Thomas Sankara, the former president of Burkina Faso, said that art “conveys our entire past, and also our present…our future is also portrayed and embodied in these objects of art.” This is an accurate statement in the political climate of West Africa, as musical artists have consistently influenced political processes. As public intellectuals, artists have played a distinct role in West Africa’s history since independence, as their work is easily accessible; they can express the “will of the people”; and reinforce political messages for the state. This influence is evident in musicians’ political activism which have used memorializations of Sankara and former prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, since 1960. Their images and voices have been used consistently since their deaths to honor them and to reinforce a revolutionary political message. Why and how have they been memorialized regularly? The current chapter seeks to answer this question through an analysis of musical memorializations of Lumumba and Sankara. It argues that Lumumba and Sankara have been memorialized by musical artists in West Africa due to their revolutionary politics and their deaths as political martyrs. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of musicians’ memorializations.