OP-ED

OP-ED is a Palestinian-led rock band based in Treaty 1 Territory (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada). Formed in late 2023, the band creates heavy, politically charged music rooted in social justice, liberation movements, human rights, and anti-colonial resistance. True to its name, OP-ED exists to voice dissent, challenge dominant narratives, confront injustice, and stand in solidarity. For OP-ED, music is both an uplifting artistic expression and a platform for protest.

Origin

We emerged directly from the collective shock, grief, and urgency surrounding Gaza in late 2023. During that period, Palestinian-Canadian songwriter Tarek Abdel Aziz began writing songs in response to what was unfolding. Drawing from lived experience as a Palestinian refugee born in Lebanon, he felt compelled to speak against decades of occupation, siege, and dehumanization. Through pro-Palestine rallies in Winnipeg, he connected with guitarist Jason (Jay) Nowicki, initially to collaborate on a song or two. The creative and personal chemistry was immediate, and OP-ED quickly began to take shape as a full band. In March 2024, Art Antony and Rusty Robot joined the project. All of us are activists, connected to struggles for Palestinian liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, LGBTQ+ liberation, climate justice, and broader anti-colonial movements.

In May 2024, we were invited to perform at a major Palestine fundraiser at Winnipeg's Park Theatre, sharing the stage with prominent Manitoba acts. That night affirmed our purpose and potential.

We approach music not as escapism, but as protest, solidarity, and collective witness.

Independence

We are fully independent and self-managed. Our politics extend beyond lyrics into how our music circulates. We have chosen not to release our work on certain platforms, such as Spotify, as part of an ongoing refusal to participate in platform models that exploit artists, obscure corporate accountability, and normalize investing in occupation and militarism structures, especially through the tech industry. For us, this is an essential ethical position.

75 Years

Our debut album, 75 Years, is a concept record that functions as a memorial, a protest, and a witness. The album traces the Palestinian experience from 1948 to October 2023, insisting that history did not begin on October 7. Through the symbolic figures of Adam and Mariam, composites drawn from many real Palestinian lives, the record aims to humanize a people long dehumanized by occupation, Western media, and political systems.

75 Years confronts genocide, apartheid, colonialism, and injustice while centring love, grief, survival, and resistance as lived realities rather than abstractions. It exists as an archive of memory as much as a musical work.

The Sound

Musically, we are a rock band in the broadest sense of the term. We move freely across the spectrum of rock music, carrying a punk attitude even as our songs expand into heavy and metal-inflected passages, epic balladry, blues-rock melodicity, and moments of stripped-down intimacy. Our music is cathartic for those who recognize themselves in its values and confrontational for those unsettled by our refusal to soften language or sentiment.

We write for anyone willing to listen. This includes those already aligned, those conflicted but open, and those challenged by being implicated. We do not chase provocation for its own sake. We write to bear witness, to tell the truth as we understand it, and to create space for collective grief, memory, protest and solidarity through sound.

What Comes Next

75 Years marks the beginning of a longer arc. We are already developing future work that expands our scope to include material engaging with interconnected global struggles against social injustice, colonial overreach and imperial impunity. OP-ED exists simultaneously as a rock band, a platform, an archive, and a living political and communal project, committed to telling stories that need to be heard and to rocking hard while doing so.