In the first week of Occupy, when my new album was released, calling on movements worldwide to unite, I was brought on as a co-organizer of the Arts and Culture Working Group to facilitate other artists coming to Zuccotti Park and help to build the movement.

From day one, the inclusive nature of the movement was present in musicians of all genres; gospel choirs and marching bands were in constant presence in the park. In the months since then, everyone from Lupe Fiasco to Tom Morello, Talib Kweli, Russell Simmons, Joan Baez, David Crosby, Kanye West and even Miley Cyrus has joined the fray in an amazing show of unity across genres and ages.

Occupy songs are all over the Internet, and records like the star-studded [“Occupy This Album”](“Occupy This Album”) have been announced. Numerous websites have launched, including Occupy Music, a facebook page; OccupyRecords.org, a social network; and OccupyMusicians.com, a list of artists all in support of the movement.

But, as in all movements, there have been growing pains.

This winter, arguments ensued within Occupy over co-optation and opportunism by artists and managers threatening the horizontal decision-making process of the movement. With the movement's continued growth and plans for numerous large scale events, many of us felt the need to express that we’re all in this together, toward an inclusive outcome.

The millions of Occupiers worldwide have every reason to distrust the music industry and pop culture. Over the past 15 years, while our country (and the world) was sailing off a cliff, commercial radio’s Top 100 didn’t include a single anthem from the front lines of social change.

Since the first days of Occupy, the preeminent music blogger Bob Lefsetz has written passionately on how the music industry became Wall Street and ruined music as mega corporations used their power over Congress to simultaneously push for deregulation of the broadcast industries - as well as monopolistic mergers in ticketing, promotions and advertising - while tightening their grip on internet freedom.

The result has been a vertically monopolized pipeline accountable to no one, the musical equivalent of our deregulated financial system, bringing us booty calls while we’re at war and in an economic crisis. The Future of Music Coalition’s aptly named study “Too Big To Fail” describes the dangers of mergers and acquisitions stifling democracy, with the mega-labels, Clear Channel, Live Nation, Walmart and Best Buy all controlling majority markets.

The flood of artists and songs supporting the Occupy Movement on the Internet didn’t come out of nowhere. It is the result of long pent-up frustration that finally blew its dam, just like Occupy itself. This generation’s Dylans and Marleys are out there. They’ve just been being silenced by an industry that places profit before responsibility.

Whether we are frontline artist-activists, or pop artists who lived through the suppression of socially conscious songs to conform to a censorious industry, we can raise our voices together for good right now. Let’s occupy music. Let’s demand the return of music for the people by the people.

We have an unprecedented opportunity to re-examine policies effecting the regulation of monopolies, mega-mergers, payola and Internet freedom. Imagine the good we could create if our radios and music venues were filled with artists singing songs to unite the world again.

People may have trouble explaining the interconnection of inequality worldwide. Not everyone has studied neo-liberal economics or post-Washington Consensus developments within the World Bank. But put an American and an Egyptian singing for a more equitable world on the same stage and everyone understands.

We have the tools to re-envision music as a socially sustainable business for the world changing generation. With YouTube, MP3s and social networks, the possibility of distributing music via change-making organizations worldwide, funding initiatives with each download, is now within reach. Imagine a musical Grameen Bank instead of BMG.

We can do this. We can reclaim the airwaves. Let’s raise a chorus that transcends genre and format and change our world. Let’s Occupy Music.

This article originally appeared on The Progressive in December 2011. Stephan Said is a musician, activist, writer, founder of difrent.org and Arts and Culture co-organizer at Occupy Wall Street.