Hate music groups are typically music labels that record, publish and distribute racist music of a variety of genres along with products that promote their hateful, often terroristic worldview.
Top Takeaways
In 2024, the SPLC recorded 10 active hate music chapters. Among these, BeaSSt Productions reactivated its operations, resuming sales through its website. One of its affiliated bands, Empire Falls, performed at an Aryan Fest hosted by the Aryan Freedom Network in Georgia at the end of October. Tightrope Records, which struggled last year, rebounded and is now consistently promoting its products while maintaining an active presence on Telegram. A new label, KEP Productions, launched this year. Managed by Engorge band member Kyle Powell, KEP has been active online and helped organize festivals and shows featuring other hate music bands.
To avoid de-platforming, many hate music labels use platforms such as Telegram, Odysee and eBay to distribute their content. While most labels operate as small, individual-run enterprises, those promoting hateful black metal remain particularly engaged in their scene. They issue new releases, collaborate with like-minded domestic and international labels, and blur boundaries by intermingling with non-bigoted metal subgenres. Meanwhile, long-running racist skinhead labels in the U.S. tend to rely on static catalogs, often going months or even years without releasing new material or updating their platforms. This contrasts sharply with the more dynamic approaches of newer players in the hate music subculture.
Key Moments
The intersection of hate music and racist skinhead culture remained pronounced in 2024, with many skinhead group members actively participating in hate music bands. Labels have evolved into far-right cultural hubs, offering not only music but also merchandise such as clothing, flags and books that reinforce white supremacist ideologies. While chapters like DNVF Records and White Power Hour experienced a notable decline, newer labels such as KEP Productions emerged as pivotal players in the hate music scene. Similarly, Tightrope Records, following a year of setbacks, revitalized its operations.
United Riot Records and Tinnitus Records significantly increased their online presence, particularly on Telegram, where they now post frequently, and Hate Crime Streetwear continues to sell merchandise.
What’s Ahead
Hate music will continue to serve as a potent tool for white supremacist recruiters internationally. Overlap between long-standing racist skinhead crews and bands with new efforts to promote hate music across other musical genres will likely also continue. These efforts are niche, though, and are not attracting large audiences. That said, such efforts reflect how the subculture of hate music has evolved over four decades to promote both distinct and overlapping subgenres of racist music. Deeply antidemocratic, those reflections project dehumanizing lyrics, imagery, symbolism and sometimes organizations that encourage violence and terrorism against communities and identities that have been and continue to be marginalized.
As a broader subculture, the scene will continue to spread the aesthetics, as well as the bigotry and brutality of the Nazi party and more contemporary white power groups and figureheads internationally, including convicted murderers and terrorists. This subculture views concerts as important venues for networking and movement-building.
Hate music bands and labels will also continue to attempt to evade enforcement parameters and mechanisms of such companies as Spotify, Apple Music and others. Bands outside the United States whose lyrics are sung in languages other than English are generally more successful at remaining on streaming platforms. This subculture is generally incapable of introducing its hate to wider audiences without the complicity or ignorance of music streaming services.
Background
From the early 1980s to the early 1990s, hate music grew from a cottage industry into a multimillion-dollar, international industry that was a primary conduit of money and young recruits flowing into the radical right. Although the subculture originated in Britain in the early 1980s, it became popular among hardcore racists throughout the world.
The scene grew up around the English band Skrewdriver, led by the late Ian Stuart Donaldson, and has spawned hundreds of bands. Hate music spans numerous genres of music.
For several years beginning in the late 1990s, Resistance Records, a label owned by the once-powerful neo-Nazi group National Alliance, dominated the hate music landscape. The label made hundreds of thousands of dollars for the group, formerly led by William Pierce. But as the National Alliance shriveled, so did Resistance Records. Today, the music scene is no longer dominated by a single label but is instead fed by scores of smaller labels and distributors. Some have catalogs of hundreds of releases, while others only print small, limited runs of records and/or tapes and maintain catalogs of less than 10 releases. The SPLC lists hate music labels based on their catalogs and not necessarily the politics, beliefs and/or the identities of their owners.
2024 Hate Music Hate Groups
BeaSSt Productions
Roanoke, Virginia
DNVF Records
Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania
Hate Crime Streetwear Productions
Anaheim, California
ISD Records/NS88 Video
Denison, Texas
KEP Productions
Riverside, California
MSR Productions
Nebraska
Tightrope Records
Arkansas
United Riot Records
New York, New York
Vinlandic Werwolf Distribution
Sherman Oaks, California
Winter Solace Productions
Wausau, Wisconsin