To Boiler Room, its organizers, and all announced and unannounced performers,

We write to you as members of Detroit’s music community and global supporters of liberation movements, to express our unequivocal rejection of Boiler Room’s upcoming event in Detroit. Your presence here is neither welcome nor neutral.

Boiler Room is now majority-owned by KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.), a global investment firm with active holdings in defense contractors and financial ties to the state of Israel, a government currently engaged in what many legal scholars, international observers, and human rights organizations have identified as a genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.

By continuing with this event, Boiler Room becomes complicit in laundering the image of war profiteers under the guise of culture and music. Detroit, a city rooted in radical Black political resistance and a bastion of underground dance culture, deserves better than to be exploited as a backdrop for global capital’s PR campaign.

This is not just about ownership structures — it’s about accountability. The underground and independent music spaces we’ve built are being co-opted by corporate interests that directly contradict the values of solidarity, freedom, and resistance. These stages should not be available to companies with blood on their hands.

We are calling on:

Boiler Room to CANCEL its July 26 event in Detroit.

All announced and unannounced performers to withdraw their participation and refuse future collaborations

Venues and local crews to divest from partnerships that compromise our cultural integrity and community values

We will not allow Detroit’s music culture to be commodified by firms that fund militarism. We stand in solidarity with artists and communities resisting all forms of occupation, apartheid, and exploitation — from Gaza to the Cass Corridor.

Your silence is a choice. Your participation is a statement.

We urge you to choose the right side of history.