{"id":157032,"date":"2026-01-30T21:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/157032\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T21:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T21:20:13","slug":"as-ice-raids-american-cities-artists-fight-back-before-the-grammys-with-more-teeth-more-rage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/157032\/","title":{"rendered":"As ICE raids American cities, artists fight back before the Grammys with ‘More teeth … more rage’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last week, Matthew Allen, a Minneapolis rapper and activist who performs as Nur-D<\/a>, put his body on the line to fight ICE.<\/p>\n

Just an hour after ICE agents killed Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, and days after Renee Good\u2019s similar slaying nearby, Allen joined a protest on Nicollet Avenue. As Allen retreated from a line of ICE agents, he said they shot him in the back with a projectile. A widely circulated video shows the agents tackling and pinning him to ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is Matthew James Obadiah Allen, I am a United States citizen,\u201d he screams in the video. \u201cThey\u2019re restraining me, spraying me and beating me. I have done nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you kill me in this street,\u201d he shouts, before an agent blasts him in the face with a chemical agent.<\/p>\n

Allen said he was later released without charges. But his words in the video felt akin to what he does in his music.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope was to have a record of what was happening,\u201d Allen said in an interview, days after the incident. \u201cIf I was gonna die, I just wanted to make it incredibly clear who I was, what the reality of the situation was, so it\u2019s as hard as possible for them to spin it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beating was horrible, the spray burned like acid. It was a frozen hell,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut the important thing was getting the last word out.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the United States convulses with violent raids from emboldened ICE agents, citizens across the country have fought back with block-by-block mutual aid. Artist and music communities, long a source of activism and encouragement for street protests, have responded in kind.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Grammys and next weekend\u2019s Super Bowl \u2014 with a halftime performance from Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny \u2014 arrive at a crucible moment. Artists with public platforms are figuring out how to use it as friends and neighbors are being taken, beaten or killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, I didn\u2019t now about what was happening in Compton, but I heard it in the music I listened to,\u201d Allen said. \u201cSo many people I\u2019ve shared stages with are out there on the streets right now. I can tell you that the fact I\u2019m still alive to write more music means I\u2019m going to let them know how it really was.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Donald Trump returned to the presidency last year, many artists who were devastated by Kamala Harris\u2019 defeat anticipated a dangerous term to come, but were also exhausted and bewildered by the election.<\/p>\n

The months of brutal ICE raids and detentions that followed \u2014 which have already claimed nine lives in 2026 alone \u2014 have galvanized them again. <\/p>\n

A huge swath of acts from Lady Gaga, Tyler, the Creator, Neil Young<\/a>, Dave Grohl and Lamb of God\u2019s singer Randy Blythe<\/a> have lambasted the violence of the raids on stages and social media. Bruce Springsteen released a single, \u201cStreets of Minneapolis,\u201d that called back to the rapid-response social songwriting tradition of his beloved Pete Seeger \u2014 \u201cThrough the winter\u2019s ice and cold \/ Down Nicollet Avenue \/ A city aflame fought fire and ice \/ \u2018Neath an occupier\u2019s boots.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"People <\/p>\n

People take part in a vigil at a memorial for Alex Pretti on Wednesday in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

(Eric Thayer\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Mar\u00eda Zardoya, of the new artist-nominated group the Mar\u00edas, donated all proceeds from a recent solo show to the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Rapper Ice-T reworked his band Body Count\u2019s classic \u201cCop Killer\u201d to lash back at ICE. Ariana Grande was unambiguous in a recent post quoting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani \u2014 \u201cICE terrorizes our cities. ICE puts us all in danger. Abolish ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Grammys on Sunday, the activist campaign ICE Out will continue amid a wave of national strikes and protests<\/a> this weekend. Organizers will give anti-ICE pins to artists taking the Grammy red carpet, with A-list acts like Olivia Rodrigo ready to talk about ending the brutality.<\/p>\n

\u201cICE\u2019s cruelty in terrorizing our communities has gone too far,\u201d said Nelini Stamp, the director of strategy for Working Families Power , which is helping coordinate this \u201cICE Out\u201d Grammys campaign. \u201cIt is sad that it has taken public deaths to get to this point, but I think that we are seeing a huge movement here. They have been attacking immigrants since Trump ran the first time in 2016, but they\u2019re realizing that they have gone overboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rhiannon Giddens, the Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning artist up for folk album this year, will participate in the campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince at least the 1800s, people have seen these things happening and have used music to protest against them. It\u2019s as American as anything,\u201d Giddens said, citing the popular abolitionist Hutchinson Family Singers group in the 1840s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen [Native] kids were put into residential homes, when there were slave patrols and all of these violent state-sanctioned actions, people were using their voices and protesting,\u201d Giddens continued. \u201cPeople who have platforms can use them to build up and inform, if they let go of some of the music industry\u2019s trappings of capitalism and celebrity and really start focusing on communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rhiannon <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen [Native] kids were put into residential homes, when there were slave patrols and all of these violent state-sanctioned actions, people were using their voices and protesting,\u201d said Rhiannon Giddens, who will participate in an \u201cICE Out\u201d campaign at the Grammys. <\/p>\n

(Gustavo Caballero\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Bad Bunny, who is nominated for six Grammy awards including album, song and record, will also perform at the Super Bowl halftime show Feb. 8. The Puerto Rican superstar has used his status to advocate for his island after Trump\u2019s meager response following Hurricane Maria. Bad Bunny demurred on touring the mainland U.S. to support his smash 2025 LP \u201cDebi Tirar Mas Fotos,\u201d citing the threat his large Latino fan base would face from ICE raids at concerts. Instead, he played a 31-show residency in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly significant for him to perform at the Super Bowl now, at a time when Latinos, Spanish speakers, migrants or people who appear to be these things are being terrorized and murdered in front of our faces,\u201d said Vanessa D\u00edaz, a professor at Loyola Marymount University and co-author of a new book \u201cP FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance.\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been active in protest and critiquing Trump since his first TV appearance on Fallon in 2018,\u201d D\u00edaz said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not just that he\u2019s against Trump, he\u2019s against the whole project of getting Trump into that place of power.\u201d<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz doesn\u2019t expect openly antagonistic messaging at the halftime show \u2014 perhaps the lighter-blue Puerto Rican independence flag as a covert anti-occupation gesture. \u201cIt\u2019s fascinating because the NFL is conservative,\u201d D\u00edaz said. \u201cBut there is a power tug of war happening. Cultural power now happens to go against conservative politics. The NFL just knows he\u2019s one of the biggest artists in world.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Super Bowl-opening set from Green Day, who last year posted video from anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles synced to their single \u201cF– Off,\u201d will just be \u201csalt in the wound,\u201d D\u00edaz said.<\/p>\n

Music clearly matters to the Trump administration\u2019s messaging. Trump has recently appeared onstage with MAGA convert Nicki Minaj, and remade the Kennedy Center in his own name, atypically hosting its annual gala feting Kiss, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor and Michael Crawford. ICE\u2019s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, has used popular songs from acts like Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter in clips posted to social media, which the artists promptly lambasted. (\u201cDon\u2019t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda,\u201d Rodrigo said, after the agency used her single \u201cAll-American Bitch\u201d in a video).<\/p>\n

\"Olivia <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda,\u201d Rodrigo said, after DHS used her single \u201cAll-American Bitch\u201d in a trollish video.<\/p>\n

(Neilson Barnard\/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)<\/p>\n

The Southern Poverty Law Center cited a post<\/a> from DHS that used a song \u201cWe\u2019ll Have Our Home Again,\u201d attributed to an obscure folk group called the Pine Tree Riots, which the SPLC called \u201ca secretive white nationalist group.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Springsteen released \u201cStreets of Minneapolis,\u201d White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Variety that \u201cThe Trump Administration is focused on encouraging state and local Democrats to work with federal law enforcement officers on removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from their communities \u2014 not random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information.\u201d <\/p>\n

Yet President Trump declined to attend the Super Bowl this year, in part, due to Bad Bunny and Green Day\u2019s performances \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m anti-them,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.\u201d <\/p>\n

Stamp believes that the anti-ICE activism from musicians gets under Trump\u2019s skin. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt matters to him because Trump is a product of popular culture,\u201d Stamp said. \u201cHe hosted the Kennedy Center Honors. He wanted the fake FIFA peace prize because he didn\u2019t get the Nobel peace prize. This administration is about spectacle, and his supporters like [Larry Ellison and Jeff Bezos] are buying pop cultural spaces because they want [Trump] to be popular. The performance art and political propaganda that they put on is all inspired by pop culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

As L.A. prepares to host massive events like the Grammys, Oscars, the World Cup and the Olympics, it looks likely to face continued waves of raids. On New Year\u2019s Eve, ICE officer Brian Palacios shot and killed Keith Porter Jr. in a Northridge apartment complex. <\/p>\n

\"Hundreds <\/p>\n

Hundreds march against the Trump administration\u2019s incursion into Venezuela and recent ICE shootings in Minneapolis and Portland in downtown Los Angeles on January 10, 2026. <\/p>\n

(Genaro Molina\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

For Dayna Frank, chief executive of the Minneapolis venue First Avenue and an activist with ICE Out, local music communities should be on the front lines for organizing and offering relief. Frank cited local groups like the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee<\/a> and Monarca<\/a> doing crucial work, who could benefit from music industry action. Groups like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles<\/a> do similar advocacy here. <\/p>\n

The scene on the ground in Minneapolis is \u201ccompletely catastrophic,\u201d Frank said. \u201cThere\u2019s such a level of fear for what you\u2019re going to see walking around the block, hearing all the whistles. But seeing musicians in solidarity can be incredibly important for the everyday residents doing everything they can to donate goods, drive people to work, patrol school zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going out in Minneapolis is tense, but \u201cthe feeling at shows has still been incredibly special,\u201d Frank said. \u201cIt\u2019s a moment where you don\u2019t take things for granted, that we\u2019re lucky to be in a space where people feel what we\u2019re feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Allen, after years of street protests decrying the killings of Philando Castile and George Floyd, he\u2019s already writing for his Nur-D project, documenting this perilous, invigorating moment of resisting ICE in his city.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2020, I remember I spent all day doing mutual aid, then coming into the booth to write with the chemical gas smell still coming off my clothes while I recorded,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very similar now. You can turn the other cheek once. But Minnesota has gone through state-sanctioned violence and the quelling of speech before. The music coming out of here the second time, it might have more teeth. It might have more rage.\u201d<\/p>\n