Anti-ICE Benefit Album Taps Star Power for Immigrant Rights

A sprawling new benefit compilation album, built around the image of an abandoned ice-cream cart in Los Angeles, is marshaling more than 30 musicians, comedians and spoken-word artists to raise money for immigrant rights organizations — the latest and perhaps most ambitious entry in a growing wave of protest music aimed at U.S. immigration enforcement.

Contra-ICE Vol. 1: ICE OUT, curated by Los Angeles DJ and activist Dali Colorado, will be released Oct. 2 through SoundsGood Records, a project of the nonprofit Build Art Make Change. The project was announced on Aug. 12 with the release of its first single, drawing early coverage from outlets including Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and Spin. Proceeds from the 47-track album, as well as an Oct. 3 benefit concert in Los Angeles, will go to the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and Unión del Barrio, according to NPR.

From a Viral Photo to a Movement

The album traces its origins to a single, widely shared photograph. In mid-2025, federal agents detained Ambrocio “Enrique” Lozano, a beloved Culver City street vendor who had sold ice cream in the neighborhood for two decades. Images of his abandoned paletero cart became a striking emblem of the communities caught up in heightened immigration raids.

Colorado, who grew up in Los Angeles, saw the photo as a call to action. Rather than allow the cart to fade from memory, she imagined rebuilding it — retrofitted with speakers — as the physical and symbolic centerpiece of a new project.

“Let’s not let the paletero cart just sit in the street and be forgotten about,” Colorado recalled thinking, in comments to NPR. “Let’s build on it. Let’s build speakers, let’s build a voice and let’s push it to create the Contra-ICE sound system.”

Lozano was released after roughly 114 days in detention and granted a green card, but by then Colorado’s project had taken on a life of its own. The cart, now bearing a sound system, adorns the album’s cover art. “It’s become this iconic symbol of the resistance,” Colorado said. “We are anti-ICE. We don’t want to beat around the bush here.”

A Roster Spanning Genres and Generations

The album’s lineup is deliberately broad, spanning punk, hip-hop, Latin alternative, comedy and spoken word. Among the contributors are Kathleen Hanna, Ad-Rock, Tom Morello, Fred Armisen, Fishbone, Ozomatli, Money Mark, David J, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, Ceci Bastida, Adrian Quesada and cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz.

The first single is an unexpected one: a cover of DJ Snake and Justin Bieber’s “Let Me Love You,” performed by Hanna with Ad-Rock, Money Mark, Fredo Ortiz and Frank Figueroa, and produced by longtime Beastie Boys collaborator Mario Caldato Jr. A second single, “Cosplay Cowboys” by Revival Season, arrived with remixes by HopesAndDrums and filer coleman.

According to the album’s official site, nearly every track engages with the political moment. Colorado described the sequencing as intentional, moving listeners through a range of emotions.

“There’s been hours and hours and hours of me listening to what each artist was saying and then spending time with it, resonating with it, going through those stages: anger, fear, sadness,” she told NPR. “I really want people to listen to it from beginning to end because it really does carry a beautiful narrative of all of these emotions.”

Artists on the Stakes

For Hanna, the reinterpretation of a pop love song was the point. “I always liked how the lyrics could lend themselves to being about political burnout,” she told NPR. “I like it when you can re-imagine a love song to be about community instead of about like two heterosexual lovers, which is the way it’s usually put across in a lot of pop music.”

Hanna framed anger not as a destructive force but as fuel. “Anger is a really positive force that leads us to action,” she said. “It’s not something to be stuffed down and denied, but from expressing that anger can also come great joy, and the joy of community.”

Quesada, whose instrumental track “33 Degrees” takes its title from the melting point of ice, told NPR he hopes listeners will sit with the discomfort the album channels. “When we look back at the art that’s made around this time, ideally it’s telling some of these stories that are not always comfortable stories,” he said. “We’re reflecting the times around us and expressing it through art and music.”

Bastida, a Tijuana-born singer who has volunteered since 2019 with the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, contributed a song inspired by children she has worked with. “Going through Mexico is one of the scariest things you can do,” she said. “The fact that these kids are sometimes 14, 13 years old — some of them come by themselves or some of them are separated at the border. It’s really hard for me to understand how you can do that, and so I see it as sort of an homage to them and their courage.”

In a statement to Rolling Stone, Colorado described the effort in sweeping terms: “Contra-ICE is not only an album. It is not only a collective. It is a cultural infrastructure built to support frontline organizations, amplify immigrant voices, and mobilize creatives who believe that love is not passive; it’s organized.”

Part of a Broader Musical Wave

The compilation lands amid a widening body of protest music responding to federal immigration enforcement. The album’s release follows Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Minneapolis,” U2’s “American Obituary,” and Carlos Santana and Becky G’s “Mi Gran Amor,” which earned a Latin Grammy nomination for song of the year.

It also follows more directly in the footsteps of acts such as Los Jornaleros del Norte, an LA day-laborer band that has performed at raid sites and staged a mobile-stage serenade outside the Adelanto detention center. As NPR reported in April, the band’s members — most of them current or former day laborers — work closely with NDLON, one of the album’s beneficiaries.

Contra-ICE is not only releasing music. Earlier this year, the collective organized “Flags in the Stands,” distributing more than 15,000 rally towels reading “ICE OUT” at Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium, timed to Bad Bunny’s halftime performance. According to an analysis by the Museum of Protest, the towels were designed by Alcaraz and included QR codes linking to mutual-aid and organizing resources. The action drew national coverage, and no arrests were reported for the towel distribution, which organizers framed as peaceful free expression.

Analysis: Culture as Infrastructure

What distinguishes the Contra-ICE project is less its star power than its organizational ambition. Rather than treat the album as a one-off fundraiser, Colorado and her collaborators present it as the groundwork for an ongoing movement — one that pairs cultural production with direct support for frontline groups.

That framing reflects a broader shift in how activism around immigration operates. As enforcement has expanded — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act allocated roughly $75 billion for immigration enforcement over four years — organizers have increasingly turned to cultural and consumer-facing tactics that can reach audiences beyond traditional protest. Music, merchandise and viral imagery can travel where rallies cannot.

The approach is not without open questions. The album’s total fundraising and eventual distributions to NDLON and Unión del Barrio have not yet been reported, and it remains unclear how much cultural visibility translates into sustained political engagement. NPR noted that ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

Colorado, for her part, is already looking ahead. She described the project not as a standalone effort but as “the beginning of a musical social justice movement,” and said she hopes to produce a second volume featuring artists from Minneapolis, following heightened raids and deadly confrontations there earlier this year.

Whether that second volume materializes — and whether the first can convert its moment in the spotlight into lasting infrastructure — may determine whether Contra-ICE Vol. 1 is remembered as a notable benefit record or as the opening track of something larger.

What to Watch

• Oct. 2: Release of Contra-ICE Vol. 1: ICE OUT on digital, CD and vinyl.
• Oct. 3: Album release and benefit concert at La Cita in Los Angeles, with proceeds going to NDLON and Unión del Barrio.
• Fundraising totals: No figures for proceeds or distributions have been released.
• Volume 2: Colorado has signaled a possible Minneapolis-focused follow-up.