While the music and magazine world–the rap world in particular–were watching the world’s most unnecessary and artificial spat between Drake and Kendrick Lamar; Macklemore released “Hind’s Hall”, which he dedicated to the Palestinian struggle and the student protests on campuses. Hazan Özturan and Bawer have compiled the details about the song, which they describe as a masterpiece. This article, published on Velvele’s Turkish page on May 14, 2024, was translated into English by Mercan Baş.
1. The song takes its name from the resistance at Columbia University, where students renamed the famous Hamilton Hall on campus after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl murdered by Israel in Gaza. In February, the Israeli occupation army bombed a car, killing Hind’s relatives and leaving her as the only survivor. Although she asked for help from the officials for days, the units could not go to the scene of the incident because of the entry ban due to the area being part of the active conflict zone. Hind, who was waiting for aid, died a few days later.
2. The pro-Palestinian occupation protests that began at Columbia University quickly spread to other campuses in the US, and went on to expand to other parts of the world. Students demanding their schools to break ties with and quit supplying arms to Israel, and hence cease supporting the genocide in Gaza were attacked violently by the police in many resistance spots. Many students were detained, beaten up, and suspended. However, despite all the aggression against their rightful cause, students in some schools got what they wanted, inspiring many others at different universities to do the same. Campus protests continue to spread in waves.
3. Another detail that makes Macklemore’s song even more impressive is the sample taken from Fairuz, the queen of the Middle East, and of course, our hearts. The rhythm that forms the atmosphere of Hind’s Hall is from the Lebanese legendary artist Fairuz’s “Ana La Habibi“. The chorus of the song sang by Fairuz is as follows:
“My lover beckoned to me, he told me: Winter is gone
And the dove is back, and the apples have blossomed
The morning and the dew stand on my door
And in your eyes, my spring lit up and became sweeter“
4. Macklemore is a straight white American cis-het man, but he has educated and politicized himself on issues of justice and equality. He is known for using his privileges to raise the voices of minorities and those struggling for their rights in songs such as “White Privilege”, “Same Love” and “White Privilege II”. The artist did not limit his stance to speaking up in his songs, but also carried it to his private life by waiting for the interstate legalization of equal marriage rights in the USA to marry his female partner.
5. The artist made this political consciousness a lifelong commitment just before performing Hind’s Hall live for the first time in New Zealand on 9 May 2024:
“I stand here today and every day forward for the rest of my life in solidarity with the people of Palestine, with an open heart, in the belief that our collective liberation is at stake – that we all deserve freedom in this life of ours.”
6. The short of it is that Macklemore is not only improving himself and mapping a new pathway for the privileged; he is also recording the present, re-establishing the connection between rap music and its political roots, and introducing us to one of the most dissident works of the 2020s. “Along with Billie Holiday‘s ‘Strange Fruit’ and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young‘s ‘Ohio’, it’s a new addition to American protest songs,” Time writer Solcyre Burga said, while Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello tweeted, “Honestly Macklemore’s Hind’s Hall is the most Rage Against The Machine song since Rage Against The Machine.”
7. Hind’s Hall was praised by many pro-Palestinian politicians, activists, and artists. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in the upcoming US presidential elections and an opponent of the genocide in Gaza, thanked Macklemore.
8. With his song, Macklemore is simultaneously becoming a fighter in the struggle against censorship, which has been increasingly ongoing since 7 October 2023. The lyrics refer to the bill passed by the US House of Representatives to ban TikTok, while the song itself has been subjected to implicit censorship by Youtube.
By imposing an age restriction of 18, YouTube attempted to prevent the video from appearing in recommendations and from being shown to users that stream without logging into a YouTube account. Despite these limitations, the song quickly went viral across multiple platforms. Hind’s Hall got more than 100 million views on Instagram alone within 24 hours.
9. All proceeds of the song will go to UNRWA, which the Israeli state threatens and often tries to prevent from working. Here are the platforms where you can listen to and buy the song.
10. To understand why Hind’s Hall is such an important and political manifesto, one should give an ear to the lyrics. The following are Macklemore’s powerful words, narrating what’s happening in Gaza and at university protests.
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
Block the barricade until Palestine is free
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
Actors in badges protecting property
And a system that was designed by white supremacy
But the people are in the streets
You can pay off Meta, you can’t pay off me
Politicians who serve by any means
AIPAC, CUFI, and all the companies
You see, we sell fear around the land of the free
But this generation here is about to cut the strings
You can ban TikTok, take us out the algorithm
But it’s too late, we’ve seen the truth, we bear witness
Seen the rubble, the buildings, the mothers and the children
And all the men that you murdered, and then we see how you spin it
Who gets the right to defend and who gets the right of resistance
Has always been about dollars and the color of your pigment, but
White supremacy is finally on blast
Screamin’ “Free Palestine” ’til they’re home at last
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 75
The Nakba never ended, the colonizer lied
If students in tents posted on the lawn
Occupyin’ the quad is really against the law
And a reason to call in the police and their squad
Where does genocide land in your definition, huh?
Destroyin’ every college in Gaza and every mosque
Pushin’ everyone into Rafah and droppin’ bombs
The blood is on your hands, Biden, we can see it all
And fuck no, I’m not votin’ for you in the fall
Undecided
You can’t twist the truth, the people out here united
Never be defeated when freedom’s on the horizon
Yet the music industry’s quiet, complicit in their platform of silence (hey, woo)
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, let’s get it
