When fans learned Kanye West was headlining the 2015 Glastonbury Festival over 100,000 people signed a petition to prevent the rapper from performing. The Glastonbury Festival is a five-day musical event that features many contemporary artists. Fans of the festival were so distraught with the news they started the petition.
Emily Eavis, the daughter of the founder of the Glastonbury Festival, came to the defense of West. In a blog posted on “theguardian.com,” Eavis stated that as a contemporary artist, West has the right to perform at the festival. Eavis listed the good West has done in music and social commentary, using his song, “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” as an example.
In the song, West raps about the conflict of diamonds in South Africa. Eavis went on to say that the festival is all about featuring different artists of different genres to be a part of and noted that the unknown person who started the petition has confessed to never having attended a Glastonbury festival.
This situation comes right after a previous debacle involving the rapper and alternative musicianBeck. Happening during the 2015 Grammy’s, Kanye came onstage when Beck was awarded with album of the year. Though no conflict happened, West stated that Beck should have given his award to R&B artist Beyoncé Knowles. He went to say that Beck, and the Grammy’s as a whole, do not respect artistry and which disrespects inspiration. He has since apologized to Beck via Twitter.
To some, this incident was reminiscent of an incident that happened in 2009 at the MTV video music awards, where West interrupted Taylor Swift while she was accepting the award for best video, saying that Beyoncé should have the award for best video instead.
It is actions like these that are polarizing to the public and possibly his fan base. On “thisis50.com”, it shows that his concert sells for West’s 2013 “Yeezus tour” did not pull in the high sells that were expected, and that Bill Brownlee of the Kansas City Star thought his act was starting to wear thin with his fans.
Despite the actions of the rapper or how he is seen by the public, West is still one of the most popular acts of today. Eavis said that West is one of the greatest artist of this generation and that Glastonbury Festival has no regrets about their choice for him to headline the show.
Jimaur Calhoun
Reporter