South African shock-rap group Die Antwoord has been dropped from the UK festival ALT+LDN after significant backlash from other artists on the lineup, according to Stereogum. The complaints involved accusations against the band having to do with a history of abuse, including sexual assault, racism and homophobia.
The musician ZAND was one of the first to speak out, calling on the festival to remove Die Antwoord. In an Instagram post, they wrote:
“As grateful as I am for this insane opportunity and to be playing amongst a line-up packed with so many talented and iconic artists, it must be said. I do not feel comfortable at all with a certain band playing this festival due to their long history of abuse. Having a safe space for victims and all people should be a priority to all of us and in this instance because it is not, I will not allow my stance on this to come off as complacent by not addressing what needs to be addressed. Every other artist on this bill: let’s get it.”
Bob Vylan frontman Bobby Vylan also spoke out in a video on Twitter, following suit with ZAND’s call to action. In the video, he said:
“Now, I’m not extremely familiar with their music, but that’s neither here nor there, because I am familiar and I’m becoming more familiar with their history of abuse towards young people, towards vulnerable people, towards gay people, and people of colour. Now, needless to say, I’m not fucking thrilled that this band is on the same festival as us; I’m less thrilled that they’re on the same fucking stage as us,” he continued. “But, of course, I have no say over who gets booked for this festival, so looking for things that I can do is becoming challenging. Now, what I can do is ask publicly for ALT+LDN to remove Die Antwoord from this festival, and from this line-up, which is what I’m doing here, now.”
This is not the first festival lineup Die Antwoord has been removed from, having also been dropped from a number of festivals in 2019 after they were filmed shouting homophobic slurs at Hercules’ and Love Affair’s Andy Butler. The band had responded by claiming that the altercation had been merely a fight, and that the video had been “cleverly edited.”
Photo credit: Owen Ela
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