40 is among the handful of music industry professionals to openly voice solidarity with Palestine as the bloodshed in Gaza continues to escalates.
On Wednesday (October 18), the OVO Sound producer (real name Noah Shebib) addressed the rising death toll in the strip after Hamas launched an attack in Israel a little over a week ago that claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians. Since then, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have endlessly unleashed a series of onslaughts on the occupied territory.
AD LOADING...
Amid the violence, Lebanese military group Hezbollah has been destroying Israeli surveillance cameras along their shared border. 40, whose ancestry partially traces back to Lebanon, has taken a firm stance against the conflict that has dominated the global news cycle since early October.
“I live in Canada,” he began. “One of the worlds most brutally violent colonial regimes. Still in active genocides against indigenous peoples. It’s hard to speak as I sit here benefiting from colonial violence to the highest degree.
AD LOADING...
“Believing in both the human rights of Palestinians and the right and need of a Jewish state has meant I have always had friends on both sides. And beyond the physical war, seeing them be pushed into extremism by such acts of violence is distressing.”
He added: “This is what colonialism looks like. It’s what it’s always looked like. When will this stop? When will life win over death? The world did not come and stand with the Jewish people during the holocaust. Now we watch as the world does not come and stand with Palestine. I’m ashamed and devastated by it all.”
In the same post, he shared a photograph of a t-shirt that reads: “WE ALL KNOW TOO WELL THAT OUR FREEDOM IS INCOMPLETE WITHOUT PALESTINES FREEDOM.”
This isn’t the first time the 40-year-old producer has spoken on the Israel–Palestine turmoil. In 2021, he urged his social media followers to watch a documentary about the inception of the Zionist state, which began with a mass exodus that came to be known as “Al-Nakba” (Arabic: The Catastrophe).
“I hate making these posts,” he wrote on Instagram. “It’s like a big deja vu that has been reoccurring my entire life and beyond. So what I’ll say is that “Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe” is an incredible documentary on YouTube that can help everyone understand the Palestinian struggle. I will also say that I recognize I’m making this comment from a country that is a colonial state. This is a world issue.”
A large number of influential public figures have remained silent on the issue, most notably 40’s longtime friend and collaborator Drake and DJ Khaled, who are of Jewish and Palestinian descent, respectively. After the attacks broke out earlier this month, DJ Vlad called out both artists over their failure to comment about the crisis.
The media personality then doubled down on his opinion about their so-called “radio silence” during an interview with The Breakfast Club last week.
“You sort of see what’s been happening, when you look at the Gaza–Israel situation. It’s horrific,” he said. “And I put out a statement about that myself. I said, you know, that I feel sorry for all the citizens from Israel and Palestine that are caught up in what their leaders are choosing to do.”
AD LOADING...
He continued: “It’s a serious topic. And when I sat back and looked at it, I was like, Drake is the most famous Jewish person on Earth … and Khaled is the most famous Palestinian in the world. But neither one of them has said anything about this at all.”
“Drake is doing this whole thing where he’s literally writing paragraphs about Joe Budden because his feelings were hurt about an album review,” he concluded. “So it’s not like they don’t have time. This shit runs deep.”
