Music as a Catalyst for Change

By Dylan Aiston

On 15 April 2019, a transgender woman from Dallas, Texas, was attacked by a mob of people as a result of her sexuality. During the attack anti-LGBTQ+ slurs were being thrown at the victim, indicating the nature of the crime.

Tydi Dansbury was another victim of this uprising trend of hate crimes against the transgender community. This attack, however, was fatal. The 37-year-old transgender woman was on the receiving end of two bullets and succumbed to the hate-driven injuries after 2 days in hospital.

Of all the hate crimes – resulting in fatalities in 2018 – that were directed at transgender people, over 70 percent of them were directed at people of colour. The trend of violence against transgender people is on the rise with 2018 having the highest reported instances of the hate crime.

 So how does one make a change in a society seemingly filled with occurrences of transgender hate? Lovemore Phiri, a female transgender hip-hop artist from the university currently known as Rhodes (UCKAR) aims to use music as a catalyst for change.

Phiri goes under the stage name of ‘Black Madonna’, an apt name as the confidence that radiated off of Madonna seems to do the same from Phiri. Even in the pouring rain, the confidence in her walk is enough to draw the attention of the room. Confidence is not only a physical property of hers, but also an intellectual, emotional one. Her voice portrays a feeling of experience and knowledge as she relays her truths and aspirations onto to me.

Phiri believes that an important step towards reaching a more harmonious society is to break the stigmas set up by that society. The stigma of women within hip-hop is one of the ones she intends to break. “You wouldn’t put those tags on male rappers, you would just call them a rapper,” says Phiri. The identity of transgender women in a traditionally anti-LGBTQ+ community such as hip-hop is another struggle that Phiri has to combat when looking to make her mark on the genre.      

However, Phiri does not see these discriminations as a stopping point. Rather, she sees them as challenges, goals to work towards. She aims to tell her story to get to these goals. “I mostly focus on the intersectionality’s of being trans, being black, coming from a middle class family,” says Phiri.

Intersectionality, or intersectional feminism, is a branch of feminism that focuses on how various other social aspects such as class, race and sexuality affect feminism itself. There is a reason why Phiri particularly focuses on this aspect of feminism. The social aspects that make up intersectionality apply heavily within her life. “The music that I’m making right now is very personal, it’s from my struggles when I was growing up, being born as a boy and now transitioning.”

“I’m living in a violent society where there’s no language for the pain and hurt, as a trans person, that you feel,” says Phiri, “facing street harassment on the daily… bullying… there’s no language to express that.” She recognises this struggle for the language she feels is not easily available, and finds it in her music.

“Everyone expects to have ‘turn-up-music’… but with lyricism I feel that people dismiss that.” Phiri aims to counter this social norm by, quite simply, speaking her truth and putting her identity is at the forefront of her music. She feels that talking about her queerness and transgender identity can help create a safe space for other people who share her problems to talk and feel comfortable. She doesn’t want them to experience the same shock that she felt.

Despite the rising trend in hate-crimes surrounding transgender people, Phiri feels that the up-and-coming generation is one that focuses on progression. “The amount of ‘wokeness’ that we have as a generation is beautiful.” She feels that the culture at UCKAR is especially progressive in normalising the things that should be normalised.

Although the current state of societies views on transgender people may appear grim, Phiri feels that it is steadily improving. She feels that if enough voices can be heard about transgender rights and LGBTQ+ rights as a whole, a real change can be made towards the betterment of the society we live in.

You can find Phiri’s music on SoundCloud under the name ‘Black Madonna’ (https://soundcloud.com/blackmadonnabossbitch). She is looking forward to posting new content and hints that a new album may be available soon. So keep your focus on Phiri and any other artists who are aiming to make a change in the world, don’t discredit them now, their work is an important stepping stone in a path towards the betterment of our society.