Snapshot from the lyric video for ‘Hundred Year Hunger’.
Veteran protest musician, Billy Bragg, wrote on his Instagram page that he wrote ‘Hundred Year Hunger’ in support of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a group of vessels heading for Gaza with aid. The aid project consists of activists, organizers, humanitarians, doctors, artists, clergy, lawyers, and seafarers – everyday people who have one common goal: to deliver aid and a message of unity, peace, and an end to the genocide in Gaza.
Bragg writes that the song views the current famine in Gaza “through the lens of a century of enforced food insecurity and malnutrition imposed on the Palestinian people, firstly by British imperialism, then as a weapon of mass displacement by the state of Israel.”
Watch the lyric video for the song below, or better yet, catch the song live at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London on 20 September 2025. Bragg will be accompanied by many artist friends for a night called Days Like These, a Gaza fundraiser evening for Amos Trust. Get tickets at Bragg’s website.
Fresh off of her debut album, which was one of our favourite albums of 2024, unique, feminist rapper B of Briz is back with a brand-new EP, to be released on 9th of September 2025. B of Briz dropped us a message telling us a bit about the first single off of the new album:
“I’ll be releasing singles this summer from my forthcoming EP, ‘Solace’ coming 9th September 2025. The most imminent of those singles is ‘Profoundly sick society’ – out on 17th July. It’s an alt hip hop contemplation about what happens when stuff’s gone really badly wrong… how do we resist and recover and regroup? It’s got a fire bass line too.”
With a PhD in philosophy and a passion for feminism and social justice, there’s no doubt her music will connect people and offer hope in these times of division.
“It’s a record that offers consolations from Bristol and sanctuary in turbulent times. Sun-soaked, dystopic, full of hope, life-affirming rejection of the death cults of fascism.”
“They say it’s not healthy to adapt to a profoundly sick society, To enforce it’s laws a hall-of-mirrors version of piety, Do some cruel shit, standing on the ceremony of false propriety
So write the revolutionary text, Even though we might be next, Even when the words we write are obscured by the flickering of the gaslight, Even when they come in the night, with hearts full of spite, sure that they’re right”
(If you’re reading this as a newsletter in your email inbox, please visit the full article in your browser to listen to the music)
Today, the fourth of July, Tulsa based singer-songwriter Casii Stephan is releasing her new single “King in America.” With a hard White Stripes-type bassline and a voice reminiscent of Fiona Apple and Lorde, Stephan has created a fiery anthem of resistance and one against the notion of “kings” in the US. The song also features a verse from Damion Shade.
We caught up with Stephan to learn a bit more about the song and the history behind it. Stephan explained how the song was written just before the ‘No Kings’ protests in the US, more specifically around the inauguration of Donald Trump.
“I wrote it because I was in Ireland and the UK around the time of Trump’s inauguration and shortly after it. I was hearing how Americans are loud, bold, and brash. I came home and of course the executive orders were going out left and right, and a songwriter friend was saying they were ready to rise up and they had their pitchfork. Also my trans friends were being threatened and I couldn’t just skate by. I’m a straight white woman. This song is me saying ‘Pick on me. Don’t pick on them. Come after the majority.'”
We asked Stephan how the reception has been so far, of her new song as well as of her protest songs in general, and she mentioned that her most popular song to date is her cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs.’ Unfortunately, such a song is still very relevant today.
“I’ve done the mental work and preparation to know this is what I want to do and if people don’t like it, oh well. We’re at a crucial time. Things are just getting worse. If we don’t push back now, it gets harder as time goes by.“
Meanwhile, the debate continues, about whether art and activism should go hand in hand or somehow be seperated. Stephan adds that it depends on the artist. She doesn’t believe that the two can be separated, especially during times like these, but she acknowledges that some artists need to keep the politics out of their art.
To each their own. We’re all here to do different things. Some of us are healers. Some of us are entertainers. Some of us are here to create an atmosphere. It’s the artist’s job to figure that out.
