white power music

The tradition & historical record

White power music, also called white noise music, white nationalist music, or hate music, is music that promotes overt white supremacy. It encompasses various music styles, including rock, country, and folk, and has various subgeneres, including Nazi punk, Rock Against Communism, National Socialist black metal, and fashwave. Early white power bands appeared in the 1960s, with segregationist music, or country acts that employed racist and pro Ku Klux Klan themes. The most popular of these was the American country musician Johnny Rebel. Influenced by the white power country acts, Ian Stuart Donaldson and his band Skrewdriver were the first major white power rock band; they allied themselves with the fascist National Front. Skrewdriver's popularity spread white power music. White power music has been used as a recruiting and fundraising tool for white supremacist movements, and is frequently banned from streaming platforms and from distribution in some countries. ¹

White power music is music that promotes overt white supremacy. Scholars have used a variety of names in referring to it. It is also called white noise music, white racial extremist music, or hate music. Some of the musicians refer to it as white nationalist music; however, this is contested by some of the more blatantly neo-Nazi bands like Landser, who, adhering to original Nazi ideas of German superiority, oppose white nationalism and its idea of a single "white nation" that includes Slavs. In her 2017 book on white power music, Reichsrock, scholar Kirsten Dyck described the terminology issues at play. She noted "white-power music" as creating a "clear distinction" between white power music in its focus on "power", which was "blatantly pro-racist", and music that happened to inadvertently promote racism, as the term "white-supremacist music" might imply. She also wrote that it was clearly inclusive of non-rock music in a way "hate rock" as a term was not. Dyck wrote that white power music was "an umbrella category that encompasses many local music scenes and various types of pro-white racist music from around the world", many of which were quite disparate. Ethnomusicologist Benjamin R. Teitelbaum argues that white power music "can be defined by lyrics that demonize variously conceived non-whites and advocate racial pride and solidarity. Most often, however, insiders conceptualized white power music as the combination of those themes with pounding rhythms and a charging punk or metal-based accompaniment." Dyck defined it as "any music produced and distributed by individuals who are actively trying to advance what they view as a white-power or pro-white racist agenda." ¹

Colin K. Gilmore writes that contemporary white supremacist groups include "subcultural factions that are largely organized around the promotion and distribution of racist music." Scholar Helene Lööw wrote that in 2000, the genre was "the key instruments of propaganda among the youth of the White Power world". She noted it as allowing outreach far beyond what white supremacists had previously attempted. Becker et al. says "musicians believe not only that music could be a successful vehicle for their specific ideology but that it also could advance the movement by framing it in a positive manner." Explicitly National Socialist bands may break with "white nationalist" kinds of white power music in that they maintain hardline National Socialist beliefs and do not accept the idea of a single pan-"white nation", unlike white nationalists. In countries that were persecuted by the Third Reich, bands may criticize aspects of fringe National Socialists while adopting a somewhat modified worldview. Songs frequently focus on valorizing dead white supremacists or fascists; the death of the white supremacist leader Robert Jay Mathews was treated as a memorial day by white power music fans and musicians. ¹

It encompasses various music styles, including rock, country, and folk. Notable genres of white power music include Nazi punk, Rock Against Communism, National Socialist black metal, and fashwave. There is also fascist experimental music, racist skinhead, and white power heavy metal music. ¹

Nazi punk music is stylistically similar to most forms of punk rock; however, it differs by having lyrics that express hatred of Jews, homosexuals, communists, anarchists, anti-racists and people who are not considered white, as opposed to the often left-wing lyrics of punk rock. In 1978 in Britain, the National Front (NF) had a punk-oriented youth organization called the Punk Front. Although the Punk Front only lasted one year, it included a number of white power punk bands such as The Dentists, The Ventz, Tragic Minds and White Boss. The Rock Against Communism movement originated in the British punk scene in late 1978 with activists associated with the National Front (NF). The first major white power rock band was Skrewdriver, which started out as a punk band but evolved into a white power skinhead band after the original lineup broke up and a new lineup was formed. Skrewdriver advocated on behalf of extreme right-wing and racist politics, and its frontman Ian Stuart Donaldson identified himself as a neo-Nazi. He formed a political organization called White Noise and soon allied himself with the fascist National Front. Donaldson was also influenced by white power country music, having previously performed in that genre himself under the name The Klansman. The group performed mainly for other white power skinheads and "asserted the need for extremist political violence." Bands that followed their lead also "fused racist ideology, heavy metal and hard rock styles", embracing "aggressive racism and ethnic nationalism". Donaldson is frequently regarded as the father of white power rock music. ¹

Folk music espousing white power themes is also common, sometimes called hate folk, neo-Nazi folk or Aryan folk. The American white power musician Eric Owens is one of the more prominent folk singers in the genre; the Swedish musician Odalmannen and the German singer Frank Rennicke were also identified as such by the scholar Helene Lööw. Satanist and neo-Nazi leader Pekka Siitoin also released a music album described as Nazi folk and punk in 1986. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “White power music”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

white power music is music promoting white supremacy, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²