Hidden Rhythms: Cultural Resistance in a New Generation of Artists

What does resistance look like in today’s artistic generation? This question echoes through the beats, visuals, and performances of a new wave of creatives who are shaping culture from the margins. While activism is often associated with loud protests and visible campaigns, a quieter, coded form of dissent is pulsing beneath the surface—what political scientist James C. Scott refers to as the hidden transcript. For today’s generation of artists, especially Black artists, cultural resistance is emerging as a powerful mode of protest—one that simultaneously asserts identity, critiques injustice, and avoids direct confrontation with power. This essay explores how cultural resistance, rooted in long-standing traditions of covert subversion, is evolving in our time, and why understanding its mechanisms matters now more than ever.

Cultural resistance refers to the use of cultural practices—music, art, fashion, language, performance—as tools to challenge dominant ideologies. Unlike overt protest, cultural resistance often operates under the radar. It can be humorous, poetic, or aesthetic, but always layered with meaning. Whether it’s a subversive lyric, a disruptive visual, or a coded performance, these expressions carry symbolic weight. Cultural resistance is not only about speaking truth to power—it’s about sustaining community, memory, and identity under pressure. In this way, it becomes a survival strategy. In contexts where overt resistance is risky or impossible, culture becomes the terrain where freedom is rehearsed and preserved.

James C. Scott’s Theory of Hidden Transcripts

To understand how cultural resistance operates, Scott’s theoretical framework is particularly useful. In Domination and the Arts of Resistance, Scott draws a distinction between the public transcript and the hidden transcript. The public transcript refers to the outward behaviours and performances that oppressed groups adopt in front of those in power—often marked by compliance, silence, or strategic neutrality. The hidden transcript, in contrast, is expressed behind closed doors or through coded forms. It includes humour, gossip, music, symbolism, and ritual that critique or undermine authority in ways that are not immediately legible to outsiders.

Scott’s theory helps us decode how resistance can thrive in plain sight. For example, a performance at a music festival may appear

celebratory on the surface, but may embed deep social critique through visual symbolism or lyrical content. The value of the hidden transcript lies in its ability to communicate truth within communities while avoiding direct retaliation from dominant powers.

Historical Context: Black Resistance in the 1960s

The power of cultural resistance is not new. In the late 1960s, amidst the Civil Rights Movement and rampant police brutality, Black communities in the U.S. and UK found themselves confronting systemic violence. While many forms of resistance were overt—marches, sit-ins, public speeches—others were encoded in art and music. Figures like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Angela Davis navigated both the public and hidden transcripts, articulating radical messages that drew from cultural codes and collective memory. Music and poetry became central to this—soul, jazz, funk, and spoken word all carried messages of Black pride and resistance. In the UK, this period was marked by similar tensions. Events like the Mangrove Nine trial in 1970 highlighted the state’s surveillance and suppression of Black political organising. Yet, cultural events—Carnival, dub poetry, and blues parties—offered critical spaces for resistance, solidarity, and storytelling. A striking example of cultural resistance turning momentarily public is the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 (popularised in the 2021 documentary Summer of Soul). It brought together leading Black artists like Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, and Mahalia Jackson in a shared act of joy, pride, and subversion—affirming Black life in a society that continued to devalue it.

Contemporary Resistance: Bob Vylan at Glastonbury

Fast forward to today, and we find new artists carrying these traditions forward, often under different pressures. A powerful case study is Bob Vylan, a Black British punk-grime duo whose performance at Glastonbury in 2023 was a standout act of modern resistance. Through hard-hitting lyrics and confrontational energy, they tackled racism, police brutality, and class inequality. But beyond the content of the music, their presence at the festival was its own kind of resistance. Glastonbury, like many mainstream festivals, often favours safer, more commercially viable acts. Bob Vylan’s rage, urgency, and refusal to sanitise his message disrupted this norm. He embodied what Scott would call a moment where the hidden transcript slips into the public domain.

Patterns of Control: How the System Responds to Resistance

Historically, when resistance emerges—whether cultural or overt—power systems tend to respond in two main ways: suppression or assimilation.Suppression can take the form of censorship, blacklisting, or even police surveillance. Artists like Fela Kuti, Nina Simone, or even UK grime MCs have faced this. Today, suppression may come through algorithmic downranking, shadowbanning, or exclusion from funding and programming opportunities. Assimilation, meanwhile, is subtler. Institutions may celebrate the artist while stripping away the radical edge of their message—turning dissent into décor. A once-resistant aesthetic becomes a marketable trend. Think of how punk, once a subcultural protest, now sells t-shirts in high-street shops. This dynamic poses a challenge for emerging artists today: how to maintain integrity while navigating institutions that might reward performance over substance.

Learning From the Past: Strengthening the Hidden Transcript

Scott’s theory isn’t just about interpreting art—it’s a blueprint for how we build resilience. If cultural resistance depends on the hidden transcript, then we must protect and invest in the offstage spaces where it thrives. This means supporting grassroots networks, informal education spaces, and local cultural hubs. Initiatives like The Black Curriculum, youth art collectives, community open mics, and Black-led creative hubs are essential. These are spaces where artists and audiences can co-create language, meaning, and strategy—away from institutional surveillance or commercial pressure. Crucially, resistance is not just what we perform on stage or post online—it’s what we whisper to each other in our kitchens, what we archive in zines, and what we teach children in our homes. It’s how we pass down wisdom that cannot be captured, flattened, or sold.

Conclusion

In a world that increasingly commodifies culture, today’s artists are finding new ways to resist—quietly, creatively, and communally. Cultural resistance, particularly through the mechanism of hidden transcripts, remains one of the most vital tools for survival and transformation. James C. Scott’s framework helps us see beyond the spectacle—to recognise resistance even when it doesn’t look like protest. To support this generation of artists, we must go beyond applause. We must invest in the ecosystems that allow resistance to grow: the local, the informal, the offstage. Because hidden rhythms—passed through music, movement, and memory—have always been where the revolution truly begins.

Pictures by: Dandre Bondzie