Arts, Culture and the Rule of Law

Rule of law is, at its core, founded in respect of our fellow human beings. As human beings, we are inherently expressive of our personal and communal histories and traditions.  The ability to communicate our unique cultural histories reinforces individuals' abilities to empathize with each other, thereby ensuring equality among peoples and that all are held equal before the eyes of justice.  When human empathy breaks down, or is overridden by other interests (political and economic, for example), it is often artistic expression and communication that reminds people of our common humanity, and brings us together once again in mutual respect. The rule of law, equally, should afford society the freedom to engage in this important dialogue and protect the intellectual property of culture makers.  We believe in this symbiosis between law, culture, and peaceful coexistence.

Artists have the potential to shape and restructure society.  Artists can be changemakers and activists. Their work can serve as a catalyst for the community, engaging both community members and third parties to reexamine current regimes.  At PeaceTones, we work with artists for these very reasons.  Our aim is to work towards a society in which artists are rewarded not only for their entertainment value, but also for their contributions to the stabilization of their societies, the denouncement of unjust or unfair practices by those in power, and therefore to rule of law in their own, indirectly effective ways.

The PeaceTones model is unique and our mission is simple: empower the arts to empower communities. A PeaceTones project begins by making a geographic determination of where we believe a project would have the greatest impact.  This includes looking at countries that have experienced recent destabilizing events, including natural disasters and violent conflicts.  We then reach out to our network of fellow non-profits across the world and analyze where a PeaceTones project will have the greatest resonance and opportunity for success.  The communities we work in, therefore, have a great amount of potential in terms of large youth populations, amazing histories and a rich cultural and artistic community, burgeoning access to technology, but deeply entrenched poverty as well.  The legal and political infrastructure is often fraught with nepotism and corruption, leading to a great deal of disenfranchisement of the public with its leaders and the inability of the law to address individual disputes or harm, and the use of law by the socially and politically powerful against the weak.

We partner with various organizations in these communities to put together workshops on legal rights and internet-based tools artists can use to promote their music and messages.  The aim of our workshops is to teach basic tools that can be easily translatable across many fields.  The Internet and technology have opened up global access to music.  Through the Internet, there is potential to reimagine the entire music industry as one that favors the artist instead of the label, that gives weight to the role of the innovator (the artist) and his or her community as the central pieces in putting together a musical work (whether it be tangible or downloadable album) and accordingly attributes income from that album in the same way. 

Working with local partners, we hold legal and marketing workshops for local artists. Topics range from basic contracts and intellectual property law to social networking and getting your music on iTunes and Amazon.  We also inform students on local resources (e.g. legal aid).  Workshops involve games, role-playing, and stories to create an engaging and non-threatening learning environment.  We use a contest format for our projects as an incentive for workshop participation and practical application of tools learned, as well as a way to engage audiences around the world in the process of selecting our next PeaceTones musicians.  The contest is held through Facebook, thus encouraging our musicians to put into practice the promotional tools we teach in our workshops. Contest winners record an album with PeaceTones and become PeaceTones ambassadors.  PeaceTones then distributes these albums, returning ninety percent of the albums profits to the artist. We also require that the artist contribute some percentage of these earnings to a community development organization, thereby creating a model for grassroots philanthropy.

PeaceTones then works with the artists to market the album both within their home country and internationally.  The end products are an arts community with a greater sense of legal empowerment and marketing skills using technology, a large group of artists that have been given international recognition through the PeaceTones contest, and a PeaceTones ambassador that has launched a music career, received financial compensation for their talent, and is able to contribute to their community in a meaningful, sustained way.

Our experience with engagement has been extremely positive.  Our first initiative was in Sierra Leone, a country that has had significant internal strife and that exhibits almost all of the characteristics listed above.  Our following project was in the favelas of Recife, Brazil.  This experience was highly concentrated with young people.  Growing up, they were intimately familiar with violence, drugs, and poverty, but with PeaceTones’ help, they have built a music studio to express themselves rather than resorting to the violent culture which was around them.  We then began a project in Balan, a remote village in Haiti with a vibrant musical community.  We initially planned to move to a different country following Balan, but following the Haitian earthquake of January 2010, we held another PeaceTones initiative in Port-au-Prince, which has been our most successful yet in terms of participation, publicity, and results for the artists themselves.  Currently, we are in the beginning stages of a project in Kibera, Kenya.