Rude Echoes speaks up and finally releases the song that we all need to listen to and hear, to join together and become who “We Are”. It is time we pay attention and act. Brothers and sisters, join Rude Echoes, and become a part of the chorus.
In the first week of September 2026, the UN announced that the 2016 Paris Climate Accord goal of limiting the average global temperature to 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels was no longer possible or feasible, and that the benchmark would be surpassed in the next several years. The only thing to do is limit the severity of the impact of global climate change and strive to reduce the damage we are causing. Meanwhile, the United States, who withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords again in 2026, is once again at war in the Middle East, currently with Iran for global oil supplies. The President of the US has put in a request for a 50 percent increase in military spending to replenish diminished weapons supply stocks from the heavy military campaigns and genocides it is supporting or engaging.
In reponse, on August 28th, Chicago-based ska band released a single called “We Are”, a song they have been playing live for quite a while. The song plays like a follow on or a spin off of P.O.D’s “Youth of a Nation”. Where that song took social issues impacting America’s youth and put personal names and faces to the stories, Rude Echoes takes the stories that are shaping the lives and futures of the same youths, but looks at the structural foundations of these problems and demands change.
We aren’t just the now-aging youth of the nation, we are the voice of a generation. We aren’t just going to tell our stories and hope you empathize and understand why we are the way we are, we are telling you: the destruction of our world is causing profound problems, and we can’t solve it by addressing each symptom one person at a time. We must address the root causes.
And we are not just the voice of a generation, we are the soldiers in our revolution. We cannot buy a house, a car, pay for school, work our job, and live life in the failed American dream that creates good working-class pawns to exploit for profit. We cannot recycle our trash while CEOs criss-cross the globe in private jets. We cannot buy a hybrid car or get a bus ticket while America bombs an oil field or ExxonMobil Mobile buys politicians to block meaningful legislation for green energy while giving tax breaks in exchange for campaign dollars.
We cannot peacefully comply while police spray tear gas and shoot our brothers and sisters, or while our bombs wipe out populations.
We must join with one another, form friendships, community, and perform acts of resistance and joy, but we must also stand together to end everything that is being done in our name. Corporate profits will never matter as much as food chains and a sustainable planet. We are the voice of a generation, and it’s time we use it.
Take a listen to “We Are” below.
Written by Gimp Leg
