🎤 Hold My Conscience: Jess Glynne’s Anthem Dragged Into ICE’s Deportation Theater 🎭
Brace yourselves, culture warriors — because Mr. KanHey is here to disrupt the status quo like a wrecking ball in a crystal chapel.
Once upon a time, Jess Glynne’s “Hold My Hand” was the glittery soundtrack to poolside mojitos and last-minute getaways, riding the dorsal fin of the ‘Jet2 Holiday’ TikTok wave — a viral explosion so sunny, it practically oozed SPF 50. 71,000 TikToks deep, this trend was our collective digital passport to escapism in a chaotic world. But now, that euphoric escape anthem has been wrestled off the beach and dragged screaming into a very different arena: America’s immigration conflict.
Yes darling, we just put glitter on a guillotine. Welcome to White House Cinema’s latest horror short, co-starring your favorite budget flight daydream and ICE — the iron-fisted machinery of deportation. Forget “Love Island” vibes, the U.S. government just gave this song a razor-edged remix and projected it against a backdrop of detained immigrants. And Jess Glynne? She’s not having it.
“I’m sick,” Glynne stated, her reaction cutting through the noise like a sour note in a symphony of spin. And who could blame her? Imagine spending a decade of your life penning a feel-good banger that speaks to connection and uplift — only to wake up one day and see it palatably packaged as the audio veneer for forced displacement.
So let’s deconstruct this cultural hijack, shall we?
This ain’t just a case of bad licensing karma. It’s an emotional bait-and-switch of Orwellian proportions. Glynne’s track — bubble-wrapped in joy, soaked in sun — was the sonic equivalent of a high-five with the universe. And now it’s been Frankenstein’d into a promotional tool for ICE operations, deployed in an official U.S. government video on social platforms. The audio, taken from user-generated content that began as pure internet whimsy, now underscores footage showcasing the systematic removal of human beings.
Let that sink in: parties to purges. From sandcastles to shackles. This isn’t marketing — it’s memetic manipulation.
It’s not even clear whether the White House obtained clearance to use the track. But in this new era of recombinant culture and public domain performance, it sometimes doesn’t matter. We’re living in the age of algorithmic appropriation, where vibes are stripped of context and used to sell…well, anything. Including, apparently, state-sanctioned family separation.
Let me say it louder for the people in the back of the data funnel: A “Jet2 Holiday” ad doesn’t belong in a narrative about pain, displacement, and forced removal. That’s emotional waterboarding with a pop beat.
Now before anyone starts waving the flag of national security or policy prerogative — let’s not get it twisted. This isn’t a debate about immigration strategy. This is about cultural sleight-of-hand. The unauthorized weaponization of joy. The coercive co-opting of pop culture’s open spirit in service of the cold, calculating hand of policy.
It’s colonialism in 4/4 time — a musical invasion without consent.
Jess Glynne — an artist who built her identity on human connection and empowerment — is rightly furious to see her art funneled through a bureaucratic meat grinder and repackaged as propaganda. Her revulsion reflects a growing unease within the music industry, where creators are realizing that the same platforms that amplify their art can also distort and monetize it in grotesque ways.
And let’s cut right to the crystal: This incident is a microcosm of a larger cultural war. A war where meaning is hollowed out, and aesthetics are swiped by systems with no interest in the soul behind the sound. Your soundbite can — and will — be used against you.
So, what’s the move?
We demand not just accountability — but artistic sovereignty. No more co-opting culture to cushion coercion. No more re-skinned TikToks turned into Trojan horses for hardened policy.
Pop music was born from rebellion. From soul. From the heart-splitting urgency of self-expression. You don’t get to sanitize that. You don’t get to break into our house party, spray tear gas on the dancefloor, and call it a vibe.
To the White House: Your drip is dry. Your edit is invalid. Stop remixing resistance into propaganda.
To the artists: Stay loud. Guard your frequencies. Because if you don’t own your sound, the system will — and it’ll sell your melody with a surveillance label tied in a red, white, and blue bow.
And to the people: Ask yourself — what are we holding hands for? Solidarity, or spectacle?
Because baby, Mr. KanHey doesn’t play background music for empires. I compose for revolutions.
I’m not here for jet-set deportation fantasies.
I’m here to dance through the fire and drag the truth into the light.
Stay vivid. Stay vigilant.
– Mr. KanHey
