#musical-protests

#musical-protests

The success of mass protests can be notoriously hard to evaluate. Even groups with focused messages, such as the antiabortion March for Life, can go decades before they achieve a tangible win.

Riot Queens, takes that real act - which sparked San Franciso's 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot, the first known full-scale riot asserting transgender and gay rights in the U.S. - and explores the emotional boiling point that led to it.

Today every senator, every single one, will pick a side: Do you stand with the American people who are exhausted of forever wars in the Middle East? Or stand with Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth as they bumble us headfirst into another war?

We demand that the amateurs in control of the ICE social media account take it down. It ain't funny, this song means a lot to us and other people, and you don't get to appropriate it without a fight. Also, go fuck yourselves.

First, they take up It Was Just an Accident, the Cannes Palme d'Or-winning film by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. Inspired in part by Panahi's own experience being imprisoned for critiquing the Iranian government, his new film-made in secret from the regime- holds back little in its sharp political critique, rage, and... a surprising amount of comedy. Not surprising in its amount of comedy- but maybe in its frequently anti-authoritarian politics-is Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!

When Norman Sylvester was 12, long before he garnered the nickname "The Boogie Cat" or shared a stage with B.B. King, he boarded a train in Louisiana and headed west, toward the distant city of Portland, Oregon. He'd lived all his life in the rural South, eating wild muscadine grapes from his family's farm, fishing in the bayou and churning butter at the kitchen table to the tune of his grandmother's gospel singing.

On Jan. 28, 2026, Bruce Springsteen released "Streets of Minneapolis," a hard-hitting protest against the immigration enforcement surge in the city, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. The song is all over social media, and the official video has already been streamed more than 5 million times. It's hard to remember a time when a major artist has released a song in the midst of a specific political crisis.

Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show has drawn criticism from the country's top Republican: Donald Trump said it was "one of the worst, EVER!" in a post on Truth Social. Strong words from the president - but this isn't the first time a musician has drawn ire from right-wing politicians and conservatives. Stars like Lady Gaga, Cardi B, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Bruce Springsteen have riled up conservatives, often over progressive themes or sexual lyrics in their music.

He sings the names of the dead haltingly, as though he is reading them off a screen-which, judging from the recording-studio footage in the song's lyric video, he probably is. The song is about the news, but it is also, perhaps unintentionally, about the moment of lag when we absorb the names and images, when we try to assimilate atrocity into narrative.

ICE killed another American citizen on Saturday, so here's a list of five anti-ICE songs you can listen to right now. As music journalists we often struggle with how to respond to tragedies like this one. I don't have unreleased facts to share, or some vast network of activists to call upon. What I do have is my anger, alongside decades of practice working through difficult emotions with music.

In early January, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, a concert benefit for Palestine and Sudan conjured all the fury of an acoustic night at the local coffee shop. Musicians played stripped-down songs on a stage decorated with rugs, floor lamps, and couches. Members of the audience, mostly 20-somethings and teens, leaned in and filmed intimate performances by their favorite cult artists.

Video of the fatal incident Saturday showed Pretti facing off with federal agents holding an iPhone then being thrown to the ground and beaten by around six or seven men. A first shot is then fired before at least nine more and Pretti falls still. It is not clear from the footage which agent fired the first shot, or the ones that ultimately killed Pretti.

Thanksgiving did not go the way that Frank Ray had anticipated. The country singer had invited his family up from Texas to Tennessee for the holiday, with plans to deep fry a turkey, explore Nashville, and take in a show at the Grand Ole Opry. But on Thanksgiving morning, Ray received an unsettling call: TSA had flagged his sister's husband, Juan Nevarez-Porras, at El Paso international airport due to insufficient documentation required to fly.

Rows of field laborers hacking at sugar cane with machetes. Workers in harnesses dangling from power poles as lights strobe, then black out. The man who's arguably the biggest global pop star today weaving among them, rapping, singing, dancing, and interacting with tableaux of daily life and social issues from his Puerto Rican homeland and its diaspora. Not to mention the whole hemisphere's troubled relationship with the U.S. of A.

"This goes out to all of the ICE agents out there or wherever you are. Quit that s***** job that you have,"

The student backlash comes amid national outrage over the Trump administration's ongoing immigration crackdown, which has been criticized for its use of violent tactics and racial profiling. Though the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has led most of the deportation efforts, CBP, which is a larger agency and recruits more heavily than ICE on college campuses, has been involved in the campaign as well.

Each had one of the letters of the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) painted on their chest a committee led by the wives of American politicians that advocated censoring song lyrics because they believed rock music supported and glorified violence, drug use, and suicide. The musicians remained impassive and as naked as the day they were born for 15 minutes.

My Morning Jacket have released a new album, Peacelands, which is out now via their Bandcamp. Frontman Jim James describes it as "an album of mostly unreleased, acoustic peaceful protest songs - some covers and some of my own" and includes songs by Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Buck Owens and more. Proceeds will benefit " ACLU fighting for our safety and freedoms here at home, as well as Doctors Without Borders and International Rescue - organizations working hard to help heal the horrors of war and terror around the globe... working around the clock to help move us all towards 'Peacelands.'"