Macklemore has released a scathing new song calling out white supremacy and denouncing the war in Gaza.
On Monday night, the rapper posted the track “Hind’s Hall” to social media, naming the song after the Columbia University building that pro-Palestinian student protesters occupied last week. Demonstrators rechristened the building, officially Hamilton Hall, in memory of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was likely killed by Israeli forces in January.
The accompanying video intersperses the song’s lyrics with images of student protesters, war-torn territories, and politicians whom Macklemore accuses of being complicit in the killing of what is now said to be at least 35,000 Palestinians.
“The people, they won’t leave,” Macklemore, real name Benjamin Haggerty, begins the song. “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.”
After a sharp callback to N.W.A’s 1988 song “Fuck tha Police,” Macklemore references the bill, passed in April, that aims to ban TikTok in the U.S. or force its Chinese owners to sell it: “Take us out the algorithm/ But it’s too late, we’ve seen the truth, we bear witness.”
The song has particularly pointed lines for President Joe Biden, telling him “the blood is on your hands,” and that “we can see it all/ And fuck no, I’m not voting for you in the fall.”
Macklemore also calls out the music industry for its “platform of silence,” saying: “If I was on a label, you could drop me today.”
Referencing the much-discussed feud between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar, Macklemore adds: “I want a cease-fire, fuck a response from Drake.”
“Hind’s Hall” was not on streaming platforms as of Tuesday morning, but Pitchfork reported that proceeds from the song will go to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Military operations began in Gaza after Hamas militants killed some 1,200 Israelis in an Oct. 7 attack and took roughly another 250 people hostage. Israeli forces have since killed tens of thousands of people in the Palestinian territories, displaced much of the population, destroyed the area’s infrastructure and blocked most humanitarian aid from reaching the people there.
Macklemore spoke out against the Israeli occupation of Gaza during a rally in Washington, D.C., last November, where he told crowds: “I don’t know enough. But I know enough that this is a genocide.”
Four months later, Francesca Albanese, a United Nations special rapporteur who monitors the Palestinian territories, said there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel’s actions there amount to genocide.
Watch Macklemore’s full video here.