I wanted to start this review with a history lesson but I will begin by saying that in this article we will be breaking the law. And I will do this because it has – in essence – everything to do with the single on review and Delilah`s message. I`ve always said that certain songs should be taught on school curriculum. You will NOT understand the world, if you don`t understand its pop culture. Gil Scott – Heron`s “Whitey On the Moon” or “Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, Tracy Chapman’s “Talking `Bout A Revolution”, Queen Latifah`s “U.N.I.T.Y”, Billie Holliday and Nina Simone`s versions of “Strange Fruit”, Garland Jeffrey`s “Hail Hail Rock`n`Roll” or Billy Joel`s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” are equally important to knowing your algebra, your taxes and how your government operates. And it seems that we will have to add Lauren Tate to the list above.
In the not – so – distant future, Delilah Bon`s “Illegal Aliens” will be discussed with the same fervor and intensity as R.E.M.`s “Orange Crush” or Springsteen`s “Death to My Hometown”, being praised for capturing the moment and becoming a rallying (march) anthem for street protests. Song`s lyrics will be dissected and analyzed in microscopic details, proving that Lauren was ahead of the curve. It turns out that the words of the prophets are not always written on the subway walls and tenement halls – sometimes they may be posted on Ms Tate`s Facebook page.
When artists speak up on behalf of civil society, they are doing it because they have a moral duty to highlight what is happening around them. Like journalists and photographers, artists are chroniclers of our era. Thus there is nothing more shameful and degrading to a musician than being “apolitical” in the times of need. I will use even stronger terms – whoever has the means and opportunity to make the noise but chooses not to is a coward and deserves no respect and no right to be remembered.
“One day we’ll all find out that all of our songs were just little notes in a great big song!” – I love this quote from Woody Gurthie, a forefather of the protest song (yeah that guy who sang that fascists were bound to lose if people of all creeds would unite), because nothing is truer than that. Every protest song, every track that raises awareness is another note is the bigger tune of freedom. Gurthie knew it when he toured the US with just his guitar during the Great Depression, Bob Dylan knew it too when he marched towards Selma with Martin Luther King Jr. And it`s no secret to Delilah Bon either as she is often seen marching and waving a placard when she is not in the studio recording new verses.
“Illegal Aliens” is an angry song, but it would be simplistic to treat it with just a litany of political talking points from the last three years. Yes, it does mention Gaza, ICE detentions, mistreatment of children and mothers, murders and deportation of asylum seekers at the hands of the current president and his administration. Yet the main theme is not just anger – it is a call out for change, a hope against despair, a realisation that there are millions of us against a handful of those committing the atrocities.
It is also a lesson in understanding the modern world.
I will treat “Illegal Aliens” as a base on which to draw to deliver a few points I wanted to make for a long time now. And if this review turns into an essay, so be it. I hate music that has nothing to say.
I have already dropped enough song titles to make a sizable playlist (feel free to make one if that helps you) but there is one thing I have not mentioned yet. All those tracks and protest tunes in their day were played on the radio, in supermarkets, at concert halls and festivals. They became a sign of their times, not only because they spoke truth to power, but also because there was an infrastructure to get them delivered to a wider audience. People didn’t have to be super into politics but there was nobody in my generation who could not hum “We Didn’t Start The Fire” or who did not see the video to Genesis “Land of Confusion”. Those clips were on MTV 50 times a day. You could not miss it. And if you caught a glimpse of something, even with the corner of your eye ten times out that fifty, you would have a good understanding of what the song was about, liking it or not.
Now that infrastructure is no longer existing: MTV is gone, concerts cost an arm and leg, payola between major labels and radio stations is decriminalized, press is being owned by billionaires and they popularize only far right talking points, while algorithms decide what content you see online.
How can any artist with a political message reach the masses in this climate? The answer is HARDLY ANY. And that is exactly the point! Out of sight, out of mind – as the old proverb goes. If people can’t find a song to unite them or to speak to their conscience then the risk of such a tune becoming a cry for unification is annulled. Why do you think KGB was following The Scorpions when they came to play USSR? Because the band had this tiny song called “Wind of Change” and it was getting big in every country behind the Iron Curtain. To piss off the Russian secret service the band had the single recorded in Russian and released on a pirate radio station a few months before the collapse of communism.
Music is power and that power is dangerous and needs to be curbed.
You may have noticed two days ago an Instagram post from Delilah about censorship of “Illegal Aliens” and her song not being accessible to audiences in the US. Again, not by accident. META routinely silences and even takes down Pro Palestinian content. What’s the difference you may ask between old school KGB and current social media barons bending backwards for Trump? Answer is these are the two cheeks of the same stinking orange ass. But to be fair. Silencing undesirable voices of independent artists – especially women and minorities – didn’t start yesterday. And Mark Zuckerberg is not the only one to blame.
Almost every big tech firm is involved in the forced disappearance of artists from the discourse – from Google to Amazon. Streaming services such as SoundCloud are also playing their part. In 2023 Pitchfork ran one of the most important pieces about the topic you can ever read – and it was about underground rap from the early noughties (10-15 years ago) being removed from YouTube, SoundCloud, blogs – one mix tape at a time. The rarer, more local and self released record the biggest loss – you cannot recover those tapes and songs, not unless you have them saved on your hard drive.
Entire decade of local Black music has just gone. Like they never existed. Orwell’s Ministry of Truth would be green with envy.
I can see many people just shrugging their shoulders. So what if some trap rap from a guy in Long Beach, California who sang about surfing and scoring chicks got wiped out of the internet. No big deal. It’s not vital to the survival of democracy. Besides Delilah has got a million of followers across her socials, dedicated fan base and tight community of listeners across the globe. Her songs will not be forgotten. It won’t happen to her.
It may not now but who will guarantee that it will not be true in ten or fifteen years time? If it could happen to a Black rapper from the US, it can happen to a white lady from Yorkshire.
And I have proof you can`t ignore.
When I listen to “Illegal Aliens”, it reminds me of a demo called “P.O.M.F” written by the band Stabbing Westward in 1991. And here the history lesson I wanted to give at the beginning of this review starts. To many, not just younger generations, the year is associated with the likes of Nirvana`s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” being released rather than Gulf War, the collapse of the USSR, the beating of Rodney King or testimony of Anita Hill before the Congress. It was also the middle of the presidential term of George HW Bush, the 43rd President of the USA. We shall refer to him simply as 43 or Dubya Sr because we have zero respect for the guy (if you want to see the list of nicknames for every US president here is a good list, please check Trump).
Delilah Bon often brings themes of war against women, privileged men abusing their power, mistreatment of minorities in her music (“Dead Men Don`t Rape”, “Epstein”, “Cinderella”) but it is easy to think these are modern issues and not echoes from thirty years ago. It is a fallacy.
If you want to trace the origins of everything that is wrong with the world today – 1991 is a good place to start and Dubya Sr is your man. Without him Delilah would have less social issues to scream about. Destabilizing the Middle East: check. Nominating a sexual predator and raging misogynist Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court: yep. Pressing police in Los Angeles to acquit four police officers that massacred Rodney King: you bet. Everybody is shitting their pants that The Orange will invoke Insurrection Act these days over Minnesota, but Dubya Sr did it before – during the Los Angeles riots of 1992 after the trial of Rodney King oppressors collapsed.
We are not finding ourselves in hell. We have a permanent residence here.
In 1991 the rich were getting richer, the poor were getting poorer, rapists were advanced to the highest offices and somehow there was always money for forever wars. Dubya Sr was as universally hated as Trump is today and Stabbing Westward channelled those feelings into their demo. The song title stood for “Piss Off Mother Fucker” and contained this lovely line of lyrics: “You live in your White House/Trading your stocks/ While the homeless sleep outside/In a fucking cardboard box”.
Now go and google “POMF”. You will not find the song in its original form at all.
You see, Scooter Brown didn’t buy Taylor Swift masters that prevented her from owning her work because he is an evil genius (he is just a pitiful Zionist) but because it was an industry standard for decades for major labels to silence artists. Standards that Duyba Sr and his administration fiercely protected.
“POMF” was part of a four track cassette “Iwo Jesus” that was never fully released but still under property to a major label as the band signed shortly after. To own the recordings the band had to re-record it in 2020 as part of Independent Record Store Day but the ending product is nothing like the original compositions: lyrics changed, samples missing, the whole anti George H. W. Bush sentiment gone. The new version of the song mentions a penthouse but not the White House and is overpolite to the point of nausea. I can`t say if it is because the band decided to self-censor or just dropped the whole political message altogether. In the end it’s the same and what the listeners got is a sub par product worthy of enshittification. Worst of all, if I hadn’t saved myself a copy of the original demo back in 1995 in the form of a poorly quality MP3, I`d never know the difference! It would be gone just like the Californian trap rap of the 2010s off SoundCloud and who would miss it. In the grand scheme of things what is one erased song? It is a speck of dust.
But do that to millions of specks and suddenly you silence entire generations.
But you don’t take my word for it. Listen to the original song HERE (yeah I am leaking it, copyrights by damned anyway) and compare it to the polished turd you can find online HERE.
After 35 years it doesnt matter if Stabbing Westward sold millions of records, that they were the biggest majors in the world. If an established, heritage rock band can be corrected then anyone can. As they like to say on the far right spectrum of politics: do your own research.
The motto of Delilah Bon`s “Illegal Aliens” is: organize, defy, resist.
First line of resistance against any authoritarian regime or any sort of evilness in the world is not marching or even making your opposition known – even though these are important. It is saving that protest song on your hard drive in its original form because somebody needs to remember. And knowing your damn history that comes with the song because somewhere down the line there will be an asshole who will change its meaning or words or context. And that’s how we forget and lose our power – by losing the music that drives us on.
As I said at the very beginning. You don’t understand the world unless you know your pop culture. So here`s a pop cultural reference and if you get it then you get it.
“Illegal Aliens” is not an important song because it is political. It is super important because like The Drum of Liberation it is calling people to be united against oppression and showing them a way to freedom. One note at a time, one march at a time, one memory at a time.
Sometimes you don’t need a devil fruit to be a real life version of Nika. And maybe Delilah Bon is just that.
You can follow Delilah on social media:
https://www.delilahbon.co.uk
https://www.instagram.com/delilahbonofficial
https://www.youtube.com/@DelilahBon
https://www.tiktok.com/@delilahbon
https://www.facebook.com/DelilahBon
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5JUFYlgwsbqpLcU9TMlsve
https://discord.com/invite/VppzQvusH9
Our coverage so far (13 articles):
https://vanadianavenue.co.uk/tag/delilah-bon
Additional reading:
https://elpais.com/smoda/feminismo/2026-02-03/los-hombres-muertos-no-violan-delilah-bon-o-la-nueva-vanguardia-punk-es-feminista.html – This is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious Spanish media read all over the Latin countries.
https://mcgigmusic.com/delilah-bon-has-drooped-the-new-protest-track-illegal-alien/
https://moshville.co.uk/news/video/2026/02/delilah-bon-releases-protest-anthem-illegal-aliens-after-us-tour-cancellation/
https://distortedsoundmag.com/delilah-bon-releases-new-music-video-for-illegal-aliens/
https://rocksound.tv/news/delilah-bon-releases-necessary-new-track-illegal-aliens
Malicia Dabrowicz
Indieterria 