11 instruments. James Reese Europe castle house rag and Mitchell's jazz kings the Montmartre jazz...
What is the Third Stream?
Can Jazz even be successfully notated for classical players?
Who was Paul Whiteman once called the :"King of Jazz"?
Why has Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" been called America's "worst masterpiece"? Is it the "Sgt Pepper" of Jazz.?
How did Europeans first understand Jazz?
What is Gebrauchsmusik.
How these earliest tours led to the founding of Blue Note Records label
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