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Denzel Curry, My Bloody Valentine, Shygirl, Paris Paloma, Vacations, Innvervisions and YHWN Nailgun have joined the more than 1,000 other artists and labels taking part in the No Music For Genocide movement comprised of acts committed to removing their catalogs from streaming services in Israel amid the shaky truce between the Jewish state and Hamas-led militant groups.
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The cultural boycott is asking artists and music rights-holders to support the Palestinian people by geo-blocking their music and pulling it from streaming platforms in Israel. They join a growing roster of acts on the list, including: Clairo, Lucy Dacus, Wolf Alice, Of Monsters and Men, Lorde, Hayley Williams, Paramore, Björk, MUNA and Paloma Faith.
The effort was originally launched in September with more than 400 signatories, with organizers saying in a statement that the urgency of the project has been ratcheted up by reports of nearly 500 alleged ceasefire violations by Israel since October’s U.S.-led ceasefire deal ending two years of devastating bombing of Gaza by Israel.
“Drawing from the successful music boycotts of apartheid South Africa, No Music For Genocide stands firm in refusing to reward the music industry’s on-the-ground presence in apartheid Israel with access to the art it requires, rejecting the use of cultural work and influence to normalize Israel’s criminal occupation, genocide, forced displacement, torture, and imprisonment without charge,” read a statement from the group. “Music is both a universal language and inherently politicized; the only question is whether we define its politicization to advance true justice.”
At press time the fragile ceasefire appeared to be holding, though Israel has continued to strike inside Gaza in response to what the country alleged was a violation of the terms by a Hamas gunman who reportedly opened fire on Israeli troops in Southern Gaza.
Israeli forces waged a relentless bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7, 2023 surprise attack by Hamas militants on Israel that killed nearly 2,000 and resulted in the kidnapping of 251 hostages. Following two years of fighting in which Palestinian authorities said more than 69,000 Palestinians were killed and 170,000 injured by Israeli attacks that leveled a massive amount of structures in the territory and caused what experts said was a severe hunger crisis, a shaky ceasefire was signed on Oct. 10 as the first step towards a hoped-for peace deal.
No Music For Genocide held it’s first fundraiser last month in New York, raising $7,000, with all proceeds going directly to mutual aid programs and family lifeline funds in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Hundreds of entertainment industry leaders, including several from the music world, have signed an open letter issued by the non-profit Creative Community For Peace (CCFP), calling for a rejection of extremist rhetoric and misinformation surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The letter comes in the wake of the fatal shooting of two young people outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., during which the assailant reportedly shouted “Free Palestine.” This act, the signatories argue, underscores the real-world consequences of anti-Israel rhetoric.
Signatories include major music industry figures such as Warner Records CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck, former Atlantic Music Group chief Julie Greenwald, Roc Nation’s Andrew Gould, YouTube’s Lyor Cohen, Rhino’s Mark Pinkus and UTA’s David Zedeck, among others. Other signatories include manager/TV host Sharon Osbourne, songwriter Diane Warren, producer Ron Fair, and actors Mayim Bialik and Julianna Marguiles.
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The letter responds to a series of open statements from the entertainment and literary communities — including one this week addressed to the U.K. government — that the CCFP says contain false claims and inflammatory accusations. It accuses Hamas, Iran and others of spreading antisemitic propaganda since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which killed approximately 1,200 people.
In the open letter, the CCFP calls on public figures to reject extremist rhetoric and misinformation targeting Israel and the Jewish people. The letter condemns Hamas, Iran, and their allies for spreading false narratives since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, accusing them of manipulating well-meaning celebrities into amplifying falsehoods. The letter highlights how such misinformation incites real-world violence, referencing the May 21 killing of two people in D.C. The letter denounces Hamas for endangering civilians and using human shields, while accusing those critical of Israel of co-opting social justice causes to vilify the country. The signatories urge their peers in entertainment to reject falsehoods and work toward a lasting peace.
CCFP chairman David Renzer and executive director Ari Ingel highlighted the urgency of the message and warned that without responsible use of social media platforms by influential entertainers, anti-Israel rhetoric could lead to more violence and antisemitic targeting.
The letter concludes with a call for peace, urging colleagues to stand against misinformation and extremism in order to support a future where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in dignity.
The conflict began with Hamas’ attack in 2023. Since then, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has resulted in an estimated 54,000 Palestinian deaths, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties. The Associated Press reports that of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza, Israeli officials believe about one-third may still be alive.
Read the open letter signed by Greenwald, Cohen, Bay-Schuck and more here.
Bono is tired of the broken bottles under children’s feet and bodies strewn across the dead-end street, so he called for the Israel-Hamas war to stop during U2‘s induction into the Ivor’s Fellowship Academy at the Ivor Novello Awards ceremony in London on Thursday (May 22).
The singer-songwriter’s message came as he introduced the band’s acoustic performance of its 1983 hit “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” about the January 1972 massacre that saw British soldiers fire upon protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 14 unarmed people.
“I used to introduce this next song by saying it wasn’t a rebel song,” Bono began. “Believing in the possibilities of peace was then and is now a rebellious act — and some would say a ridiculous one. To believe peace was attainable between your country and ours, between our country and itself, was a ridiculous idea because peace creates possibilities in the most intractable situations, and lord knows theres a few of them out there right now.”
“Hamas, release the hostages, stop the war,” the Irish rocker continued. “Israel, be released from Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right fundamentalists that twist your sacred texts. All of you protect our aid workers, they are the best of us!”
Hamas launched an attack on Israel Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others as captives, with the Associated Press reporting that 58 are still being held. More than 53,000 people — mostly children and women — have been killed across Gaza in Israel’s retaliatory attacks. On Friday, Gaza’s health ministry said that at least another 60 have been killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours.
The band has been outspoken in its stances. In February, U2 shared a message of support for Ukraine, which has been fighting against an invasion by Russia launched thee years earlier. “All who believe in freedom and sense the jeopardy we Europeans now find ourselves in are not sleeping easily on this, the third anniversary of the invasion,” Bono captioned the Instagram post, which included a reading of Taras Shevchenko’s “My Friendly Epistle” accompanied by piano.
In January, President Joe Biden honored Bono with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, highlighting the rocker’s work as a “pioneering activist against AIDS and poverty.”
The winner of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest is speaking out against the war in Gaza and Israel’s inclusion in the global music event. JJ, who won the competition May 17, said in an interview published Thursday (May 22) that he would like to see Israel banned from next year’s contest.
“It is very disappointing to see Israel still participating in the contest,” the singer told Spanish publication El Pais, according to Reuters. “I would like the next Eurovision to be held in Vienna and without Israel.”
Billboard has reached out to Eurovision Song Contest for comment.
The global songwriting competition bills itself as “a non-political event,” with its rules noting that participating broadcasters are expected to take any necessary steps to ensure that their delegations and teams “safeguard the interests and the integrity of the ESC and to make sure that the ESC shall in no case be politicized and/or instrumentalized and/or otherwise brought into disrepute in any way.”
JJ — a classically trained countertenor — won this year’s event with his song “Wasted Love,” which combines opera with techno. The artist born Johannes Pietsch is Austria’s first winner since drag queen Conchita Wurst won in 2014.
Snagging second place was Yuval Raphael of Israel, who earned the runner-up position with her “New Day Will Rise” anthem and also won the viewers’ votes in the finale. (When jury votes were taken into consideration, they put JJ in the No. 1 spot.) According to the Associated Press, while Raphael had much public support in the form of voting, she faced pro-Palestinian protests that called for Israel’s ouster from the competition over the Israel-Hamas war. The current war started on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked several locations in Israel, including the Nova Music Festival near Gaza — which Raphael survived — killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage. Since then, the Israeli government’s military campaign has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians in Gaza, Reuters reports.
Raphael coming in second prompted some countries — including Spain, Ireland, Belgium and Iceland — to question the voting, with some requesting an audit, the BBC reported on Wednesday (May 21). Organizers have since said that the votes were independently verified.
In his El Pais interview, JJ also said that the vote-counting system needs to change to better improve transparency, Reuters reported.
“It is important to emphasize that the voting operation for the Eurovision Song Contest is the most advanced in the world and each country’s result is checked and verified by a huge team of people to exclude any suspicious or irregular voting patterns,” ESC’s director Martin Green said in response to the questioning of the vote counts, according to the BBC. “An independent compliance monitor reviews both jury and public vote data to ensure we have a valid result. … Our voting partner Once has confirmed that a valid vote was recorded in all countries participating in this year’s Grand Final and in the Rest of the World.”
The Eurovision Song Contest 2026 is set to be held in Vienna, Austria.
Three decades after composing the iconic Windows 95 startup jingle, Brian Eno has published an open letter to Microsoft, calling out the company for selling technology to Israel amid the country’s highly criticized war against Hamas.
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In a statement titled “Not in My Name: An Open Letter to Microsoft From Brian Eno” posted to Instagram Wednesday (My 21), the producer began by writing, “In the mid-1990s, I was asked to compose a short piece of music for Microsoft’s Windows 95 operating system.”
“Millions — possibly even billions — of people have since heard that short startup chime, which represented a gateway to a promising technological future,” he continued. “I never would have believed that the same company could one day be implicated in the machinery of oppression and war.”
Eno’s words come a few days after Microsoft acknowledged in an unsigned blogpost that it sold advanced artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to the Israeli military — as well as aided in efforts to locate and rescue Israeli hostages — amid the war in Gaza. Violence has run rampant in the city ever since Hamas attacked and killed about 1,200 Israeli people while taking more than 250 hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s ensuing war against the terrorist group has since led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
In February, the Associated Press released an investigative report that found the Israeli military used Microsoft’s Azure platform to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance in its war efforts, among other previously unreported details about the company’s partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
After hearing concerns about its reported relationship with Israel from employees and members of the public, the tech giant stated in its blogpost that an internal review had been conducted. “We have found no evidence that Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies, or any of our other software, have been used to harm people or that IMOD has failed to comply with our terms of service or our AI Code of Conduct,” it reads. “It is important to acknowledge that Microsoft does not have visibility into how customers use our software on their own servers or other devices.”
Regardless, Eno says the company has an “ethical responsibility” to suspend its business relationship with Israel. “These ‘services’ support a regime that is engaged in actions described by leading legal scholars and human rights organizations, the United Nations experts and increasing numbers of governments from around the world as genocidal,” he wrote. “Selling and facilitating advanced AI and cloud services to a government engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing is not ‘business as usual.’ It is complicity.”
The musician ended his letter by pledging to donate the fee he originally received for his Windows 95 composition to support for victims of attacks in Gaza. “If a sound can signal a real change,” he concluded, “let it be this one.”
Billboard has reached out to Microsoft for comment about Eno’s open letter.
The composer has been an important figure in Microsoft’s history for 30 years now, with his ethereal seconds-long theme soundtracking the startup process of countless people’s very first home computers all over the world. In 2025, the U.S. Library of Congress added the jingle to its National Recording Registry, which documents and preserves nationally significant recordings.
See Eno’s full statement below.
Vic Mensa has come out in support of Kehlani after the singer has seen two of their live shows canceled in recent weeks.
The Chicago rapper shared an open letter on Instagram to the Bay Area singer about her recently canceled SummerStage Central Park.
“Dear Kehlani,” his Wednesday (May 7) post began. “Few artists, and even fewer at your level of success, have chosen to center humanity and courage as boldly and uncompromisingly as you have, let alone at the peak of their popularity. Although newer to religion, I have a deep seated belief that God, or the universe, or however you categorize the all-powerful presence of the divine, is taking note — of every selfless action, of every sacrifice, of every time we jeopardize our security to do what’s right. I toe the line with you.”
He continued on by sharing that he sometimes has been reluctant to speak up because he didn’t want to lose opportunities.
“I lost a lot,” he wrote. “I’ll be honest. But, perhaps out of necessity, I have to choose to believe that when the smoke clears, I’ll look at my past with pride; I wasn’t perfect, but I forged myself out of fire. I took the hard road. I’ve been awe inspired by the way you’ve stood up. Especially at a time when I fell back and I asked myself, ‘Although, I need to feed my son, what kind of man do I want to inspire him to be?’”
Vic then brought up his Muslim faith and commended Kehlani for their sacrifice and bravery. “The highest form of sadaqah, or charity, is that which is given in health, and with much loved wealth,” he wrote. “When we give, not what we don’t need, but what we need most, the reverberation is supreme.”
He added, “I have often thought about your choices over the last 18 months. Wished I was more brave and more self sufficient. The truth is, your people love you. Not because of an opportunity provided to you by a booker here, or a city there, but because they cherish the depth of your soul. None of this can change that. As long as you have them you can never lose. The powers that be may be great, but I do believe we can all agree — there is a greater power.”
In response to Cornell University canceling their show, Kehlani reiterated that she isn’t antisemitic or antisemitic — she’s anti-genocide. When it came to the SummerStage cancellation, the musician responded with “lol” on Instagram Stories and added that they found out about the cancellation on IG.
The “Afterhours” artist has been open about her support for Palestine in the Israel-Hamas war. In 2023, they — along with numerous other musicians called for a ceasefire when signing the Artists Against Apartheid letter. Her 2024 music video for “Next 2 U” also featured dancers waving Palestinian flags.
Kehlani got on camera to give a statement regarding the cancellation of their upcoming performance at Cornell after the university’s president said the singer “has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments.”
Cornell had booked Kehlani to headline the school’s Slope Day, an annual celebration following the last day of classes, set for May 7 this year. Earlier this week, the invite was rescinded.
Kehlani’s performance was officially canceled on Wednesday, per an email Cornell president Michael I. Kotlikoff sent to students and faculty. According to a New York Times report, Kotlikoff wrote in the email that “the selection of Kehlani as this year’s headliner has injected division and discord … In the days since Kehlani was announced, I have heard grave concerns from our community that many are angry, hurt and confused that Slope Day would feature a performer who has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments in performances, videos and on social media.”
“I am being asked and called to clarify and make a statement yet again, for the millionth time, that I am not antisemitic nor anti-Jew,” Kehlani said on Saturday (April 26) in a video uploaded on Instagram.
“I am anti-genocide, I am anti the actions of the Israeli government, I am anti an extermination of an entire people, I am anti the bombing of innocent children, men, women — that’s what I’m anti,” they spelled out.
Kehlani continued: “In fact, the very first Live that I did in the beginning of this genocide was with a really beautiful Jewish organization called Jewish Voices for Peace, and I still continue to learn from and work alongside really impactful Jewish organizers against this genocide.”
“I want to be very clear in stating that I do believe God has plans for me and that’s not gonna stop nothing that I have going on, but I’m asked to clarify because this keeps coming up as a means to silence me, as a means to stop things that happen in my career, as a means to change the course of my life, and I just don’t believe that,” said Kehlani, who also noted they were in the studio working on new music. “So here’s the clarification that you needed. I hope this is everything you needed. Straight from my mouth, not a written statement with a white background from my notes.”
“Back to my album,” they concluded. Kehlani’s next full-length release will be the follow-up to 2024’s Crash.
Kehlani has been transparent about their support for Palestine and criticism of Israel in the Israel-Hamas war. In the singer’s 2024 “Next 2 U” video, they wore kaffiyehs, had dancers waving Palestinian flags, and featured the phrase “Long Live the Intifada.” In 2023, the musician joined a coalition of musicians to sign the Artists Against Apartheid letter, which called for a ceasefire.
Watch Kehlani’s Instagram reel from this weekend below.
Cornell University has canceled Kehlani’s upcoming performance, which the singer was slated to perform on campus at the university’s annual Slope Day on May 7. According to The New York Times, Cornell president Michael I. Kotlikoff emailed students and faculty on Wednesday (April 23) to make his decision to cancel Kehlani’s performance official. Explore Explore […]
Macklemore is once again criticizing the United States government, this time taking President Donald Trump and Elon Musk to task in a scorching new protest song titled “F–ked Up.”
In the track posted to his YouTube channel Wednesday (Feb. 12), the rapper weaves his way through verses connecting racial injustice in America to the twice-impeached POTUS’ administration, which now includes the Tesla billionaire. Macklemore also calls out the United States’ financial support of Israel throughout the country’s ongoing war against Hamas, a conflict that has killed at least 45,000 Palestinians between the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks — which left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and about 240 people taken hostage — and the temporary ceasefire the two sides reached in January.
“New era ushered, but white supremacy is still in charge/ Talking colonizing Gaza from the White House lawn/ But the people mobbing, and we ain’t backing off/ Finally see the oligarchy and the men that control us all,” the Washington native spits over a dark, intense beat. “Tax breaks for the elite and then they taxing y’all/ Killing Palestinian kids and we getting hit with the cost.”
Macklemore paired the song with a video compiling footage of American and Palestinian protestors, including a clip of the rogue dancer who waved a combination Palestine-Sudan flag during Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show Sunday (Feb. 9). It also shows numerous clips of Trump, Musk and fellow billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos corresponding with lyrics about rich men in power suppressing the American people.
One clip the music video repeatedly comes back to is of the X CEO doing a Nazi-like salute at one of Trump’s inauguration events in January. “They got us f–ked up,” Macklemore rages in the song’s chorus. “And Elon, we know exactly what that was, bruh.”
Billboard has reached out to reps for the White House, Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos for comment.
“F–ked Up” is just the latest protest song the hip-hop star — who has been vocal in both his support of Palestine and his disappointment in the U.S. government — has released in the past year. In May 2024, he ripped into then-president Joe Biden while advocating for Gaza on a track titled “Hind’s Hall,” the proceeds of which went to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s assistance and protection programs for Palestinian refugees. The following September, he dropped a sequel to the song with assists from Gazan rapper MC Abdul and Palestinian-American singer Anees, featuring the chant, “From the river to the sea/ Palestine will be free.” (The American Jewish Committee has deemed the phrase antisemitic.)
When Macklemore performed “Hind’s Hall 2” that month at Seattle’s Palestine Will Live Forever Festival, he also led the crowd in a “F–k America” chant, after which Las Vegas’ 2024 Neon City Festival dropped him from its lineup. Later, the “Thrift Shop” hitmaker said in a statement, “My thoughts and feelings are not always expressed perfectly or politely. Sometimes I slip up and get caught in the moment.”
“I’ve slipped in front of the world before,” he continued at the time. “I’m sure I’ll do it again. But they will not silence my voice, and they will not close my heart. I’ve lost endorsements, I’ve lost shows, I’ve lost business ties. I am still here, unwavering in my support for a Free Palestine.”
Radiohead‘s Jonny Greenwood posted a lengthy note on Tuesday (June 4) in response to renewed criticism for his long-running collaboration with Israeli musician Dudu Tassa after the pair played a show in Israel on May 26 in the midst of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Greenwood wrote that he’s playing festivals across Europe this summer with the band Dudu Tassa and the Kuwaitis, noting that people are asking him why.
The guitarist has been collaborating with Tassa and releasing music with him since 2008, saying that he thinks an artistic collaboration that combines Arab and Jewish musicians is “worthwhile… And one that reminds everyone that the Jewish cultural roots in countries like Iraq and Yemen go back for thousands of years.”
The letter posted on X came after the pair played a show at the Barby Club in Tel Aviv last week, where they performed songs from their 2023 album Jarak Qaribak (Your Neighbor Is Your Friend), which features collaborations with artists from Beirut, Cairo and Ramallah. After the gig, the Jewish Chronicle reported that the BDS movement threatened to boycott Radiohead.
The movement, whose initial stand for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, is a Palestinian-led effort to pressure Israel to withdraw from occupied territories and offer full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens while applying pressure to end investments in Israeli businesses and encourage sanctions against the Jewish state.
The BDS movement posted a message on Twitter after the show that read: “We call for peaceful, creative pressure on @radiohead to convincingly distance itself from this blatant complicity in the crime of crimes, or face grassroots measures.”
Greenwood reacted in his letter by noting that Tassa’s grandfather was one of the most famous Iraqi composers as part of the Al Kuwaity brothers, whose songs he said are still staples on Arab radio stations. “Others choose to believe this kind of project is unjustifiable, and are urging the silencing of this — or any — artistic effort made by Israeli Jews,” Greenwood wrote.
“But I can’t join that call: the silencing of Israeli filmmakers/musicians/dancers when their work tour abroad — especially when it’s at the urging of their fellow Western film makers/musicians/artists — feels unprogressive to me. Not least because it’s these people that are invariably the most progressive members of any society,” he continued.
The Tel Aviv show came after Greenwood was spotted at a protest in Israel calling for the release of the remaining 120 hostages being held by Hamas after the militant group’s murderous surprise Oct. 7 assault on Israel in which more than 1,200 Israeli men, women and children were murdered, sexually assaulted and attacked and more than 250 hostages were taken according to Israeli authorities. Israel launched a counter-attack aimed at eradicating Hamas that has now lasted eight months and resulted in the deaths of more than 36,000 Palestinians and injuries to more than 86,000 according to Palestinian authorities, as well as the destruction of much of the infrastructure in Gaza.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Greenwood is married to Israeli artist Sharona Katan, whose family lost a nephew who was called up to military service after the war began. Three days after Hamas’ attack, Greenwood tweeted, “Condolences to the families of the innocent concert goers, children and civilians of all ages murdered, raped or abducted in these massacres. It’s impossible not to despair.”
The Post reported that during the gig Tassa said, “there are musicians here, not politicians… music has always worked wonders, may we know better days and may everyone return safely.”
Greenwood wrote that he was grateful to be working with the many musicians he’s met while working on the collaborative project, “all of whom strike me as much braver — and taking far more of a principled risk — than those who are trying to shut us down, or who are now attempting to ascribe a sinister ulterior motivation to the band’s existence. There isn’t one: we are musicians honouring a shared culture, and I’ve been involved in this for nearly 20 years now.”
President Biden has been pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire proposal to end the war that has displaced more than a million Palestinians, with the U.S. commander in chief telling Time magazine this week that there is “every reason” for people to draw the conclusion that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political self-preservation as he faces calls for new elections. A number of artists have also urgently called for an immediate ceasefire, including Paramore, Dua Lipa and Renée Rapp.
Greenwood ended the note by stressing that no art is as “‘important’ as stopping all the death and suffering around us. How can it be? But doing nothing seems a worse option. And silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel doesn’t seem like any way to reach an understanding between the two sides of this apparently endless conflict.”
He said that the latter is why he’s making music with this band, welcoming listeners to disagree with or ignore what they’re doing. “But I hope you now understand what the true motivation is, and can react to the music without suspicion or hate,” he said.
See Greenwood’s full letter below.
