In Spike Lee's furious new film, Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' is still fighting the power

How ‘You about to lose yo job’ became a protest chant, a rap hit and a life-changer for its originator

And anyone familiar with the history of Motown, where Gaye recorded for the majority of his career, has likely heard the stories of how the soul legend battled with Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. over his determination to break from the label’s factory-like approach to songwriting and production to create something more expansive and conceptual.

For Blanchard, the enveloping beauty of “What’s Going On” is inseparable from its social consciousness. “I think what Marvin was doing was allowing the music to absorb the pain and frustration in people’s souls — allowing them to heal themselves so they could move forward with a strategic plan,” he said.

But what precisely was “this” in an overwhelming age, not unlike 2020, that could seem beset by some new calamity every month or two? Dorian Lynskey, author of “33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs,” views “What’s Going On” in a lineage of music that “documents a confused response to the modern world without slogans or answers.”

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