The best music, by its nature, is always anti-fascist.
From Woody Guthrie's "All You Fascists Bound To Lose" to Dylan's "Masters of War" to Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" to Mutabaruka's "White Man Country" to Bikini Kill's "George Bush is a Pig" to Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" to "Walking in the Snow" by Run The Jewelz, and 10,000 tracks in between.
As fascists are ratcheting up their tyranny and terror tactics around the country, today's artists of integrity are aiming at ICE and U.S. despots with their primary weapons: guitars, pens, and DAWs.
While we expect to hear many more ditties against dictatorship over the next year(s), we wanted to pay tribute today to the songs that have already reached us. The ones that embolden us to stand up against authoritarianism and to open our ears—no matter how badly we want to shut our eyes.
5) "Bad News"
The Artist: Zach Bryan, the Grammy-winning, best-selling, Japan-and-Oklahoma-raised country singer and U.S. Navy veteran behind hits like "Something In The Orange," "Burn, Burn, Burn," and "I Remember Everything."
The Stinging Line: "I heard the cops came, cocky motherfuckers, ain't they?, And ICE is gonna come bust down your door, try to build a house no one builds no more," is the one lyric that addresses what many are calling Bryan's "anti-ICE" song.
The Sound: A brooding, building song that sees Zach plaintively describing the ruin of his United States in a gritty, Springsteen-with-a-twang baritone, backed by a pounding kick-drum and trumpet blasts, with some sporadic guitars sliding, plucking, surging, and cresting among the spacious ether.
The Impact: The song has a few million streams and we're happy anytime an artist can infiltrate country music-loving middle and red America with this kind of message. And you better believe we love hearing MAGA get butt-hurt in the face of free and truthful speech.
Still, Bryan insists he's more of a centrist than a revolutionary, and has expressed regret and embarrassment over interpretations of the song. He called himself a "libertarian" on Joe Rogan's podcast and wrote of "Bad News" on Instagram Stories, "When you hear the rest of the song, you will understand the full context that hits on both sides of the aisle.” So maybe not the soundtrack to a revolution so much as a eulogy for one man's true-blue nostalgia.
4) "Pretend You Remember Me"
The Artist: Tom Morello, the politically outspoken guitar whiz and Harvard political science honors grad behind Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. He penned this anti-ICE anthem shortly after the government staged its attacks on L.A. in Summer 2025. He also created a "Fuck ICE" playlist, which you can find on Spotify, which was recently running ICE recruitment ads. Because even an artist who sells "Destroy American Fascism" shirts finds it impossible to steer completely clear of the Babylon shitstem.
The Stinging Line: "A ransom note found in the shelter, She slips her bonds in the favela, Headed north, no one could tell her, Her life meant nothin' at all."
The Sound: Cheese-metal guitar and drums kick off this plaintive track, before Tom's smoky voice intones the tale of a young woman fleeing poverty in the South to make her way north, unaware how despised she'll be, over a fairly generic 4/4 drum beat. A little after the song's midpoint, Morello goes into a solo, sliding-on-the-strings in the way you've come to expect. It's more of a power ballad than "Sleep Now in the Fire," but a good opening salvo in modern music's defense of human decency in the new era of ICE aggression. It's more than Benson Boone is doing.
The Impact: Morello's video for the tune kicks off with a message from formerly incarcerated Native American activist Leonard Peltier, and the song was released in partnership with CHIRLA (the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles), which Morello held a fundraiser for in L.A. in June with B-Real, Pussy Riot, K.Flay, and San Diego's Neighborhood Kids. Rage's Zach De La Rocha was meanwhile helping raise funds for CHIRLA with Born x Raised.
3) "Chinga La Migra"
The Artist: Zada Mendoza, a singer and violinist from East L.A. who's mission is to "make music [that] reflects the experience of the Mexican American Chicana in current times," according to a Facebook page. She is also a music teacher with LAUSD.
The Stinging Line: A very catchy, harmonious repetition of "Chinga La Migra," a phrase as classic as a sticker of Calvin peeing on a hatchback. "Pinche migra . . . violan derechos y dignidad, secuestran nuestros familias, ya basta la raza luchar," she continues (fucking Immigration . . . they violate rights and dignity, they kidnap our families, enough already, the raza fights), plainly laying out L.A.'s stance towards the invasion of masked government thugs.
The Sound: Zada kicks off the track, which was released last August, with hearty calls of "Chales con la migra, la Raza no se va a quedar callada" ("hell no with la migra, the raza won't stay quiet") and "Fuck ICE," which bleeds into a slinky cumbia jam with dope-ass slide guitar, weaving violin, and a steady beat one could set a march to.
The Impact: Zada's "Chinga La Migra" doesn't appear to have a ton of views on YouTube and the artist has just a small following on social media, but paired with a strong music video that shows L.A. Latinos in resistance, it may be the very singable, still defiant chorus a nation could rally behind.
2) "Join ICE"
The Artist: Jesse Welles, an Arkansas-raised singer-songwriter and former Dead Indian and Cosmic-American singer, who one day just appeared on our social medias feeds like the second coming of Woody Guthire.
The Stinging Line: "If you're lackin' control and authority, come with me and hunt down minorities, Join ICE." Or maybe, "I got picked on at school, I never felt that cool, there's a hole in my soul that just a-rages. All the ladies turned me down, and I felt like a clown, but will you look at me now, I'm puttin' folks in cages." To be real, they're all damn good.
The Sound: Welles may as well have "This Machine Kills Fascists" on his guitar for his fiery, folksy way with words that skewers the evil forces in this country using the direct and poetic clarity of Guthrie or Pete Seeger, with Dylan-ish vocals and satire over the simple strumming of an acoustic guitar and a wailing harmonica.
The Impact: Welles is nominated for four Grammy Awards this year and recently played "Join Ice" on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," as well as being honored with the Spirit of Americana/Free Speech Award at the 2025 Americana Music Honors & Awards, where he played his song "War Isn't Murder," which calls out Netanyahu and Jared Kushner by name. With lyrics like "War isn't murder, it's an old desert faith, it's a nation-state sanctioned, righteous hate," we're all ears for anything this dude puts out in defiance of fascism.
1) "La Cumbia De La Migra"
The Artist: Los Jornaleros Del Norte, a veteran band that is not only named for day laborers, but is part of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and was founded as a the result of a immigration raid on a mobile health clinic in the City of Industry. The Southern Californian group speaks for day laborers and immigrants alike through corridos like "Que No Pare La Lucha," Serenata a un Indocumentado," "Donald Trump," and "Deportacion Express."
The Stinging Line: "Que le digo a la migra cuando la mirar pasa? Le digo, 'chinga tu madre y dejame trabajar," (what do you say to la migra when you see it pass? Say 'fuck your mother and let me work), in a hooky, nearly sunny tone that will leave in your head.
The Sound: A bouncing, upbeat cumbia with popping horns, its joyous sound paired to a video with scenes of fierce dancing in public, abductees screaming in terror, and the hard work done by immigrants and Latinos that upholds our entire society and came to the rescue of L.A.'s fire victims.
The Impact: The song, which was released on September 15, hasn't been given a spotlight from Colbert or a major music awards show just yet, but with the band's rich history of defiance, activism, and speaking out for besieged immigrants, it's an anthem we feel should be embraced nationally and beyond for its strength in speaking truth to power, a hallmark of Los Jornaleros.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Everybody probably has their favorite anti-ICE songs by now, past and present. We'd love to know your picks in the comments.
And because we know there's a lot of artists putting it on the line to speak out for what's right, we wanted to put you on to some great tunes that may help get your spirit up when you're facing these tough times alone and need hope.
Slick Sickly's "Frostbite:" A hard rock track from a quartet with lyrics like, "Little man behind a mask with tear gas and your crew, but little did he know we all came to fight, we'll melt your fucking fire, and we'll melt your fucking ice."
Fishbone's "Racist Piece of Shit:" Our local ska heroes put together a great video rightly demonizing the Trump administration through newsxpaper clippings, backed with one the outfit's classic frenzied beats full of Angelo Moore on theramin, various horns, and Christopher Dowd's unapologetic barbs like, "You're not a proud boy, you're just a fuck boy, drinking the Kool-Aid of a mad orange king. Another Kid Rock, with all the hate talk, murder, sickness, global crisis, coup d'état, vanilla ISIS."
ICE-T's "ICE Killer:" During a performance following the ICE killing of Renee Good with his metal band Body Count, the L.A. O.G. changed the lyrics to their infamous anthem "Cop Killer" to "ICE Killer," starting things off with a giant "fuck 'you to the 'em all" as he got the crowd to put their middle fingers up in the sky.
Manic Hispanic's "The INS Took My Novia Away:" Now here's an oldie but goodie, riffing on the Ramones' "The KKK Took My Baby Away."
The Briggs' "Control Alt-Right Delete:" "Fuck these Alt-Right pricks! Who the fuck do they think they are? We can't claim this is our land. When we ourselves are immigrants." Everybody now!
Guitar Jack Wango's "We Got Your Back:" "Immigration raids. Hell no, that ain't cool." Tell it like it is, Jack.
The Muslim's "Punch a Nazi:" Or the Muslim's "Fuck These Fucking Fascists." Or the Muslim's "Hands Up Don't Shoot." Or the Muslims' . . .
The Bloody Pickups' "Find the Fascist:" Infiltrate the legislate, fulfill your dream of white ethnostate. You say you hope, for the day of the rope, you nazi fucks, can fucking choke."
Bent's "ICE Killer:" We're pretty sure they're talking about that ICE here.
