RALEIGH - The mother of the fallen soldier, the worker in the hog-processing plant, the homeowner who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina's Gulf Coast flood, all have a voice when Nathanette Mayo steps up to a microphone. It's an alto voice, strong and clear, and it can find the melody in any social cause.

"I look for work, but around town

They're cuttin' back and shuttin' down,

I'm sick and doctors have a cure

But not for me -- I'm uninsured," Mayo sang during a rehearsal last week with the Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble, based in Raleigh.

Mayo, her husband, baritone Angaza Laughinghouse, and fellow activist Rick Scott, a tenor, make up the core of the ensemble, which sometimes includes a dozen volunteer voices.

In advance of a performance at Saturday's peace rally in Fayetteville, they worked through a handful of songs from a two-inch-thick binder accumulated over more than 20 years of social advocacy. While they borrow some music from others in the civil rights or labor and anti-war movements, much of the music Fruit of Labor performs they write themselves.

"It's a collaborative effort," says Scott, who is also the rhythm man for the group.

None of the core three can read music, but together they create it. The ensemble incorporates elements of nearly every genre of American music: gospel, folk, R&B, hip hop, rock.

Their repertoire reads like a news archive from the past two decades, with landmark events commemorated in verse and rhyme. One song is a tribute to the 25 people who died in the chicken-processing plant fire in Hamlet. Another recalls the national elections of 2000 and 2004.

They offer copies of several CDs they've made over the years for sale at the Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center, a remade biker bar off Capital Boulevard near New Hope Church Road that also hosts seminars on labor rights and sessions on how to fight racism. The center sits in a neighborhood that includes Asian, African and Latino residents, all of whom feel welcome in the 2,000-square-foot space that is part library, part civic center, part church fellowship hall.

As they practiced, a drumbeat filled the room.

It sounded like a beating heart.