Musicians Mark 20th Anniversary of the Palestinian Call to Boycott Israel with New Compilation
Contact: media@amplifypalestine.org
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July 9, 2025 – Over twenty musicians committed to Palestinian freedom released a 13-track double album, Unboundable, on July 9, marking the 20th anniversary of Palestinian civil society’s call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to pressure Israel to respect international law. The compilation, the third volume of Amplify Palestine’s BDS Mixtape series, comes as Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza continues and rights experts warn of famine.
The volume’s contributors are part of an outpouring of support for Palestinian rights among artists, in defiance of pervasive attempts in the arts to silence expressions of solidarity, such as the Fuse Factory’s cancelation in 2023 of a performance by Unboundable contributor gabby fluke-mogul and, more recently, Cornell University and NYC SummerStage’s cancelation of Kehlani’s concerts.
In its “BDS at 20” statement the Palestinian BDS National Committee notes the surge of support for the boycott of Israel among artists and cultural workers: “Many tens of thousands of cultural figures including writers, musicians, filmmakers, visual artists, and a rapidly growing number of arts organizations, unions and associations have publicly endorsed the cultural boycott of Israel.”
Amplify Palestine, which established the eponymous label in 2023, is a campaign and production house dedicated to building cultural power for Palestinian liberation. Its BDS Mixtape series takes inspiration from the 1985 Sun City album by artists boycotting apartheid South Africa, with proceeds from album sales and streaming going to support cultural resistance initiatives in Palestine.
BDS MIXTAPE VOL. 3 CONTRIBUTOR QUOTATIONS
SONNY SINGH (trumpet player, singer-songwriter, BDS Mixtape co-curator): “As crackdowns on Palestine solidarity activism and speech rapidly increase , it is our responsibility as musicians to get louder. We refuse to live in fear, we refuse to be silent, we refuse to be complicit in genocide.”
TRINA BASU and ARUN RAMAMURTHY (violinists): “‘Roots in the Sky’ is inspired by ‘The Second Olive Tree,’ a poem by the renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. We dedicate this piece to the Palestinian people whose lives are marked by ongoing devastation, yet whose spirit remains unbroken. We are with you.
In Darwish’s poem, the olive tree is not just a tree. She is a grandmother figure—wise, rooted in tradition, radiating humility, beauty, grace, and resilience. Her roots ascend to the heavens, reaching toward something eternal, while the earth she springs from cradles future generations. It is the same ground where her martyred grandson will be rerooted, continuing the lineage of the land and its people.”
SAMI ABU SHUMAYS (vocalist, violinist, and cofounder and director of the ensemble Zikrayat): “I wrote the poem ‘O Child’ during the Israeli firebombing of the tents of Palestinian refugees in Rafah in spring 2024, when numerous children were burned alive in their tents. The mawwal is a traditional form of Arabic vocal improvisation, using a particular maqam (melodic mode), and this one uses Maqam Hijaz. What is not traditional is the use of English instead of Arabic language poetry; though I am of Palestinian descent I grew up in the US not speaking Arabic as a child, so I express myself more fully in English
ALIA HAJU (vocalist, percussionist) and ZIAD ABDEL-AAL (synthesizer and electronics): “The inspiration for this piece came from those children of Gaza who, even in the face of merciless assault, still fly their kites.”