
Azealia Banks no longer playing Boomtown or Maiden Voyage
Azealia Banks has pulled out of her scheduled appearances at Boomtown and Maiden Voyage after alleging that promoters were pressuring her to release a statement in support of Palestine.
Taking to X, the rapper said: “So guys, I am cancelling Boomtown and Maiden Voyage, the promoters have been stressing me out for weeks trying to force me to say free Palestine and threatening to cut me from the bill because I won’t say free Palestine and I’m not dealing with the threats and I’m not putting on a fucking hijab.”
She continued: “They’re both basically trying to extort me – by insinuating that I need to say I support Palestine or they will drop me from the gig BUT I would much rather drop them and not associate with anything that has cheap group think bullshit attached to it.” She ended her post by writing: “#FUCKPALESTINE”.
In a statement shared with The Standard, a spokesperson for Boomtown confirmed Banks’ withdrawal from its line-up. “Following her post on X in the early hours of this morning, we can confirm that Azealia Banks has withdrawn from the lineup and will no longer be performing at Boomtown Festival.”
They added: “For clarity, Boomtown does not and will never dictate the personal views and beliefs of performers.”
The news comes in the wake of a series of inflammatory tweets from Banks in recent weeks, including one on 2nd June that said: “no black person should be supporting Palestine.” Earlier that same day, she insisted that Palestine is not a country. “It should all be Israel. Palestine can’t support itself without help from other countries so the people should just leave or become naturalised Israelis,” she wrote.
Banks’ posts prompted online backlash and calls for her to be removed from the festivals’ line-ups.
Boomtown, which takes place at Matterley Bowl in Hampshire from 6th – 10th August, and Maiden Voyage, which takes place in Burgess Park, London on 9th August, are currently working to find replacement artists.
Meanwhile, ahead of their appearance at Glastonbury festival this weekend, Irish rap group Kneecap have have thrown their weight behind a short film released in solidarity with Gaza. See it. Say it. Censored is described as an “artist-led alternative PSA presented by Kneecap that demands urgent action to stop the genocide unfolding in Gaza”.
The documentary was written and directed by Aaron Z. Willson, Saman Aminzadeh and William Child. The Irish language hip-hop group are listed as executive producers. The three-minute film is narrated by the band with testimonials from doctors and aid workers including Ghassan Ghaben, Dr. James Smith, Malak Mattar, and Dr. Rossel Morhij, who share their first-hand experiences of being on the ground in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing assault, which has killed at least 58,000 Palestinians.