Say Her Name: 50 Artists Whose Music Honors Assata Shakur’s Revolutionary Spirit

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Say Her Name: 50 Artists Whose Music Honors Assata Shakur’s Revolutionary Spirit

Assata Shakur

Ozier Muhammad/Newsday RM via Getty Images

Hip-Hop, at its very foundation, has always been more than beats and rhymes — it has been a vessel for survival, resistance, and rebellion.

Born in the Bronx during the 1970s, the culture emerged as a way to channel poverty, oppression, and sociopolitical strife into creative expression and communal strength. That defiant spirit mirrored, and in many ways carried forward, the ethos of the revolutionary movements that preceded it.

The music and the figures behind it were spiritual successors to the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army of the late ’60s and ’70s, organizations that dared to empower young people of color to challenge authority, reclaim their dignity, and speak truth to power.

Among the most iconic figures to emerge from that revolutionary era was Assata Shakur. Born Joanne Chesimard in New York, she became active in activism during her college years, first joining the Black Panther Party before transitioning to the Black Liberation Army.

Outspoken and unyielding in her defense of Black lives, Shakur became a polarizing figure in the eyes of the American government.

In 1973, she and two other BLA members were involved in a violent shootout with New Jersey State Troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike. One officer was killed, another was wounded, and one of the BLA members was fatally shot.

Assata Shakur

Bettmann / Contributor

Though Shakur maintained her innocence, she was convicted of first-degree murder in 1977 and sentenced to life plus 26 to 33 years. Two years later, she staged one of the most famous prison escapes in U.S. history, ultimately finding political asylum in Cuba in 1984.

While the FBI branded her a fugitive and threat to society, Hip-Hop embraced her as something far greater: a freedom fighter, a survivor, and a symbol of uncompromising defiance against systemic oppression.

Considered an “aunt” to the late Tupac Shakur, Assata was revered not only by her nephew but also by countless artists who found in her story a reflection of Hip-Hop’s own struggle — marginalized voices fighting to be heard in the face of power.

Assata Shakur

Bettmann / Contributor

Her revolutionary spirit continues to echo through the music, referenced in verses and honored in interviews, a reminder that Hip-Hop is inseparable from the struggle that birthed it. To this day, Assata Shakur remains a beacon of love, resilience, and pride for Black people — a figure whose life, though fraught with controversy, has forever shaped the cultural consciousness of Hip-Hop.

Following her passing on Sept. 25, 2025, at the age of 78, she leaves behind not just a legacy of resistance, but a blueprint for artists who dare to stand defiantly against the forces that seek to silence them.

In celebration of her life and legacy, VIBE highlights more than 50 artists who kept Assata Shakur’s name alive in exile through their music. These lyrics and displays of homage will continue to resonate and introduce her to future generations of listeners and potential revolutionaries.



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