Appreciation for Latin American music and anger against ICE dominate this year’s Grammy awards
Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny became the first artist to win Album of the Year with a Spanish-language album.
English rock band Radiohead is not a supporter of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. The band told the department to “Go f*** yourselves” after it used their song ‘Let Down’ for a pro-ICE video.
In a joint statement, the band said that the song means a lot to them, while a Radiohead spokesperson clarified that it “goes without saying it was without the band’s permission,” Variety reported.
“We demand that the amateurs in control of the ICE social media account take it down. It ain’t funny, this song means a lot to us and other people, and you don’t get to appropriate it without a fight. Also, go f*** yourselves… Radiohead,” the statement read.
The statement comes after ICE shared a video on X with the choral version of the band’s song in the background. The video showed a montage of victims of violence with the caption, “Thousands of American families have been torn apart because of criminal illegal alien violence. American citizens raped and murdered by those who have no right to be in our country. This is who we fight for. This is our why.”
This is not the first time Radiohead has had an issue like this with US President Donalf Trump’s administration, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Johnny Greenwood, the band’s lead guitarist who has also composed music for films, and Paul Thomas Anderson, director of Phantom Thread, demanded the film’s music be pulled from the Melania documentary, a movie aimed to document the 20 days leading up to Trump’s second inauguration through the eyes of the Slovenian-born first lady.
The duo said in a joint statement that Universal Pictures licensed the music without their permission.
Radiohead’s objection to ICE misappropriating their song is also not an isolated event. Pop stars such as Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter experienced the same situation with ICE and responded in a similar manner.
Rodrigo commented on an ICE Instagram post in November, “Don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda,” after the Department of Homeland Security used her song in a collaborative video with White House Instagram account showing images of ICE detaining people of colour, Deadline reported.
When the agency used Carpenter’s ‘Juno’ to accompany footage showing federal immigration enforcement officers chasing people and detaining them while bystanders recorded the activity on their cell phones. The singer responded by labelling the video as “evil and disgusting.”
Musicians such as Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish, and Olivia Dean also denounced ICE and expressed their support for immigrants during their recent Grammy Awards speeches.