Kesha joins a growing chorus of musicians who have slammed the Trump administration’s use of their songs without permission for campaign and promotional purposes. On Monday, she took to social media to call the White House out for using her song “Blow” from her 2010 Cannibal EP.
In what appears to be the offending TikTok, which was posted in February, her track plays as bomber jets are seen soaring around the sky before one targets and drops a bomb on a ship as Kesha’s song reaches the lyric, “This place about to blow.” The White House TikTok account captioned the clip with the word “Lethality” alongside fire and eagle emojis.
“It’s come to my attention that The White House has used one of my songs on TikTok to incite violence and threaten war,” Kesha posted on social media. “Trying to make light of war is disgusting and inhumane. I absolutely do NOT approve of my music being used to promote violence of any kind.”
“Love always trumps hate,” she added, “please love yourself and each other in times like this. This show of blatant disregard for human life and quite frankly this attack on all of our nervous systems is the opposite of what I stand for.”
She concluded by calling out President Donald Trump in relation to the Epstein files. “Also, don’t let this distract us from the fact that criminal predator Donald Trump appears in the Files over a million times.”
Kesha’s condemnation of the government’s use of “Blow” comes after the United States has gone to war with Iran over the weekend, a joint campaign the Trump administration launched with Israel that Trump has described as “massive and ongoing.”
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Kesha joins a long list of musicians who have lambasted the Trump administration for unauthorized use of their music in the administration’s promotional material online. Just last week Radiohead told ICE to “go fuck yourselves” after the organization used a version of the band’s OK Computer song “Let Down” in a social media post, with the band demanding its removal.
The White House appears to specifically pick songs by artists who are likely to dispute the use of their music in the promotion of the administration’s endeavors. Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and SZA are among those who have objected to the use of their music in propaganda videos tied to the government’s brutal immigration crackdown. However, despite protesting the administration’s unauthorized usage on social media, due to the way music licenses are governed on social media, there’s little recourse for artists to get this type of content removed.
