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It happened earlier this month the same way it always happens. Jesse Welles was scrolling on his cell at home in northwest Arkansas — Siloam Springs, population 21,000 — when he came across a recruitment ad for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE to most of us). “I thought, ‘Well, that sounds like a great […]

Jesse Welles Is Singing the Truth. Who Else Will Join Him? Music has always been a compass in dark times. From Dylan and Seeger to the Dead and beyond, artists have held a mirror to power and refused to let lies go unchallenged. Today, as Donald Trump doubles down on authoritarian tactics, mocks science, and […]

Can Jesse Welles Revive the Protest Song? With a slew of topical grenades about everything from ICE raids to opiates, the Arkansas troubadour sure sounds like the voice of the Resistance. But he’s not as simple as that It happened earlier this month the same way it always happens. Jesse Welles was scrolling on his cell at […]

Meet Jesse Welles, Fiery Folksinger on the Rise Welles, 32, is a genuine phenomenon—an internet-era troubadour clearly in the tradition of Guthrie, Dylan, Prine, and Ochs (and Cobain, too), yet also very much of this moment. In some ways the Jesse Welles you’ve likely seen online, the shaggy young folksinger with the sandpaper voice picking […]

Jesse Welles appears on Episode 2367 of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Their discussion is a wide-ranging conversation between Jesse and Joe Rogan that touches on music, social commentary, the role of art and creativity, and the business-side of the entertainment industry along with many conspiracy theory rants of Rogan. Jesse reflects on growing up […]

Jesse Welles: Moments of Truth Midway through Jesse Welles’ recent show at a sold-out Atlantis in D.C., a fan shouted out, “Tell ‘em Jesse!” “Tell ‘em what?” he asked back. “Tell ‘em what they need to hear.” He waited for a beat and cracked a sly smile: “No one asked for this.” The thing is, millions […]

TikTok folk hero Jesse Welles: “I’m trying to find a through-line that’s honest” NME meets the Arkansas singer-songwriter who’s become a viral sensation by “singing the news”, delivering songs about Gaza, capitalism, tariffs and United Healthcare in bite-sized videos on social media Jesse Welles looks into his phone, fiddling with it for a moment as blue […]

Recordings – Jesse Welles: A Complete Unknown In the academy award winning Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, Timothèe Chalamet, (portraying Bob Dylan) suggests that to truly create something new, you have to destroy the past. The British writer Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch referred to this as “killing your darlings.” David Lowery of the band Cracker […]

The Protest Song Wakes Up A buzzy protest song about the definition of war, timed perfectly to public protests against the Israel–Hamas War, shows that there’s room for social media and protest singers to coexist. Last year, we saw the unlikeliest of pop stars emerge from the backwoods of Virginia with an acoustic-folk turn—a protest song […]

Modern protest singer Jesse Welles blows Dallas away at sold-out Kessler show Jesse Welles is something like a time-traveler. From his 70s-style hair to his poignant songwriting, to his poetic spirit that seems to be timeless—he is connecting people from all walks of life and at every age. Last week, Welles completed his Fear is the Mind […]

A Populist for Progressives Jesse Welles Finds New Life in Folk Songs The stunning success of American folksinger Jesse Welles testifies to the rich afterlife of authenticity. Rather than hammering the last nail into its coffins, as many pundits feared, AI opened the lid. Evidence of this increasingly forceful haunting abounds. Despite the fact that […]