What a surprise: Kanye West’s headlining slot at Glastonbury this summer has pissed off a lot of people. Or, to be more specific, the announcement of a hip-hop headliner seems to have riled up a lot of rock fans. West is a known provocateur – or douchebag, depending on what you tend to make of his often outlandish public appearances and off-the-cuff rants – so it’s hardly surprising that any news linked to his name kicks up a reactionary fuss.
West’s detractors suggest he’s not an artist because he sings with Auto-Tune. He is unworthy because he doesn’t play live instruments on stage. He is a delusional megalomaniac whose self-serving tirades on fashion or class or the burden of fame have no place at Glastonbury. No, he shouldn’t be allowed to headline because all rap music is misogynistic and awful and didn’t he marry that one who’s only famous for being famous?
Some parts of Glastonbury’s devoted fanbase still fall victim to a narrow-minded tendency to value certain music genres over others, and to pile in against a musician who quite happily can call himself a genius. A change.org petition launched on Monday night is already aiming to send signatures to Glastonbury’s organisers, asking them to “cancel Kanye West’s headline slot and get a rock band”.
Just “get a rock band” – any old one one will do.
That sort of kneejerk reaction feels like one I might have had when I was a teenager, and still wedded to the idea that the music my friends and I liked was somehow superior to others. Looking back on conversations where I’d deride others for their love of electronic music because “ugh, they’re not even playing real instruments” or refuse to listen to any rap because I assumed it was all disrespectful to women. But to really appreciate music, in its various forms, you have to try harder.
To call for any rock over West’s music, which swings from his recent dalliances in abrasive electronica to the horn-sampling melodies that peppered The College Dropout and Late Registration, is just childish. It’s a stroppy response to feeling as though you’ve been somehow left out of the fun, and similar to the petition launched two months ago to strike rappers Riff Raff and Kosha Dillz off the Vans Warped Tour line-up. Or, as eloquently put by the petition founder: “VANS WARPED TOUR SHOULD BE FOR POP PUNK, ROCK, METAL, SCREAMO, TECHNO, ETC NOT FOR RAP.” It’s time to grow up, and stop sulking.
Last year Metallica proved that an outsider genre could storm the Pyramid stage just as well as any alt-rock, Britpop or stadium rock act. Beyoncé did the same in 2011, and so did her husband Jay Z in 2008, when he became the festival’s first-ever hip-hop headliner. When West closed New York’s soggy Governors Ball festival in 2013, his ferocious and powerful set served as a fine change of pace from the beautifully played indie heard elsewhere during the event.
"Yah. Glasto's great because the line-ups so diverse" "WAIT. WHAT? KANYE IS PLAYING?!" [Signs petition for white rock band to play instead]
— Ryan Bassil (@ryanbassil) March 17, 2015
Guardian commenters on our coverage of his announcements have already insisted that their disdain about West’s Glastonbury gig has nothing to do with race, and more to do with the elements of his public persona that they find insufferable. If that’s the case, and festival attendees are so often willing to accept non-threatening Lionel Richie or wonderfully smiley Stevie Wonder on the Pyramid stage, then bring on West’s unabashed and sometimes combative expression of a blackness that would rather not be marginalised.
