In over twenty years of touring, I’ve never experienced anything like this.
But this is not an isolated incident. For decades, activists, poets, writers, musicians and entertainers who have stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people have faced consequences for doing so. Many have paid a far greater price than I have.
Looking back over the last three years, the only real regret I have is not speaking publicly when Zionists were kicking me under the table. At the time, I didn’t believe that centering what was happening to me was worth taking any attention away from the genocide in Palestine.
But the intimidation, manipulation and suppression I experienced are part of how those in power keep entertainers quiet. It’s their main tactic to keep us in line. Shut up and dribble, or you will be punished.
But at this point, I’m three years past giving two shits about maintaining any relationships, business or personal, with anyone that isn’t riding for a Free Palestine.
I’d rather lose every opportunity in this industry than spend another day protecting people who value their business relationships with Israel more than they value Palestinian human life.
We live in a country that prides itself on freedom of speech. Yet we’ve reached a point where a handful of billionaires can decide which causes are acceptable, which voices are welcome and which human lives are worth defending.
Today it’s Palestine. What will it be tomorrow?
To these owners, the words Free Palestine represent a threat. Not because they endanger anyone, but because those words challenge the systems of power they have built their fortunes on.
The tides are turning. Just three nights ago, Abdul El-Sayed won his Senate race on a platform that included ending the genocide in Gaza and stopping U.S. arms sales to Israel. AIPAC spent $42 million trying to defeat him. And they still couldn’t win.
The trouble with buying power is believing you’ve bought the people too.
The billionaires depend on our silence and complicity. They forget that we buy their tickets. We fill their arenas. We build their empires. And we have the power to bring them down.
The people have spoken. We want an end to the genocide and we want a Free Palestine. The arenas have made their decision. Now we’ll make ours. If they think the threat of never playing another arena in America will make me retreat into silence, they got me fucked up.
There will be more shows for Palestine. We’ll keep working with other artists and organizers, continuing where we left off in Europe. We’ll probably just take that shit outside where it belonged in the first place.
Our commitment to raising funds and standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people remains the same.
There comes a point when the world changes, not because those in power give us permission, but because the people stop asking for it.
We build our own stages.
They may own the arenas. But they do not own the people who fill them. And they never will.
FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸❤️✨
