Black Music Sunday: Celebrating Tracy Chapman’s voice for social justice

Black Music Sunday is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 250 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.

Over the years of her music career, Tracy Chapman has been described as both elusive and reclusive. But the impact of the feminist and revolutionary music she has written, recorded, and performed over her almost four decades as a recording artist and songwriter cannot be denied.

Professor Francesca T. Royster described her music aptly for NPR:

In cadences, beats and attitude that seemed to draw equally from Women's Music queer sheroes like Joan Armatrading and Bernice Johnson Reagon, the fighting power of reggae greats like Peter Tosh and Bob Marley, the full-throated, the earnest elegance of folk icon Odetta, Johnny Cash's Man in Black outlaw spirit and a little bit of Sting's smoothness, Tracy Chapman tells stories of everyday lives where injustices were named, and the complexity of survival was explored feelingly, through storytelling. "Fast Car," "Behind the Wall," and "She's Got Her Ticket" make up trilogy of women's struggles against domestic violence, each exploring a different outcome: narrow escape, continued harm, transcendence. In "Behind the Line," Chapman sings of the segregation and raced-based riots that have scarred cities and towns for the last 200 years; in "Mountains O' Things," she steps into the mind of a greedy capitalist who seeks to blunt his own loneliness with consumption, at the cost of others' lives; in "Talkin' Bout a Revolution," she gives voice to the rise of a people's movements around the world.

Dave Wilkins’ biography at Musician Guide covers her beginnings:

Chapman was born in Cleveland, Ohio; her parents divorced when she was four years old. She and her older sister, Aneta, lived with their mother, who refused alimony and relied on low-paying jobs and welfare to raise her daughters. "There wasn't much to work with," Chapman told Pond. "We always had food to eat and a place to stay, but it was fairly bare-bones kind of things.'' It also was a home filled with music. Chapman played ukelele, organ and clarinet as a kid. At age eight, she received a guitar and began writing songs. On the radio, she heard Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight, Mahalia Jackson, and Aretha Franklin. "My parents listened to R&B, soul and gospel," Chapman once said. "I didn't hear contemporary folk singers until I was in high school. As far as singing's concerned, my earliest influence was my mother. She's not professionally trained, but there was always music around the house."

Chapman earned a scholarship to Wooster School, an Episcopalian prep school in Danbury, Connecticut. There, she played basketball, softball and soccer, performed her songs in the campus "coffeehouse," and heard the folk rock of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young for the first time. In the fall of 1982, she enrolled at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, near Boston. Chapman studied anthropology, continued writing songs, and played her music on the street in Harvard Square and in local folk clubs. Before graduation, she caught the attention of Elektra Records, which hired music industry veteran David Kershenbaum to produce her first record. "People really wanted what she had, and they weren't getting it," said Kershenbaum, who previously had worked with Joe Jackson, Joan Baez, and Cat Stevens, among other artists. "She got there at the right moment with stuff that was good."

Her debut album was simply labeled “Tracy Chapman.” Heather Wake at Upworthy recently wrote about her astounding performance at Wembley Stadium:

While a catchy hook might make a song go viral, very few songs create such a unifying impact that they achieve timeless resonance. Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” is one of those songs.

For concert goers at Wembley Stadium in the late 80s, this was the scenario. The year was 1988. Seventy-two thousand people gathered—along with 600 million more watching along on their televisions—to see headliner Stevie Wonder as part of Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday tribute concert. However, technical difficulties (or perhaps some divine timing) rendered Wonder unable to perform his act. Chapman had already played a three-song set earlier in the afternoon, and yet she agreed to step up to the microphone.

Armed with nothing but her guitar, the shy and stoic Chapman captivated everyone to silence. And the rest is history.

Here are two live clips from that Wembley event:

Amy Fleming at The Guardian dubbed her “The quiet revolutionary”:

When she was 16 and living with her sister and single mother on welfare in Cleveland, Ohio, Chapman won a scholarship to a private boarding school in Connecticut. This, she says, was the pivotal moment in her life, and one of the reasons she is so highly politicised. "I have always felt immensely grateful for that opportunity. Then I received an academic scholarship to go to college [where she studied anthropology and African studies]. That wouldn't have happened if there weren't people who had given something to make that possible for me."

Chapman had endured a terrible childhood. "The city had been forced to integrate the schools so they were bussing black children into white neighbourhoods, and white children into black neighbourhoods, and people were upset about it so there were race riots. A lot of kids spent more time out of school than in, but I always loved school and thought it was my way out of Cleveland, and out of poverty." She has said that her bookishness led to her being bullied. As, indeed, did her race. She grew accustomed to racial abuse and assaults on her way home from school.

She started playing guitar aged 11 and was writing protest songs by her early teens. Her first album came out when she was 24. Although, she recalls, "My first record was almost not my first record." After she signed the deal to make the album, the proposed producer was killed in a car accident and the record company called in someone far less experienced to take over. Chapman, four session musicians and the new producer were recording near Woodstock in New York state. "He put me in the middle of the room. They were all around me, everybody was playing wildly because he gave them very little direction ... And the music was horrible. Bombastic.

"So I called the production company after a few days saying, 'This doesn't sound good.' And they were like, 'We think it's all right, just stick it out.'" After a few more days, it still wasn't working. "They insisted again that I continue so I just said, 'I'm leaving.'"

There is a collection of her music and interviews on YouTube. In this first clip she’s interviewed in 1986, before the release of her debut album:

Fast forward to Nov 4, 2020, to this interview with Planet Rock:

Liza Lentini, managing editor at Spin magazine, wrote about why Chapman deserves to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and I couldn’t agree more:

There will be those who say that Tracy Chapman was a one-hit wonder. If you still think that great artists are defined by chart success, I feel sorry for you. If charts define greatness, we can go ahead and discount an entire league of incredible singer-songwriters whose work has woven the fabric of our lives. (Did you know that Joni Mitchell has never had a No. 1 song? Who cares? Instead she’s one of the most important and influential musicians in modern history.)

It’s a new year and a new day, time for a new way of thinking.

As it happens, Chapman’s second album, 1989’s Crossroads, was also nominated for the Best Contemporary Folk Album Grammy, and her ’95 album New Beginning was certified 5x platinum, and its single “Give Me One Reason” won the ’97 Grammy for Best Rock Song.

Much more importantly, her ’88 single “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” has been used throughout the decades to mark moments of peaceful protest and uprising, from heavy play during Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run to 2020, when during a performance on Late Night with Seth Myers she changed the end lyrics to “Talkin’ bout a revolution. Go vote.”

As I’ve said before, awards do matter, because they publicly set the standard. Let’s induct the quiet one, who breaks new ground and sings about a revolution.

Chapman’s politics are an essential part of her being, illustrated by her choices to participate in events like the 1988 Human Rights Now Tour, which marked the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The tour was also to raise awareness of the plight of political prisoners around the world, and included artists like Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, and Sting.

Farm Aid was started by Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp in 1985 to keep family farmers on the land and give people access to good food from farmers. Here she is performing ”Mountains O’ Things” at Farm Aid in 1992:

I’ve explored the Black roots of country music and zydeco here in the past, and think it’s important to note Chapman’s 2023 Country Music Award:

Tracy Chapman was honored with Song of the Year for her 1988 folk anthem "Fast Car" at the Country Music Awards on Wednesday, becoming the first Black songwriter to ever win the award.

"Fast Car" peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart following its release more than 30 years ago. The song was nominated for three Grammys when it first came out, and Chapman won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

But it got a second wind in recent months after singer Luke Combs came out with a cover of the song in April. His version peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart and won Single of the Year at the CMAs in Nashville.

Chapman did not attend the ceremony, but she sent a written statement.

"I'm sorry I couldn't join you all tonight," she said. "It's truly an honor for my song to be newly recognized after 35 years of its debut. Thank you to the CMAs and a special thanks to Luke and all of the fans of 'Fast Car.'"

She and Combs performed it together at the 2024 Grammys:

I’ll close with the  song “Spring” from her last studio album, “Our Bright Future,” which was recorded in 2008, appropriate for this time of the year.