Ed, you sold your soul a long time ago. Writing a cheque now isn’t going to buy it back and it isn’t going to fix the damage to your reputation either. What would actually mean something is opening your heart instead of your wallet. Join UNICEF as an Ambassador, go to Gaza and see the suffering of the Palestinian people with your own eyes and not through a press release. Children there are undergoing amputations without anaesthetic because the Israelis block the supply. While you’re there, find the courage to defend the right of artists to speak their minds without being cancelled for it — because right now, the artists who actually do that are the ones paying the price, not the ones staying safely quiet and generous.

Which brings us to Macklemore, who’s been doing exactly that long before it was safe to.

In August 2024, he cancelled his Dubai show over the UAE’s role in arming Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), giving up the concert and the money that came with it because activists and organisers had been telling him about the UAE’s alleged part in a genocide and humanitarian catastrophe most people weren’t even talking about at the time. He didn’t do it quietly or for applause — he said it himself, after “numerous conversations with trusted organisers” and doing his own research, because he refused to be “any different than the politicians I’ve been actively protesting against.” That’s not a PR move. That’s a real cost, taken on when barely anyone was watching.

And that’s the point people forget now that he’s speaking up on Palestine and getting called a moral icon for it. He didn’t just find his voice this year — he’s been consistent since 2024, when standing up meant losing a show, a payday, and future access to one of the biggest markets in the world. Real solidarity was already there. It just wasn’t fashionable yet.

So when people act surprised that Macklemore is speaking out now, the truth is he never stopped. He’s been walking the walk since before it was popular to talk the talk — which is more than can be said for artists who wait until it’s safe or who think a donation is the same as showing up.

Free Palestine.