Rebel Sounds

Joe Mulhall uncovers how music has shaped resistance movements across the globe, from Irish protest songs to Apartheid South Africa to the artists in Ukraine today.

While the global history of the dictatorships, oppression, racism and state violence over the last century is well known – the role that music played in people’s lives during these times is less understood.

This book is a collection of stories and hidden histories about how music provided light in the darkest of times over the past century. How it steeled souls and inspired resistance to oppression. Rebel Sounds will explore the horror of the Nazi regime, the Soviet Union’s oppression behind the Berlin Wall, authoritarian dictatorships in Brazil and Nigeria, institutionalised racism and police violence in America and South Africa, street violence in Britain, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and musical resistance in war-torn Ukraine.

This is a social history of the twentieth century but one that takes in the human impulse to create, share and enjoy the one thing that connects cultures and spans generations: music.