The first half of 2024 saw the eruption of strong protests in universities across the United States from an anti-imperialist student movement that spread throughout the country — and internationally. Encampments gathered thousands in support of the Palestinian people and against the genocide in Gaza. They made demands for their universities to reveal their financial ties with the State of Israel, as well as for university funds to divest from Israel and secure amnesty for those involved in the protests. This international youth uprising expressed an important anti-imperialist consciousness that solidified in vanguard sectors of youth around the world, while simultaneously placing the Palestine solidarity movement at the center of American politics at that moment.
With American politics focused with all eyes on the internal threat of young people willing to risk their academic lives, suffer deportations, and endure police repression at the behest of university administrations and the bourgeois state — sacrifices to challenge the billions in U.S. funding for the genocide of an entire people in the Middle East, led by the Zionist state of Israel — the cultural industry’s deathly silence was shattered with the surprise release of “Hind’s Hall” by the American rapper Macklemore. Here, we briefly discuss the activist and militant turn in Macklemore’s art, which is pioneering within the mainstream artistic scene an impactful expression of a new anti-imperialist consciousness rising among American youth.
From Thrift Shop to Palestinian Resistance
Macklemore, or Ben Haggerty, began his career in the 2000s, releasing a few singles and EPs. He reached one of his peaks in 2012, shortly after the release of his debut album The Heist, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the song “Thrift Shop,” one of the most listened-to tracks worldwide that year. This single earned Macklemore and his career partner Ryan Lewis their first Grammy awards for “Best Rap Album” and “Best New Artist.”
In the same year, 2012, amid discussions on the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S., Macklemore released the single “Same Love.” In the song, the artist critiques conservative and right-wing rhetoric using religious language to attack LGBTQ+ rights. The song was a phenomenon among American youth at the time and marked a “social” profile for Macklemore, albeit subtly.
But Maclemore made a huge leap in May 2024, seven months into what had become the largest televised genocide in history, wiping out thousands of children, women, and Palestinians of all ages. U.S. youth were occupying encampments at hundreds of universities in a massive wave against Biden’s — “Genocide Joe’s” — imperialist policies when, without warning, Macklemore released “Hind’s Hall.” Within minutes, the single hit thousands of streams.
“You Can Pay Off Meta, You Can’t Pay Off Me”
The song is named “Hind’s Hall,“ referencing one of the first buildings occupied by students at Columbia University (the epicenter of national student mobilizations), renamed from “Hamilton’s Hall” to “Hind’s Hall,” honoring the six-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, who was killed in Gaza alongside her entire family and paramedics. In the early morning hours of April 30, 2024, dozens of students barricaded the entrances to the campus and hung a banner reading “Free Palestine!” The protesters decided to remain in the building until the university agreed to three demands: total divestment from Israel and companies supporting genocide, financial transparency, and no punishment for those protesting for a free Palestine.
Macklemore opens his song by questioning the brutal police repression against the students, carried out at the request of university administrations and the U.S. government. He draws on NWA’s song “Fuck tha Police” to connect the historic critique of police brutality by Hip Hop and the Black community to the strength of the pro-Palestinian movement, repressed by the same police at the behest of the same bourgeois state.
“The people, they won’t leave
What is threatenin’ about divesting and wantin’ peace?
The problem isn’t the protests, it’s what they’re protesting
It goes against what our country is funding
(Hey) Block the barricade until Palestine is free
(Hey) Block the barricade until Palestine is free
When I was seven, I learned a lesson from Cube and Eazy-E
What was it again? Oh yeah, fuck the police”
He then critiques the bourgeois media and far-right attempts to equate the pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist struggle with antisemitism:
“We see the lies in ’em
Claimin’ it’s antisemitic to be anti-Zionist
I’ve seen Jewish brothers and sisters out there and ridin’ in
Solidarity and screamin’, “Free Palestine” with them
Organizin’, unlearnin’ and finally cuttin’ ties with
A state that’s gotta rely on an apartheid system
To uphold an occupyin’ violent
History been repeating for the last seventy-five
The Nakba never ended, the colonizer lied”
Exposing the farce of Biden and the Democrats’ politics, Macklemore declares, “The blood is on your hands, Biden, we can see it all/ And fuck no, I’m not votin’ for you in the fall.” And, from within the mainstream music industry, he denounces it, “even so, the music industry is quiet, complicit in its platform of silence.” He then closes the song with:
“What happened to the artist? What d’you got to say?
If I was on a label, you could drop me today
I’d be fine with it ’cause the heart fed my page
I want a ceasefire, fuck a response from Drake
What you willin’ to risk? What you willin’ to give?
What if you were in Gaza? What if those were your kids?
If the West was pretendin’ that you didn’t exist
You’d want the world to stand up and the students finally did”
An “Activist” Turn
Macklemore shook up the U.S. culture industry with the release of “Hind’s Hall.” And despite the setbacks faced for confronting Zionism, the rapper continued to put his art in service of the Palestinian people. Macklemore announced that all proceeds from the song’s streams would be donated to UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestinian refugees). UNRWA is an agency with contradictions, as it was the UN itself that approved the 1948 resolution for the partition of Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel. But the “Hind’s Hall” YouTube video was hit by a “shadow ban” of the algorithm and with an age restriction to access it due to “violent content,” which restricted promotion of the song, despite the thousands of views. On social media, particularly on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), users began questioning why the algorithm restricted Macklemore while continuing to fund Zionist war ads. We know the answer.
Along with censorship on social media, Macklemore was cut from festivals like the Neon City Festival in Las Vegas in September 2024. This came after he participated in the Palestine Will Live Forever benefit festival and attended pro-Palestinian protests, including outside the 2024 Grammys. Additionally, Macklemore canceled his shows in Dubai in protest against the UAE’s role in the war in Sudan.
Despite Big Tech’s censorship and the impacts on his career, Macklemore insisted on denouncing the genocide and released a follow-up. In September 2024, approaching one year of the genocide, the rapper released a new song: “Hind’s Hall 2.” In this track, in collaboration with Palestinian artists Anees, MC Abdul, and Amer Zahr, blending rap and melodic snippets, Macklemore uses the voices of Palestinian children singing, “In our lifetime we will be free/ […] And they can bury us/ But they will find out we are seeds.” In clear reference to the watermelon image used by the Palestinian people to bypass Zionist censorship against their flag, due to its similar colors, Anees denounces: “So if I’m not allowed to say ‘From the River to the Sea’/ Then ‘From the rind to the seed Palestine will be free.”
In another part of the song, the rapper includes watchwords from the massive protests in the U.S. that ignited worldwide solidarity with the Palestinian people. Amplifying the cries from the streets, the song emphasizes: “To kids in Gaza my vow right now/ I’ma ride for your life like you were my child.” Engaging with the expectations that Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidency would be a “lesser evil” than Trump, the rapper says, “stop sending money and weapons or you ain’t winning Michigan.” Much more subtly than his critique of Biden in “Hind’s Hall (I),” Macklemore recognizes the funding of the genocide carried out by Harris, but still harbors some expectation (which is not fully realized) that it’s a matter of dialogue. His commitment to the Palestinian people, however, is non-negotiable: reaffirming that “the whole world turned Palestinian” and that “We bleed the same blood, feel the same hurt,” Macklemore closes the song asking: “What happened to us?”
“The Next Four Years, It’s Time to Ride”
Anyone who thought Macklemore would stop his activist turn and soften his militancy after the two versions of “Hind’s Hall” was wrong. In February of this year, the rapper released his newest single, “Fucked Up,” directly confronting Trump, Elon Musk, and all their ilk. The ceasefire agreement between the State of Israel and Hamas was a symbolic and political defeat for Netanyahu, who failed to achieve his goals in Gaza despite the massive military apparatus and the billion-dollar funding from major powers, thanks to the brave Palestinian resistance and the international solidarity movement worldwide. However, Zionist and reactionary rhetoric has gained new life in the second Trump administration’s virulent hatred of Palestinians and immigrants, especially with the announcement of Trump’s new Gaza plan, intending to place it under U.S. control and transform it into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” expelling Palestinians to neighboring countries.
On Trump’s social network, Truth Social, he posted a disgusting AI-generated video showing what would be “Trump’s Gaza,” luxurious with golden statues, and images of Trump, Musk, and Netanyahu “showing off” on the Gaza beaches, with swimsuits, semi-nude women, and showers of money. Macklemore, on the same day, posted a reel in response on his Instagram, replacing the AI-generated background music glorifying “Trump Gaza” with his new single, “Fucked Up”, with the caption, “I think this song fits better.”
In the official music video for the new single, produced by Palestinian artist Omar Alali, images of protests are juxtaposed: those of the extreme right-wing reactionaries and the massive wave of Palestinian families crossing northern Gaza to return to their lands, even amidst the rubble. The chorus repeats: “They got us fucked up, they got us fucked up/ And Elon, we know exactly what that was,” referencing Musk’s blatant Nazi salute at Trump’s presidential inauguration.
Showing a certain anti-imperialist consciousness, Macklemore does not limit himself to denouncing the genocide. The song starts with a deep critique of the climate crisis and capitalist exploitation that forced inmates in Los Angeles to work for $10.24 a day fighting the fires that ravaged entire neighborhoods in LA.
“The world’s on fire, we don’t own the water, y’all
Inmates hired for a couple dollars, y’all
New era ushered, but white supremacy is still in charge
Talkin’ colonizing Gaza from the White House lawn
But the people mobbin’, and we ain’t backin’ off”
Progressing to more strategic conclusions, Macklemore denounces the deep connection between the precarization of working-class life and the financing of Israel as an outpost of imperialism in the Middle East:
“Why the fuck you think you can’t afford the rent in your building?
And you can’t afford groceries? In debt, in your feelings
And you know how the West thinks: It’s all about the West banks
Call a ceasefire, then start annexing the West Bank
How you think Israel gets money for the best tanks?
And Netanyahu loves Trump, he’s like: Yup, thanks!
That’s your money, and yes, it’s all connected”
The song closes with a direct call to mobilization, a call to fight against wars and genocide, against deportations, and to fight the reactionary policies of the far-right:
“The next four years, it’s time to ride
Fuck ICE, free Congo, Sudan, and Palestine
If you still haven’t said shit about the genocide
Know your grandkids one day are gonna ask you: Why?”
As an expression of the anti-imperialist subjectivity that developed in the vanguard of youth and resonates among artists worldwide, Macklemore has managed to make his artistic production and career into anti-imperialist “combat-art.” Despite setbacks, Maclemore has put his art in service of denouncing the imperialism of the U.S. bipartisan system (exposing both Republicans and Democrats as Zionist to the core), in defense of a free Palestine. As the reactionary agenda provoked by Trump has opened a new wave of repression against students in the U.S. for defending Palestine and accelerated threats of deportations, we must continue echoing the cry in solidarity with the Palestinian people and immigrants inside and outside the U.S. Immediate freedom for Mahmoud Khalil! No punishment for those who stand against genocide and imperialism! For a free, secular, working-class, and socialist Palestine from the river to the sea! Down with Trump and down with Zionist colonialism!