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Change through music: ‘When the Levee Breaks’

When The Levee Breaks feat. John Paul Jones | Playing For Change | Song Around The World

Music has often been a force for engaging people in the issues that are most important to them.

Recently, Playing For Change shared their new song featuring John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.


Playing for Change said this about the song:

We're excited to share our new song around the world, “When The Levee Breaks,” featuring legendary multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin!

This song is a powerful, thought-provoking and emotionally-charged classic by Led Zeppelin and a rework of the 1929 original release by Kansas Joe Mccoy and Memphis Minnie about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927; the most destructive river flooding in U.S. history.

Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks and over 20 musicians and dancers from seven different countries join John Paul Jones for this global rendition featured in Peace Through Music: A Global Event for the Environment.

Feel the impact of these compelling lyrics and let the music move your spirit!

The Fulcrum believes that music and democracy are deeply connected. If you have favorites that you would like us to share with our readers please contact us at pop-culture@fulcrum.us

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Does One Battle After Another Speak to Latino Resistance?

Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti, and Paul Thomas Anderson pose during the fan event for the movie 'One Battle After Another' at Plaza Toreo Parque Central on September 18, 2025 in Naucalpan de Juarez, Mexico.

(Photo by Eloisa Sanchez/Getty Images)

Does One Battle After Another Speak to Latino Resistance?

After decades of work, Angeleno director P.T. Anderson has scored his highest-grossing film with his recent One Battle After Another. Having opened on the weekend of September 26, the film follows the fanatical, even surrealistic, journey of washed-up revolutionary Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), who lives in hiding with his teenage daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), some fifteen years after his militant group, French 75, went underground. When their nemesis Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) resurfaces, Bob and Wila again find themselves running from the law. When Wila goes AWOL, her karate teacher, Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), is enlisted to help Bob find his daughter. Although ambitious, edgy, and fun, the political message of the hit film is generally muddled. The immensely talented director did not make a film matching the Leftist rigor of, say, Battleship Potemkin. Nor can the film be grouped among a veritable cavalcade of fictional and non-fictional films produced during the last twenty years that deal with immigrant issues along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Sleep Dealer, El Norte, and Who is Dayani Cristal? are but a few of the stronger offerings of a genre of filmmaking that, for both good and bad, may constitute a true cinematic cottage industry.

Nevertheless, the film leans heavily into Latino culture in terms of themes, setting, and characters. Filmed largely in the U.S.’s Bordertown par excellence—El Paso, Texas—we meet the martial arts teacher Sergio, who describes his work helping migrants cross the border as a “Latino Harriet Tubman situation.” We learn that the fugitive revolutionary, Bob, is known by several aliases, including “The Gringo Coyote.” His savior, Sensei Sergio, explains to him outrightly that he’s “a bad hombre”—cheekily invoking the hurtful bon mots used by then-candidate Donald Trump in a 2016 debate with Hilary Clinton. The epithet is repeated later on in the film when Bob, under police surveillance in the hospital, is tipped off to an exit route by a member of the French 75 disguised as a nurse: “Are you diabetic? You’re a bad hombre, Bob. You know, if you’re a bad hombre, you make sure you take your insulin on a daily basis, right?” All this, plus the fact that the film’s denouement begins with a raid on a Mexican Restaurant in Northern California.

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​Jimmy Kimmel onstage during the 67th GRAMMY Awards

Jimmy Kimmel onstage during the 67th GRAMMY Awards on February 01, 2025, in Los Angeles, California

Getty Images, Johnny Nunez

Why the Fight Over Jimmy Kimmel Matters for Us All

There are moments in a nation’s cultural life that feel, at first, like passing storms—brief, noisy, and soon forgotten. But every so often, what begins as a squall reveals itself as a warning: a sign that something far bigger is at stake. The initial cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel by Disney, along with the coordinated blackout from network affiliates like Nexstar and Sinclair, is one of those moments. It’s not merely another skirmish in the endless culture wars. Actually, it is a test of whether we, as a society, can distinguish between the discomfort of being challenged and the danger of being silenced.

The irony is rich, almost to the point of being absurd. Here is a late-night comedian, a man whose job is to puncture the pompous and needle the powerful, finding himself at the center of a controversy. A controversy bigger than anything he’d ever lampooned. Satire that, depending on your perspective, was either too pointed or simply pointed in the wrong direction. Yet, that was not the ostensible reason.

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Bad Bunny preforming on stage alongside two other people.

Bad Bunny performs live during "No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí; Una Más" Residencia at Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot on September 20, 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Getty Images, Gladys Vega

From Woodstock to Super Bowl: Bad Bunny and the Legacy of Musical Protest

As Bad Bunny prepares to take the Super Bowl stage in February 2026—and grassroots rallies in his honor unfold across U.S. cities this October—we are witnessing a cultural moment that echoes the artist-led protests of the 1960s and 70s. His decision to exclude U.S. tour dates over fears of ICE raids is generating considerable anger amongst his following, as well as support from MAGA supporters. The Trump administration views his lyrics and his fashion as threats. As the story unfolds, it is increasingly becoming a political narrative rather than just entertainment news.

Music has long been a part of the American political scene. In 1969, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released “Ohio,” a response to the Kent State shootings that galvanized antiwar sentiment.

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How Pop Culture Can Save Democracy: Lessons From Just Do It to Designated Drive

Shoppers stand in line at a Nike outlet store on May 3, 2025 in San Diego, California.

Getty Images, Kevin Carter

How Pop Culture Can Save Democracy: Lessons From Just Do It to Designated Drive

In the late 1980s, the Harvard Alcohol Project did just that. By embedding the term designated driver into prime-time television—from Cheers to L.A. Law—they didn’t just coin a phrase. They changed people’s behavior. The campaign was credited with helping reduce alcohol-related traffic fatalities by nearly 30% over the following decade. President George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, endorsed the movement, amplifying its reach.

They made sober driving socially admirable, not awkward. And they proved that when language meets culture, norms shift.

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