Melvin Benn, the managing director of Festival Republic, issued a statement tonight.
News that Kanye West will perform has attracted widespread criticism(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The managing director of Festival Republic – the parent company of Wireless Festival – has issued a statement after a huge backlash to the announcement that Kanye West is due to perform. Melvin Benn said people should “offer some forgiveness and hope to him as I have decided to do”.
West is due to headline all three nights of Wireless in London’s Finsbury Park from 10-12 July this year – a move that has prompted huge criticism due to his prior antisemitic comments. Brands have withdrawn their sponsorships of Wireless and ministers are reviewing his permission to enter the UK.
In a statement issued tonight, Benn said: “I am a deeply committed anti-fascist and have been all my adult life. I lived on a kibbutz for many months in the 1970’s that was attacked on October 7th, am pro Jew and the Jewish state, while being equally committed to a Palestinian state.
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“Having had a person in my life for the last 15 years who suffers from mental illness, I have witnessed many episodes of despicable behaviour that I have had to forgive and move on from. If I wasn’t before, I have become a person of forgiveness and hope in all aspects of my life, including work.
“What Ye has said in the past about Jews and Hitler is as abhorrent to me as it is to the Jewish community, the Prime Minister and others that have commented and – taking him at his word – to Ye now also.
“Ye’s music is played on commercial radio stations in this country. It is available via live streams and downloads in this country without comment or vitriol from anyone and he has a legal right to come into the country and to perform in this country.
“He is intended to come in and perform. We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions.”
He concluded: “Forgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue in this ever-increasing divisive world and I would ask people to reflect on their instant comments of disgust at the likelihood of him performing (as was mine) and offer some forgiveness and hope to him as I have decided to do.”
West, who is also known as Ye, has faced widespread condemnation in recent years after he began expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler, and has made a string of antisemitic comments.
Last year, he released a track called Heil Hitler, just months after promoting a Swastika T-shirt for sale on his website. Prime minister Keir Starmer said this weekend: “It is deeply concerning Kanye West has been booked to perform at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism.
“Antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted firmly wherever it appears. Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The Prime Minister is right to be deeply concerned that Wireless Festival wants to headline someone whose anti-Jewish bigotry has gone as far as recording a track titled ‘Heil Hitler’ less than a year ago.
“But the Prime Minister is not a bystander. The Government can ban anyone from entering the UK who is not a citizen and whose presence would ‘not be conducive to the public good’. Surely this is a clear case.”
West has already been refused entry to Australia with his visa cancelled after he released Heil Hitler last May.
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