CELEBRITY SKINS
I don’t recall the first time I heard it but I know “Crash Into Me” from Dave Matthews Band’s 1996 album Crash was my introduction to the group in middle school. Maybe it stood out nestled between songs on the alternative rock station, where rotations more often ranged from stylish indie pop to classic new wave. The warbling voice over the acoustic guitar and soft drums seemed more fitting for the adult pop-rock station, accompanying the likes of Michelle Branch and the Counting Crows.
You come crash into me/ And I come into you/ In a boy’s dream, the meaning of the lyrics were just out of my young reach yet I knew that I wanted to be somebody’s dream because this was before I understood the limitations of being cast as a lead in a fantasy. Back then, I thought of DMB as the great uniter, a perspective that would carry me through high school. They were well received by relatives who usually bristled at my music suggestions at family get-togethers. A crush, a coworker at a miserable restaurant and who was ill-fitted for me in every way except for proximity, declared that we would drive out of state together to witness them live. The concert came and went without our promised road trip as did my feelings for him. In Dave Matthews Band I even found camaraderie among the lacrosse and football players who I typically only overlapped with in enjoying Lil Wayne and Jackass.
So you can imagine my surprise when I later came to understand that much of the population is actually united in their disdain for Dave and his crew of merry jammers. Maybe the world can be divided into those who can weather—if not exuberantly enjoy—the performances of a jam band and those who find such groups to be offensive in their existence. What has always struck me most about the denigration of Matthews and DMB particularly is the notion that they exemplify uncool. If not part of the stereotypical DMB fanbase (drunk frat bros who age into drunk financiers and tech bros), the implication is you should enjoy such music privately, sheepishly, or with a knowing laugh because you recognize it’s lame. In short, to like them is embarrassing because they are embarrassing. In sincerely appreciating the uncool, you also risk being passé.
Once this view was illuminated for me I could acknowledge the foundation for the charges of cringe. After defecting from South Africa where he was born, Matthews settled in Charlottesville, Virginia where he picked up performing with local stars along with an indiscernible accent. The not-quite southern twang of Matthews is one of the band’s defining features. He slurs into a high-pitch whine before dipping back into a low-croak in one of his signature yelps or scats (I’d love to see him onstage with Kim Cattrall). Then there is the infamous tour bus incident in which a purported 800 pounds of shit was dumped on unassuming tourists ferrying across the Chicago River. You could say that their music sanitizes the spontaneity of improvisational jazz and depoliticizes the roots of folk, watering them both down into a pop rock infusion. I say if “Crash Into Me” is good enough for Stevie Nicks to cover, then maybe it’s good enough for you as well.
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Last summer a friend shared a post to their Instagram story titled “Dave Matthews apology form” which included a list of possible reasons for recanting an anti-Matthews position. After responding with some variation of “hell yeah,” I soon saw the meme on another story and on Twitter where I discovered the context of the posts. In July 2024, Matthews attended a pro-Palestine protest in Washington D.C., where thousands gathered at the U.S. Capitol to denounce Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit.
Recently, Matthews circulated across my feed again as a picture of him onstage at a concert holding signs that read, “stop killing children,” and “stop the genocide” went viral. This is a distinct contrast against Radiohead who have refused to cancel their concert in Tel Aviv, despite pressure from peers and parallels with the cultural boycott of South Africa and anti-apartheid sanctions. If Dave Matthews Band can represent an epitome of uncool—sanguine and laced with optimism—Radiohead, at one point, were alternative personified within mainstream music, as their sound progressed from straightforward indie rock into electronic experimentation.
It isn’t all that surprising that Radiohead, who have resisted previous calls to cancel shows in Israel, would remain opposed to the Boycott, Divest & Sanction movement. Nor is it shocking that Matthews, a Quaker who lived within apartheid South Africa, would openly criticize the Israeli government. But online, I’ve seen people share variations of the quip: I’d never thought I’d be on the side of Dave Matthews over Radiohead. As innocuous as such jokes are, they illustrate a tendency to tie perceptions of “cool” to assumptions about a person’s ethics despite a long and ever increasing history of established artists and popular celebrities with dubious beliefs. When a work has been crucial in one’s life, the realization that its creator is contemptuous at best, is disappointing and evidence that a beloved favorite may in fact, be “good" is heartening. Many people, public figures or not, have remained silent about Palestine so in the moments when a person with any semblance of power or reach names the horrific reality—which includes Israel’s blocking of food and medical aid and the destruction of hospitals—we rejoice.
I felt vindicated by Matthews’ pro-Palestine support. I was ready to share his image and words in a triumphant posture, demanding my friends repent for their DMB opposition but stopped as I questioned how this lauding reflects our cultural fixation on fame and its possessors. We exhale sighs of relief over celebrities’ stances because we’re affirmed in our brand loyalty, free to continue to engage in our comforts. Though the catharsis remains unearned, as the supplying of money and arms to Israel remains a bipartisan project for American politicians.
“I’m ashamed that my tax dollars are going to the brutalizing of an entire people,” Matthews said at the DC protest last year. He was speaking with Al Jazeera, whose office in Ramallah was raided by Israeli forces in September 2024. As of March 2025, Israeli forces have killed over 200 journalists since October 7, 2023. Palestinian journalists and media workers make up the majority of these deaths including the 11-year-old Yaqeen Hammad, killed on May 23, 2025 in an Israeli airstrike. The official counts of death in Gaza have surpassed 50,000; one third of them are children. These figures are conservative—they don’t account for the bodies trapped under the rubble and the ruins of desecrated mosques and churches, schools, hospitals, and homes. Nor does the reported death toll encompass the totality of casualties, survivors with permanent injuries, the orphaned, the disappeared, the exiled, the missing.
Matthews’ call to “stop killing children” and to end genocide are obvious assertions, it would seem, and inoffensive. Yet as much as they gained him respect among usual DMB detractors, such comments also generate outrage. Among the repudiations of Matthews is accusations of antisemitism, a result of a persisting conflation of support for Israel and its Zionist-settler project, with Jewish identity at large. It’s an effective tactic not least because antisemitism is an actual key aspect of white supremacy in the United States, bolstered by the current far right administration. But it can also stoke the discomfort of non-Jewish people, fearful of appearing ignorant. Israel’s claims as a safe haven draw largely on anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments already deeply ingrained within the U.S.
It’s complicated, is a common simplifier, often used to equate the violence employed in resistance to systematic oppression to the powers that subjugate. But I know what I’ve seen. Witnessing is not enough, I know and have learned repeatedly as the spectacle of Black death surges and wanes and as scenes of genocide are placed among advertisements. Five years ago we crowded the streets of American cities, besieged by rage so hot that it threatened to melt the foundations of our anti-black carceral state. We were rioting in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, then the most recent video in a lineage of viral footage that reflects the precarity of Black life. In Gaza and the West Bank, imagery of Floyd appeared, signaling the connections in struggle, oppression, and the recognition that our liberations are as intertwined as they are inevitable.
Below are links to campaigns and organizations to donate to.
Evacuate Mohaned Raed and Four Family Members To Egypt
Support 18yo Hamza Banar’s family of 8’s survival
Support the International Federation of Journalists safety fund
