Music has the power to move people. It also has the power to bring them to action. For generations, artists have infused bitter experiences of discrimination, abuse and war into their songs, from Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” to Pussy Riot’s “Putin Will Teach You How To Love”. All genres have their socio-political anthems that resonate over time, but this is especially common in rock and metal music.

The horrible reality is that we live in a world where there are always multiple human rights atrocities happening at the same time. Currently, civilians are being bombed in the Gaza Strip, Uighers are being held and tortured in Chinese internment camps, and Ethiopian and Eritrean troops are blocking critical aid from reaching starving people in the Tigray region. . In the United States, we only recently saw a police officer convicted of wrongful murder of a black man – for the first time.

Here are 20 rock and metal songs with social messages that confront these and other monumental injustices in America and abroad.

20 artists who told politicians to stop using their music