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Paredon Records was a US-based independent left-wing record company founded by singer-songwriter and activist Barbara Dane. Dane first found moderate fame as a singer during the late 1940s. However, in the 1950s, Dane was blacklisted as a result of her political beliefs (she was openly and vocally supportive of the labor movement and the American Communist Party) and many of her contracts and tours were cancelled, setting back her career for upwards of a decade. In the 1960s, Dane, like many other left-wing musicians of the Popular Front era, began to make a comeback, resulting from the cultural and political opening created by the Civil Rights, Anti-War, and youth counter-cultural movements. After a successful tour of post-Revolutionary Cuba, Dane was inspired to create a record label in order bring the political music of Cuba to the US. Paredon Records was founded in 1969 and its first release, naturally, was a compilation of up and coming musicians from post-Revolutionary Cuba and the wider Latin American Left titled 'Cancion Protesta: Protest Song of Latin America.' The label went on to release and re-issue over 50 albums of left-wing political music from around the world. Because of Paredon, music from global south Communist and National Liberation struggles was widely available in the US. Through her wide network of friends and colleagues, Dane was able to collect and release music from Angola, Ireland, Greece, the Philippines, Haiti, Palestine, and Vietnam, as well as re-issue important political records originally released on EGREM, the state recording conglomerate of Cuba, ENIGRAC, the state recording conglomerate of Nicaragua, and other independent record labels such as the France-based Chant Du Monde. In 1985, Paredon was closed and the label's catalog was donated to Smithsonian-Folkways. This playlist includes samples from almost every release in Paredon's catalog. I hope you enjoy this music, comrades. Solidarity!