MUSIC THAT CHANGED THE WORLD #2

Lecture 2 – “Champagne for the proletariat”: Class-related Issues in Dutch Protest Songs

Protest songs in the Dutch language have been everywhere in recent years. Artists such as Sophie Straat, Hang Youth, Sef and IJsland have achieved mainstream success with their explicitly political songs. Notably, these artists have brought the issue of class back into the public debate. How and why have they done so? What is the tradition of class-related political songs in the Netherlands since 1966, the year in which protest pop songs first became popular? In this lecture, Laurens Ham explores the ever-changing landscape of Dutch protest songs on class-related issues, from ‘levenslied’ to hip-hop and punk music.

About the lecturer:

Laurens Ham is assistant professor in Modern Dutch Literature, as well as an essayist and poet. His research focuses on issues of participation and political representation in literature and other art forms. He investigates how writers, musicians and other artists represent socio-political topics in their work, and how they attempt to change the world through their art, protests, lobbying and media appearances. In 2020, he published Op de vuist, a cultural history of Dutch-language protest songs since 1966.