Macklemore swoops into the rap beef with a song to remind people what’s really going on

The war between Drake and Kendrick Lamar has been hit with an unexpected—and we really mean unexpected—third player: Macklemore. Yes, you read that right. The “Thrift Shop” rapper dropped a track called “Hind’s Hall” last night that yes, mentions Drake, but also covers some far more urgent territory; namely, the war in Palestine and attacks on student protestors at Columbia and other American universities. It’s the second of these topics that gives the song its title, taken from Columbia students’ occupation and renaming of a building on campus last week. Hind Rajab, whose name was used, was a six-year-old girl killed in Palestine in January.

“The people won’t leave/what is threatening about divesting and wanting peace?” the song opens over footage of students rushing onto the quad to form their encampment. He goes on to call out cops, politicians, Meta, and organizations like AIPAC and CUFI, before taking on Israel itself, which he characterizes as “a state that’s gotta rely on an apartheid system to uphold an occupying violent history.”

He also throws some pretty definitive shots at President Biden, while referencing the “Uncommitted” movement which encouraged voters to submit undecided ballots in the primary earlier this spring to put pressure on the White House over their ties to Israel. (“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.”)

The music industry, which he accuses of being “complicit in their platform of silence,” was also on Macklemore’s list. “What happened to the artist? What you got to say? If I was on a label, you could drop me today,” he sings. “I’d be fine with it ‘cause the heart fed my page. I want a ceasefire, fuck a response from Drake.”

Once the song is available on streaming, all proceeds will be donated to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This might seem like a pretty wild heel turn from the guy who got famous for singing “walk into the club like, ‘what up? I got a big cock,’” but the rapper has actually been writing protest songs for over a decade now. 2012 marked the release of “Same Love,” his pro-LGBTQ+ song that, sure, was a little corny, but still got the message onto a major platform. “Wing$,” from the same album, took on capitalism and consumerism.

Before that, he released a song called “White Privilege” in 2015 and a later follow-up after the 2016 Black Lives Matter protests called “White Privilege II.” The same year, he also released a song called “Wednesday Morning” in response to Trump’s election. “Humanity is a privilege, we can’t give in/When they build walls, we’ll build bridges,” he sang then. The rapper clearly wasn’t messing around when he said he would fight ‘til it’s over on “Can’t Hold Us.”