Macklemore releases song in support of pro-Palestine protesters
The Grammy-winning rapper, who is touring Australia this month, takes aim at President Joe Biden and characterises Israel as ‘a state that’s gotta rely on an apartheid system’
Grammy-winning US rapper Macklemore has released a searing song in support of pro-Palestine protesters demonstrating at college campuses and calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
Macklemore posted a new song called “Hind’s Hall,” named after the Columbia University building that student protesters occupied last week and renamed in honour of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
The ‘Thrift Shop’ rapper — who in 2017 was the entertainment act at the NRL Grand Final — released the song on social media yesterday. While ‘Hind’s Hall’ is not yet on digital streaming platforms, once the song is formally released, Macklemore plans to donate all of its streaming proceeds to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) — the controversial aid organisation whose employees have been accused of participating in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.
HIND’S HALL. Once it’s up on streaming all proceeds to UNRWA. pic.twitter.com/QqZEKmzwZI
— Macklemore (@macklemore) May 6, 2024
“The people, they won’t leave,” Macklemore raps in the song’s first verse. “What is threatening about divesting and wanting peace? The problem isn’t the protests, it’s what they’re protesting. It goes against what our country is funding. Block the barricade until Palestine is free.”
Elsewhere in the song, Macklemore describes Israel as “a state that’s gotta rely on an apartheid system to uphold an occupying violent history been repeating for the last 75 [years].” He also observes the support and solidarity from Jewish people with the pro-Palestine cause. “We see the lies in them, claiming it’s antisemitic to be anti-Zionist. I’ve seen Jewish brothers and sisters out there and riding in solidarity and screaming ‘Free Palestine’ with them.”
In the song, Macklemore, who had previously been an outspoken supporter of the Democrats, turns his vitriol on US President Joe Biden, saying “blood is on your hands” and that he will not be voting for him in the presidential election in November. He also criticises his rap peers — with a pointed reference to the ongoing beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake — saying: “Never be defeated when freedom’s on the horizon/Yet the music industry’s quiet/Complicit in their platform of silence,” and, “I want a ceasefire/F..k a response from Drake.”
In response to the song, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello wrote on X, “‘Hind’s Hall’ is the most Rage Against The Machine song since Rage Against The Machine.”
Honestly @macklemore’s “Hind’s Hall†is the most Rage Against The Machine song since Rage Against The Machine.
— Tom Morello (@tmorello) May 7, 2024
American author Malcolm Harris, who wrote last year’s 700-page tome Palo Alto, said on X, “I liked last year when Macklemore spoke at a Palestine rally and was like ‘I don’t know everything about the conflict … But I can learn! I am teachable!’”
I liked last year when Macklemore spoke at a Palestine rally and was like "I don't know everything about the conflict... But I can learn! I am teachable!"
— Malcolm Harris (@BigMeanInternet) May 7, 2024
Last November, Macklemore was invited to give an impromptu speech at a pro-Palestine rally in Washington, D.C. “I don’t know enough,” he told the crowd. “But I know enough that this is a genocide.” The rapper’s speech followed a statement he issued on October 19 in which he condemned both the Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza, calling the latter a “U.S. backed human catastrophe.”