Earlier this summer, during London rap duo Bob Vylan‘s performance at Glastonbury Festival in England, rapper Bobby Vylan led the massive crowd in chants of “Free, free Palestine,” as well as “Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces].” The chant led to fierce backlash, resulting in Prime Minister Starmer saying at the time, “There is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech,” and the incident prompted a police investigation. The U.S. State Department also revoked the duo’s U.S. visas ahead of their fall tour. The group was also dropped from Radar Festival and France’s Kave Fest.
Vylan later defended his onstage remarks in a Instagram post captioned, “I said what I said.”
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The rapper joined The Louis Theroux Podcast on Oct. 1 — before news of a cease-fire deal in Gaza broke on Oct. 9 — at a studio in Central London to further discuss what happened during the controversial gig and the socio-political ramifications that took place after. The episode airs this week.
When asked by Theroux if he still stood by the chant and would repeat it onstage now, Vylan replied: “Oh yeah. Like what if I was to go on Glastonbury again tomorrow, yes I would do it again. I’m not regretful of it. I’d do it again tomorrow, twice on Sundays.”
The artist continued, “I’m not regretful of it at all, like the subsequent backlash that I’ve faced. It’s minimal. It’s minimal compared to what people in Palestine are going through. If that can be my contribution and if I can have my Palestinian friends and people that I meet from Palestine, that have had to flee, that have lost members in double digits of their family and they can say, yo, your chant, I love it.”
Vylan added, “I don’t want to overstate the importance of the chant. That’s not what I’m trying to do, but if I have their support, they’re the people that I’m doing it for, they’re the people that I’m being vocal for, then what is there to regret. Oh, because I’ve upset some right-wing politician or some right-wing media?”
Elsewhere in the interview, the podcast host addressed the word choice behind the chant, saying, “What does it mean in your view, because you are saying the people who take from that, if you see an IDF soldier, kill him. There were many commentators who would’ve put that interpretation on it.” Theroux then asked, “So, I’m inviting you to give your version of what that means … can you see how some people might have seen it the other way?”
Vylan said, “My whole issue with this thing is that the chant is so unimportant. It’s so unimportant, and the response to it was so disproportionate.” He continued, “What is important is the conditions that exist to allow that chant to even take place on that stage. And I mean, the conditions that exist in Palestine. Where the Palestinian people are being killed at an alarming rate. Who cares about the chant? It’s like, what is it that is allowing for that chant to even exist? That’s what the focus should have always been on it.”
The Louis Theroux Podcast is available on Spotify now.
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