‘Hind’s Hall’: Macklemore’s pro-Palestine song – how far will it go?
The American rapper’s track is a powerful reminder that artists’ voices carry weight.
This week American rapper Macklemore released a new track, Hind’s Hall, which has gained a lot of attention because of its explicitly political nature.
The track is unapologetically pro-Palestine. It declares the artist’s solidarity with student protesters occupying campuses across the globe in response to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide.
The title refers to student protesters renaming Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall as “Hind’s Hall” when they occupied it. Hind Rajab was a six-year-old Gazan girl who died in horrific circumstances – trapped for days in a car with the bodies of her family members killed by Israeli fire. The Israeli military also killed Red Cross emergency responders who tried to come to her aid.
Macklemore has previously been known for more lighthearted songs such as Thrift Shop and Downtown but ventured into (safer) political territory with Same Love in 2012, a celebration of LGBTQI+ relationships.
This new track goes beyond the politics of previous work in taking a no-holds-barred stance on Palestine. It also calls out problems with policing and censorship in the United States, and its role in enabling the slaughter in Gaza.
The song concludes in a celebration of protest and collective action:
If the West was pretendin’ that you didn’t exist, you’d want the world to stand up and the students finally did.
