Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to sit down and have a no-holds-barred telephone conversation with Against Me! Front-woman Laura Jane Grace, who had been touring North America with arena-rock band Green Day, but still found time to chat while filling time before a show in Arkansas. For those unfamiliar with Laura, she is an openly transgender singer/songwriter, social activist, punk rocker, and author. She has appeared on such programs as The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and taken some very direct stands against the Trump administration (including some choice Twitter comments just last week about the Tweeter-In-Chief’s activity since the mass flooding in Puerto Rico).
Instruments of Change: An Editorial About Why You Can Always Sit With Me And Why I Will Always Sing For You
The times may be a’ changing, but not quite fast enough.
Before Green Day won Grammies for singing of an American idiot, and Rage Against the Machine urged us to take the power back, The Clash wrote intricate songs about isolation, poverty, utilitarianism, and cultural upheaval. Before Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize for Literature, his songs were recited and replayed over and over at picket lines across the United States when citizens took to the streets to protest the Vietnam War. Before Dr. Dre was selling his headphones to Apple and being treated like hip hop’s elder statesman and Ice Cube was making movies about barbershops and Jump Street, the “Niggaz With Attitude” were challenging police corruption and slapping us unapologetic-ally with a lyrical portrait of their realities in South Central, Los Angeles.
