Bloomington artists play, create music for Trayvon Martin

When faced with the reality of injustice, some turn to protest, others to poetry and still more to speech.

For two IU students, the proper mode for emotion was through music.

“Songs for Trayvon,” a recent Bloomington music project, takes a stand about the recent events surrounding the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

Recent IU graduate Nick Huster and senior Olufemi Taiwo are the two students behind
the project.

The duo spent 10 days perfecting the production of the piece before releasing it this week on their SoundCloud and Facebook pages.

Huster said it sprouted from reading articles about the killing and his desire to do something about it.

“I had written the song, and I was looking around and seeing how everyone was responding to the events,” he said. “I just wanted to put it out there as my own voice, my own ideas about what’s going on.”

The song opens with clips from actual police radio transmissions during the time of the shooting. The verses narrate a dialogue between someone and an officer, hoping for an explanation to the death.

“For me, I’d like people to listen to it and feel something, but I think that people already feel something about it, so I just wanted to contribute to that movement and inspire people to know they can say their feelings through music,” Huster said.

Eric Love, director of the Office of Diversity Education, said he thinks this song has a definite place among protest and activist songs of the past.

He also said this generation has a unique power in its hands with respect to activism.

“I think the way your generation is getting involved is just amazing,” Love said.
“You’re able to, through social media, organize a rally and get more people than you ever imagined or get a song made and on the net and have 100,000 people listen to it in a short period of time.”

Taiwo offered his take on the potential the song has to spark a movement.

“It’s hard to say if people really do anything because of the music or songs or if the songs get created out of the same thing that inspire people to act,” he said.

“For musicians, this is our language. There are all sorts of ways that people join themselves with people who feel the same things, and as musicians, this is our way to do that.”

Love, Huster and Taiwo said they have each posted and shared the single on their websites with the hopes that others will listen and take initiative, as well.

Apart from posting the complete song, Huster and Taiwo said they also made the tabs and instrumental versions available in the hopes that other musicians will add their voice to the call for justice.

“I think that is what’s important, that the more people contribute to this movement through music, the more people will hear those songs and feel something about it,” Huster said. “And I think that’s starting to happen.”