Barbara K
Freedom of Speech through the Power of Music
Barbara Kooyman, a child in the 60’s, learned how to play guitar in the 70’s. She had a hit song in the 80’s, raised a family in the 90’s, and became a philosophical singer, songwriter and social entrepreneur in the new century.
As a young child, having seen photographs of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, her early poetry was a cause of concern for her teachers who, along with her parents, did their best to turn her mind to other things. But the depth of human suffering that had resulted from the military madness did not leave her consciousness.
So it is with irony that “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades”, a Top 40 hit which resulted in a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist for her band Timbuk3, appearances on Saturday Night Live and Solid Gold, Song of the Decade and Texas Music Hall of Fame from The Austin Chronicle, extensive tours in the United States, Europe and Japan, supporting acts for Bob Dylan, Sting, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and others, was perceived as a happy-go lucky radio ditty that went unrecognized by most of the mainstream media as a song about nuclear destruction.
In 2003, photographs and moving pictures began to emerge of women, children and men suffering as US prisoners and casualties of war. Over the years, these horrific images, freely displayed by newspapers, magazines and television stations all around the world, have been withheld from public scrutiny by the media within the United States of America. As an American, Barbara has been asked over and over and over again by European citizens how rape, torture, inhuman suffering and unwarranted death could be publicly supported by the American people. She hypothesized that her fellow citizens were simply unaware.
While wandering on a mountain in Germany, Barbara began to contemplate how to create a substantial, sustainable source of support for independent media.
Artists For Media Diversity (A4MD), a 501(c)(3) tax exempt charitable organization, is the result of 5 years of thought provoking research and development to empower artists with a vehicle to provide renewable, sustainable support for non-commercial radio stations and public media organizations.
Artists for Media Diversity supports freedom of speech through the power of music.
The journey begins with a song.
Photo by Winker