Artists launch boycott pledge against festivals that fuel genocide
In a new pledge now open for sign-ons, artists, record labels, and music industry workers are boycotting major music festivals in protest of their parent company’s investments in genocide and environmental destruction.
The pledge reads in part: “As artists and culture workers, we refuse to let our art and influence be used to legitimize and enrich firms like KKR, which fund the destruction of our climate and the displacement and death of indigenous peoples. We recognize the power we hold within cultural spaces, and refuse to be complicit in the ‘art-washing’ of KKR’s crimes against people and planet in exchange for money or clout.”
View and sign the pledge here: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/actions/artists-reject-genocide-funding-music-festivals/
This summer, hundreds of artists withdrew from music festivals around the world in protest of their new owner — a private equity firm called KKR that funds fossil fuel pipelines and monetarily supports Israel’s genocide and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Through its acquisition of Superstruct Entertainment earlier this year, KKR now owns more than 80 different music festivals and events around the world, including Boiler Room, Sonar Festival, Field Day, Lost Village, and many more.
Today, artist-led nonprofit Fight For The Future is joining the growing grassroots movement against KKR by inviting the music industry to hit them where it hurts: the money, and the social buffer of art-washing their abuses. Over 100 music industry artists and entities have already signed on as bookings are in full swing for the 2026 festival circuit.
“If we let our music and art become defined and controlled by the whims of private equity and corrupt financial institutions, we will lose any semblance of radicalism once inherent to the medium,” said estoc, a producer and DJ based in Philadelphia. “Blood money stains both the hand that pays and the hand that receives.”
KKR is the majority stakeholder in the Coastal GasLink Pipeline, a destructive fossil fuel project opposed by the indigenous Wet’suwet’en First Nations, and has invested in multiple military, surveillance, and real-estate companies that aid the Israeli occupation and operate on occupied Palestinian land. KKR also donates directly to the Israeli military through Friends of the IDF, a charity that provides subsidies for occupation soldiers.
“By refusing to to participate in these events, we as artists are taking back our cultural power and creating the kind of music scene we want, built on principles and compassion instead of money and clout,” said Janus Rose, a Brooklyn-based electronic musician and campaigner with Fight For The Future. “KKR-owned brands like Boiler Room position themselves as indispensable arbiters of culture. But the truth is that culture and creativity dies when they are sponsored by the murderous companies destroying our planet and the people who live on it. We can do better.”