Who is Linqua Franqa?
Mariah Parker (they/them), aka “Linqua Franqa” (pronounced “leen-gua frank-a”), is a labor organizer and educator based in the Southeastern United States. They use all tools at their disposal to increase people’s knowledge of and belief in their own power to make the changes they want to see in the world. This includes their book, No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement published with Haymarket Books. It includes their time as a County Commissioner for Athens-Clarke County in Georgia where they brought in tens of millions in investment to their historically underserved district and contributed to policies like making the buses fast and free to everyone. And it includes their day/night/all-the-time job with the Union for Southern Service Workers.
And, of course, it includes music.
“Lingua franca” is a term for a language used to communicate across cultures. Weaving a rich tapestry of hip-hop lyricism and neo-soul hooks, Parker uses music as a tool to communicate – and educate – across cultural boundaries, imbuing every song with a sense of urgency and keen social consciousness. Their album Bellringer is a natural continuation of the work Parker has committed themselves to both as an artist and politician. Their ensemble piece Ascendant Cycles, co-composed with Peter Van Zandt Lane, helps teach listeners how to contextualize progress and setbacks within larger historical frames. It’s also about the difference between fighting as hard as you can and defending whatever ground you are able to gain, distinct from an “incrementalist” understanding that only small change is possible at all. They’ve proudly collaborated with movements like the Service Employees International Union, the movement to Free Gaza, and Debt Collective on pieces about improving labor demands and abolishing student debt.
Boiled down to a word, Parker’s work - at its heart - is about liberation – and the obstacles that prevent us from achieving it. Parker is a “linqua franqa” for the people.
Ascendant cycles
Ascendant Cycles was co-composed by hip-hop artist Linqua Franqqa and composer Peter Van Zandt Lane for the University of Georgia Wind Ensemble's performance at the 2023 CBDNA National Conference.
The three-movement work combines technical and stylistic traits of hip-hop, wind ensemble repertoire, and experimental music (from both genres) to portray a poetic narrative of Linqua Franqa's work as an activist. Through imagining futures and reminiscing about the past (including a thread on the life of the famed 20th-century contralto Marian Anderson), Ascendant Cycles is rooted in the notion that social progress is achieved only through continuous effort and cyclical struggle.
Bellringer LP OUT NOW on Ernest Jenning Record Co.
ft. Jeff Rosenstock, of Montreal, Kishi Bashi,
Dope KNife, Wesdaruler, Angela Davis
No Cop City, No Cop World
Edited by Kamau Franklin, Micah Herskind, and Mariah Parker
A collection of essays from the Stop Cop City movement on the fight for police abolition and for a liveable planet for all, with gripping reporting from activists on the ground and rousing articles from renowned radical academics
The Stop Cop City movement is a decentralized effort to stop the construction of a $120 million police training facility and the destruction of 170 acres of the Weelaunee Forest outside of Atlanta, Georgia. This is the first collection of essays bringing together organizers and activists who have been involved in the years-long struggle to Stop Cop City. Connecting movements for environmental justice, police abolition, and Indigenous sovereignty, this expansive collection highlights the strategy, tactics, and ideologies that transformed a local collective action into a powerful international movement.
"No Cop City, No Cop World is a story about organizers in motion who battled and continue to fight for their community against politicians, police, and organized capital. You will leave with more questions than when you began. This is the mark of an excellent book. The lessons from Stop Cop City should inform our current organizing efforts everywhere. The book underscores that criminalization is the indispensable fuel of fascism. It’s timely, necessary, and required reading.” —Mariame Kaba, organizer and coauthor of Let This Radicalize You
“No Cop City, No Cop World is no David vs Goliath story. Rather, it is about waking a sleeping giant—a united coalition of grassroots social movements—to challenge a corporate-backed, ecocidal police state. Together, these powerful essays on the struggle in Atlanta offer vital lessons for how to resist the many cop cities on the horizon. The lesson is clear: only a people united, moved by visions of abolition and militant action, can stop a Cop World.”
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
which side are you on?
"Politics, social justice, racial inequality, and other raw, headline-filling topics inform the powerful lyrics of their sophomore album’s hip-hop and neo-soul-tinged tracks."
- MTV NewNowNext
“Parker’s unwavering vocals swimming atop a steady but unobtrusive beat.”
- Flagpole
““Wurk” is a modern day labor anthem that will inspire you, galvanize you, and spark a burning fire inside.”
- Atwood Magazine