The FBI has kept a close watch on musicians of color for decades. J. Edgar Hoover, who served as director from 1924 to 1972, created COINTELPRO, a counter-intelligence program designed to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of Black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings” in 1967.
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As part of the program, musicians and other artists they believed were affiliated with groups they considered anti-establishment were prime targets, believing their music spread messages of rebellion to their fans.
“Just making a casual anti-war statement could put you at odds with the powers that be,” Aaron Leonard, author of “Whole World in an Uproar: Music, Rebellion and Repression 1955-1972,” told Rolling Stone.
Although Hoover passed away in 1972, the surveillance continued, targeting everyone from jazz musicians, R&B and soul singers to rappers. Here are some of the musicians who were watched by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.
Aretha Franklin
Besides being one of the most soulful artists of all time, Aretha Franklin was also a champion for civil rights. She was the daughter of a Baptist minister who organized The Detroit Walk to Freedom in 1968 and counted Dr. Martin Luther King and the Rev. Jesse Jackson among his close friends. Aretha’s close connection to the Civil Rights Movement made her a target of the FBI, who monitored her for years because of her appearances and performances for civil rights organizations, including the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, according to NPR.
Wu-Tang Clan
Fans of hip-hop from the 1990s and 2000s usually have a special place in their hearts for Wu-Tang Clan, a nine-man band of lyrical geniuses from Staten Island who took turns laying insane bars on each other’s albums. But from 1999 to 2004, the FBI and NYPD collaborated to investigate the group for a variety of federal charges, including their connection to alleged drug kingpins and whether or not RZA and Raekwon ordered a hit on two men back in 1999 who they believe robbed their families, according to The Staten Island Advance. Although charges were never filed, the FBI gathered a 95-page file on members of the group and labeled them a “major criminal organization.”
Nina Simone
After growing up in the Jim Crow South, equality for Black people was a constant theme in singer and classically trained pianist Nina Simone’s music. She eventually moved to New York and befriended many Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts Movement writers, including James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry. Her songs met the moment. “Mississippi Goddam,” which was written in response to Medgar Evers’s assassination and the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham was banned by many Southern radio stations and made her a prime target for FBI investigations. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Simone eventually left the United States for Liberia and France. Her files have been destroyed, according to Rolling Stone.
Max Roach
Jazz percussionist Max Roach had close ties to the Civil Rights Movement, which made him a target of the FBI in the 1960s. They were aware he performed benefit concerts for organizations focused on civil disobedience like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). And they’d seen the cover of his 1960 album, “We Insist!” which features a photo of Black students at a lunch counter sit-in protest.
In 1965, FBI agents showed up at his Manhattan home to find out what he knew about the Revolutionary Action Movement, a group the bureau viewed as a violent threat to the status quo. Although Roach told him he wasn’t involved with the group, they continued to monitor him until informants confirmed his testimony.
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix’s music was more about free love than political protest. In fact he found it difficult to connect with Black audiences who criticized him for playing to mixed audiences and thought he wasn’t doing enough to support the Civil Rights Movement. But that didn’t stop him from being the subject of surveillance, initiated by those who were offended by Hendrix’s music, which they claimed to be fueled with images of sex and drugs.
In 1969, the FBI conducted an investigation of the legendary rocker after he was charged with drug possession during a trip to Canada. The defense argued that the drugs were planted on Hendrix, and after a trial, he was acquitted.
Tupac Shakur
The FBI had an extensive file on the late rapper Tupac Shakur related to an extortion scheme involving the Jewish Defense League, who made death threats on him and then demanded money to protect him. But they were also focused on the messages in his music, which often challenged racism and social injustice.
Miriam Makeba
Born near Johannesburg in 1932, Miriam Makeba was a South African singer and civil rights activist. Known as Mama Afrika, her music, which was critical of apartheid, became popular in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. After relocating to the United States in 1959 she found friendships with like-minded artists, including Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Nina Simone. In 1968, she married Black activist Stokely Carmichael, whose ties to the Black Power Movement subjected her to a series of investigations by the FBI.
Billie Holiday
In 1939 the Federal Bureau of Narcotics targeted legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday. Commissioner Harry Anslinger, a known racist who believed jazz music was responsible for the country’s drug problem, did not like Holiday’s 1939 song “Strange Fruit,” which depicted the horror of the violent lynchings experienced by Black people. Anslinger hired undercover agents to monitor Holiday, who was known to struggle with addiction issues, and on the same night she performed the song for an audience during a show at a New York City hotel, she received a warning, which lasted from 1930 to 1968, to never sing the song again.
Nat King Cole
Jazz singer and pianist Nat King Cole found himself the subject of surveillance by the FBI who believed he He was monitored in Las Vegas after authorities learned hotels, which were supposed to be segregated, were allowing Black guests to stay during his performance at the Sands Hotel.
N.W.A.
Compton rappers N.W.A.’s 1989 track “F* The Police” is a classic hip-hop protest song and one that made them a group to watch by law enforcement. Authorities believed the song was dangerous and in 1990, FBI assistant director Milt Ahlerich wrote a letter to the group’s record label, saying the song encouraged violence against the police.
Marvin Gaye
The FBI had a six-page file of information on R&B and soul singer Marvin Gaye. While a lot of the information is redacted, the bureau’s investigation was centered around two concerts he had scheduled in Virginia in 1977 and whether or not conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce was involved. Unfortunately, there is no information on how the matter was resolved.
Louis Armstrong
After the incident in which a group of Black students known as The Little Rock Nine were prevented from entering an all-white school, Armstrong was critical of then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, calling him two-faced for not stepping in.
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