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| MACKLEMORE |
THE OTHER DAY there was a bit of
a spat in the music world when English singer, Ed Sheeran, during his American “Loop”
tour dismissed his opening act, Macklemore, because the rapper uttered the
verboten words: “Free Palestine” during his September 5-6 performances after
which he sang his “Hind’s Hall” song, which honoured Columbia University
students for their on campus protests against the genocide in Gaza.*
MACKLEMORE put his foot in it for daring to utter those (so-called)
“anti-Semitic” words during his MetLife New, Jersey, stadium performances. The
backlash was instantaneous, with billionaire Zionist Robert Kraft, owner of the
Gillette stadium in Foxborough Massachusetts where Sheeran and Macklemore were scheduled next to perform, refused to host the musical event if Macklemore remained on
the ticket. The Israeli-American Council (IAC) was in high dungeon over
Macklemore’s public support for the Palestinian cause. They started a petition
which garnered tens of thousands of signatures for the rapper’s removal from
the show.
THE GIG IN MASSACHUSETTS was canceled altogether, ostensively because of
a severe weather warning. Other rich, Zionist billionaires and stadium owners
followed suit, threatening to pull the plug on the show if Macklemore was not dropped
from the tour. And so, the American rapper was let go by Sheeran, who is a
friend and long-time musical collaborator with the rap star.
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| Mackelmore at MetLife Statiium, New Jersey Sept. 5 |
With Macklemore’s removal from the tour, it's Oopsie time! Ed's the one who’s stuck
in doo-doo now, facing a backlash from his fan base.Subsequently Sheeran and his billionaire buddy, Rob Kraft, offered to
donate 2-million-dollars each to Palestinian causes. Wha-wha… Talk about
ham-fisted damage control! As for Macklemore, he's currently putting together
a “Free Palestine Tour” with gigs in Dublin, Paris and London, and all the
proceeds will go to Palestinian relief agencies. Quite the contrast, don't you think between neutral Ed and principled Macklemore?
BEFORE THIS, I had only heard of Ed Sheeran. I knew he was a musician, but
that’s all. I had never heard of the rapper, Macklemore.1 But, between the two, I
think I know who is standing on the right side of history.
AFTER HIS DISMISSAL, Macklemore posted a long Telegram post which I
include here:
“I’m not sure how to start this.
So, I’m going to speak from the heart and share the truth. Ed Sheeran and his
team have made the decision to remove me from “The Loop” tour. But before I get
into it, I want to say something that should be obvious. In this moment I think
it matters. I am not a victim. Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink [A 80s singer
well past her sell-by date who expressed public criticism of Macklemore’s
pro-Palestinian stance. Ed] is not a victim. We have careers, money,
opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any
of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families.
The victims are the Palestinian people.
The men, women and children who have been killed, starved, displaced and forced
to live through unimaginable violence. More than 20,000 children have been
killed in Gaza alone. People are being killed today, and people will be killed
tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don’t lose sight of
that.
Ed is my friend. I’ve known him
for 13 years. We’ve shared late nights, studio sessions and stages. He has this
infectious magic about him that I’ve grown to love. I consider him a brother.
And because of that, we’ve had some difficult conversations this past week. The
type of talks rooted in love and respect for one another that still end in a
place of fundamental disagreement. Nothing I’m writing here is out of spite or
because I want to tear down his character. But, as I told Ed multiple times on
the phone, our friendship can’t change my responsibility to tell the truth
about what happened.
Last Monday, in the middle of all
the media attention surrounding Pink and what I said at MetLife, Ed told me
that Robert Kraft called him. We were scheduled to play Gillette Stadium later
this month, which is owned by the Kraft Group. Ed told me that Kraft said I
would not be allowed to perform in his stadium. Ed also told me that Kraft had
rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an
ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in
our venues.
Ed was in a fucked-up position.
He knew it. His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it
never had before. He told me that the words “Free Palestine” and the image of
the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with. I told him
that if those words were more offensive that tens of thousands of Palestinian
children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect
between where those people stood and where I stood. But he couldn’t get past
his public facing, “I don’t take sides”.
And I get why people don’t.
taking a side can cost you. Money, brand deals, sponsorships, festivals,
private shows, relationships and access. I’ve lost all of those things. But
there is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed. When one
side has the bombs and bottomless financial and military support from America,
refusing to take a side doesn’t leave you in the middle.
What I said at MetLife I have
been saying on stages around the world for almost three years. So why is it an
issue now? Because now I’m sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in
the world, in some of the biggest stadiums in America. At a certain level of exposure,
“Free Palestine” becomes too much of a risk. If I kept doing the shows, saying
Free Palestine, with Ed implicitly supporting it, the crowd getting loud and
showing undeniable support for Palestinian liberation, what artist might speak
out next? The stage becomes resistance. Maybe that’s why this time it became so
important to silence me.
And one of the most effective
ways to enforce that silence has been to weaponize the accusation of
antisemitism. Antisemitism is real. And that is exactly why the word matters
too much to be used as a shield against criticism of the Israeli state. When
criticizing Israel, opposing Zionism or saying “Free Palestine” gets conflated
with hatred of Jewish people, it doesn’t protect Jewish people. It protects
Israel from accountability.
I hope this isn’t the end of my
relationship with Ed. Thirteen years of friendship doesn’t disappear because of
one painful disagreement. I hope we both continue listening, studying what is
happening in Palestine and wrestling with what neutrality means in a moment
like this. My door will always be open to continuing that conversation.
When my brother Omar was doing
the subtitles for the video I posted from MetLife, I thanked him. He told me
there’s a phrase in Arabic: “La shukra ala wajeb” (“There is no thanks for a
duty”).
That stayed with me. Because
that’s what this has become for me and millions of others around the world.
A duty. Not something deserving of
praise or gratitude. Not brave. Human.
Who is winning the internet, who
is getting canceled, who gets to play the stadium and who doesn’t, all of it
becomes so small when held against what we are actually witnessing in Gaza and
the West Bank. An entire people being displaced, starved and killed while the world
debates which words we are allowed to use to describe it, how those words make
us feel, and whether our discomfort matters more than the people living through
a genocide.
I didn’t need 10 shows from Ed. I
needed 2. Two chances to stand in front of 90,000 people and say the words that
somehow became too dangerous to say, “Free Palestine.”
BUT if those words cost me the
stage, while turning the conversation back to Palestine, then it was the most
successful tour I’ve ever been on.”
CHEERS, JAKE. ______________________________________________________________
* IN APRIL 2024, ON THE CAMPUS of Columbia University
(New York), students protesting the genocide in Gaza took over Hamilton Hall,
renaming it “Hind’s Hall” in honour of the five-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajad, who was murdered in cold blood by Israeli
troops earlier, on January 29. Reader’s may recall the horrific event where
Hind, trapped in her uncle’s car, herself wounded and surrounded by her dead
relatives, pleaded for over six hours for help from Red Crescent Society (RCS)
on a cell phone last used by her fifteen-year-old cousin, Layan, who had called
the RCS for help before dying of his wounds. She remained on the line until
Israeli troops killed her some hours later in a hail of bullets. The IDF
troops, which included a tank that fired its heavy machine gun into the car,
also fired on the RCS ambulance as it approached the vehicle to rescue Hind,
killing the two paramedics despite the fact that the Red Crescent Society had
gotten an ‘all clear’ signal from Israeli authorities for their ambulance to
enter the fire zone. But they were attacked anyway. In army lingo that’s called
a “double tap” strike—killing the primary target and then first responders to
the scene. Two weeks later, when Israeli forces had moved on from the area,
rescue workers and Hind’s family recovered the bodies of Hind and six of her
relatives along with the two first responders who gave their lives coming to
Hind’s aid as she pleaded for help over her dead cousin’s phone.
Amusingly, if anything can be remotely amusing about this disgusting
incident, the IDF have recently announced it is ‘investigating’ the death of
Hind as well as the World Food Kitchen murders done by Israeli drone operators on
April 1, 2024. [Some April Fools joke! Ed.] Recall reports that a WFK convoy of three vans, clearly marked with the WFK logo on their roofs, when returning to their warehouse came under Israeli drone attack, along a route it had earlier been granted clearance from the IDF to use. Seven aid workers were killed,
including one dual American-Canadian citizen. We’ll see where these
investigations will go. Nowhere, I imagine. And they’ll come with buckets and
buckets of whitewash.
1. One rapper I do listen to is Britain’s Low
Key who is an articulate and thoughtful voice both in his policial analysis
and his music. He appears on various podcasts including Double Down News.
