Sonic Resistance: Flobots Founder to Lead Protest Song Workshop in Denver

Jamie Laurie is best known as Jonny 5, and the lead emcee and founder of Denver’s hometown hip-hop sensation Flobots has been busy.

Flobots made its debut in 2005, and in 2014 it began its NOENEMIES project (not to be mistaken with the group’s album of the same name). The call-and-response event, which aims to ignite and feed creative resistance through song, will be coming to the Cookie Factory art space starting at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 18. Laurie will facilitate an immersive workshop about “experiencing the power of collective song as a tool for protest, mobilization, and community defense on the eve of MLK Day,” according to a press release.

“NOENEMIES isn’t an organization,” explains Laurie. “It’s not a choir, and it’s not a group. It’s a space that we try to open up so that we can together re-engage with the power of collective song as a protest tactic in the interests of social change. Very literally, what are those songs we can sing together in the streets?”

It’s tough to define, Laurie admits, because it’s an organic process, and not led by any specific person or group or interest. But the lack of hierarchical structure is part of the point. “It’s all about coming together as a collective,” he says. “A space where we can teach each other songs, practice singing them together, write new songs, remix songs. Make them relevant to the present moment.”

And it’s not just for those who consider themselves singers as part of their identities. “It’s for everyone,” says Laurie. “It’s not about the performance. In some ways, it’s an anti-expertise space. We’re trying to untrain ourselves in how we think about music. I’m a performer; I have not just the habit, but a financial incentive to make people think that only I can perform, and to have music means that you have to pay money. But that’s not what music is.

“With a song like ‘We Shall Overcome’ or ‘We Shall Not Be Moved,'” he continues, “or even a chant like ‘Si, se puede’ or ‘El pueblo unido jamás será vencido,’ you can’t own that. All you can do is bring it to life in the moment. So it’s a lot about re-educating ourselves, and to not be afraid to raise our voices at crucial moments. To not think that in doing so, we’re imitating something else. We’re going to manifest our power through this song, right now.”

Laurie stresses that this event on January 18 is to “go beyond song. What are we doing with our bodies? How are we moving? What are some ways to arrange ourselves in a physical sense? One of the things I’m really excited about in this call-and-response event is that it’s exploring in a few ways how we respond to that call. The call comes every day, right? Someone is shot in Minneapolis. We’re all angry. We have events to show up to, but how do we respond? The call I want to make with this event is whatever community you’re already a part of, that’s a group of people that can be organized, that can show up outside of a holding facility, for example, and hold a vigil — even host that vigil, and invite others to come. That’s probably a community that has something new to offer. Each of us has some skill that can be used to train other people to work in similar and positive ways.”

For example, Laurie says he’s been going to vigils held at the GEO Detention Facilty in Aurora pretty regularly. “They’re very intimate,” he says. “You’re fifteen feet away from people who can see you, who you can also see, through the opaque glass that separates you. You can see people making heart shapes with their hands. It’s quite a moving experience. You’re not yelling at the wind. You’re singing for and to people.” He recalls one day when a social dancing club was also there. “They led us all in a few steps of a dance. Everyone has something to contribute.”

It’s not accidental that the event is scheduled to precede Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Denver. “Growing up here, the Marade has always been part of my life,” says Laurie. “You just go there with your friends. It’s what you do. Certainly in 2014-15, one of the main places where NOENEMIES manifested was at the Marade. Several times, there was a large community takeover, reclamation, diversion of the Marade, calling on the city to act on police violence, or to release the tapes of Michael Marshall’s death. MLK Day holds a special significance in NOENEMIES history — it’s also a central day of protest that goes beyond protest. It’s a day when we connect with history, and confirm our values.”

But it’s also an appropriate venue, considering the current installation at the Baker neighborhood’s new art space Cookie Factory, named for the fortune-cookie manufacturing company that once called the building home. In November of 2025, Rush, a major solo exhibition by acclaimed American artist Gary Simmons debuted, and runs through May 9, 2026. “This is the first time NOENEMIES has gathered outside of a church,” says Laurie, “so hopefully that helps it be more inviting for folks with church-related trauma, who don’t feel comfortable for whatever reason showing up in a church.

“It’s a really good fit [for NOENEMIES],” he adds, “because a lot of Gary Simmons’ work is about erasure. Physically, words on a wall fading. So in the tradition of protest songs, you’re constantly filling in new words to speak to new moments. There’s a type of song called a zipper song where you’re singing the same basic song but subbing in new language to fit the thing you’re dealing with in the moment. So the idea that we’re writing our own present history by singing these songs, looking back at what the words have had to be in past moments and learning from that and creating something new in the moment–it’s a beautiful juxtaposition, I think. The interplay between the walls and the words being sung will be a piece of performance art in and of itself.”

There’s one song that Laurie keeps coming back to, especially with all that’s happened within the last year. “It’s four lines from a longer song,” he says. That longer song is “Da Nos Un Corazon,” from Peruvian composer Juan A. Espinosa and published by the Universidad Biblico Latinoamericano in San José, Costa Rica, now a center for liberation theology for non-catholics. Danos un corazón/Grande para amar/Danos un corazón/ fuerte para luchar.

“Give us a heart big enough to love,” translates Laurie. “Give us a heart strong enough for fighting.”

It may not be a hymn, or meant that way, but nonetheless: Amen.

The NOENEMIES event will take place starting at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 18, Cookie Factory, 425 West Fourth Avenue. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, see the Facebook page.