Modern Slave Catcher
By Paisleyfrog on February 5, 2026 1:15 am
We'll give this one a shot - going to try a Beastie Boys flavored track this week. Going from Punk last week to this is sort of a step to the side, anyway.
Cover art image originally from a flyer speaking against the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
There's a lot to unpack on this track. I'll put some of it behind spoiler tags so this post isn't a total wall of text.
Idea for this track came about last week when I was working on my punk track - my initial title was "ICE Gestapo". When working with me on lyrics, my wife gave me a couple verses with a new direction, and suggested a punk/Beastie Boys take on it. It was an AWESOME idea, and a concept we had talked about before - but the idea deserved WAY more than a one minute punk song, and I didn't want to rework the music at that point. So, it was shifted to this week where we could give it full attention.
› ICE is not Gestapo or law enforcement - they're slave catchers in the modern day
‹ ICE is not Gestapo or law enforcement - they're slave catchers in the modern day
The ICE/Gestapo comparison is a little off the mark - ICE is a uniquely American disease with ties to the ugliest parts of our history, and needs to be described that way. Calling ICE "Gestapo" points the finger outward and frames it as something that happened "over there". It also conveniently puts it in terms of a conflict in which the US were the "good guys". It's also worth pointing out (as is noted in the lyrics) that Nazi Germany took notes on what the United States was doing with regards to segregation and oppression. Fascism has always been in the US...depending on what you look like.
Gotta dig into some history.
The legal view of slavery was that slaves were literal property with no rights. As such, an escaped enslaved person could be hunted down and returned to his owner, even if they had made it to a state in the north where slavery was illegal - the Supreme Court had determined that no law could deprive a person of their lawful property. (The Dred Scott decision undid the compromises against slavery, escalated violence, and essentially opened the floodgates to the US Civil War. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act also criminalized assisting escaped slaves, even in free states.)
So, enter the slave catchers. These people would hunt down and return escaped slaves, often brutally and violently. The methods used (bloodhounds, beatings, etc) were frequently fatal. They were also seen as legal.
This is all bad enough. Thing is, though, they didn't much care if the people they caught were actually escaped enslaved people or not....and the system was set up to encourage them to determine that everyone they caught was an "escaped slave". Many free Black people were abducted and sold into slavery. The movie "12 Years a Slave" was a dramatization of Solomon Northrup's memoirs - he was the son of an emancipated slave, and was a carpenter and violinist in New York. He was abducted and sold into slavery - and was finally freed after 12 years. His is one of the few accounts we have, as the vast majority never made it out.
Deciding to grab someone based on what they look like? Working under the auspices of the law? Abducting people who have legal right to be here? Using brutal tactics? Terrorizing communities? Attempting to ship people off to where they will never be seen again? Germany learned from the US, and ICE are slave catchers in a different century: a morally bankrupt direct descendant of a culture of slavery that was never properly dealt with.
Put another way: Sherman didn't burn enough.
Production notes:
My reference point for the song was Sabotage. I mainly did some listening to see what was happening in different spots, as I didn't want to mimic TOO closely. Sabotage was built around MCA's gritty bass riff, so I started there - guitars were rhythmic accent, and drums filled in the rest. The bones of the song came together really quickly.
Had to figure out scratching, though - and I wasn't going to abuse one of my turntables or records. I ended up using a synth noise generator (0 attack and decay, 100 sustain, 0 release) and then rode the cutoff filter knob while I played it rhythmically. Close enough for me!
Lyrics were fun - my wife wrote a couple verses, and I wrote the rest. As far as performing - I definitely do NOT have Ad Rock's voice, and didn't try. My nod there was a slight New York accent 
My wife very much had an idea in mind as far as how this song should be approached, especially the chorus. My first take was probably a little more RAtM - she was like, "this isn't Couchfucker - it's darkly angry, not screamy angry." She also said I should emphasize "slave" - it's supposed to be uncomfortable. As per normal, she was right.
› Lyrics
‹ Lyrics
ICE acts like Gestapo, but they were not the first
Nazis learned from somewhere else how to be the worst
Studied Jim Crow and the laws of Segregation
And ways that we were fascist to the people in this nation
It started way back in our history
With people owning people, and they'd run to be free
Roving gangs of evil shits chasing folks down
Taking people back in chains, grab 'em outta town
It didn't matter if the folks they took were right or wrong
Terrorizing people was the name of the song
Maintaining slavery, division of race
Sounds like some Agents who keep hiding their face
Fucking with you if you're black or brown
Takin' to the streets like they own the whole town
Papers don't matter or make it better
FUCK them ICE they're a modern slave catcher
Modern slave catcher
Modern slave catcher
Modern slave catcher
FUCK them ICE they're a modern slave catcher
They wanna take it back to sixteen nineteen
Owning other bodies, very thought is obscene
Preaching that hate 'cause they wanna try to rule
Gotta take these ICE fuckers back to school
History tells us that evil is weak
And these guys are led by that senile orange freak
We gotta stick together 'cause together we are strong
Except for ICE fuckers, time for them to move along
Modern slave catcher
Modern slave catcher
Modern slave catcher
FUCK them ICE they're a modern slave catcher
