The Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has stated that he doesn’t think rapper Kanye West should be headlining Glastonbury.
The sixty-seven-year-old rocker claims that Galstonbury isn’t a festival for rap and r&b music.
Speaking to the Mirror, Wood said that “Kanye isn’t rock”, reiterating that the Worthy Farm event “is the home of rock music.”
Ronnie said: “Glastonbury is the home of rock music and, look, Kanye isn’t rock. He’s a great entertainer and he knows how to captivate an audience with all his swearing, but when it comes to what that festival is about, it’s the wrong choice.”
“People who go there for rock music are starting to get very angry about all these rappers and R’n’B singers taking over.”
An online petition on Change.org titled, ‘Cancel Kanye West’s headline slot and get a rock band’, has been signed by 127,700 people. The petition was started last week and has a target of 150,000 signatures.
The man who started the page, Neil Lonsdale writes: “Kanye West is an insult to music fans all over the world. We spend hundreds of pounds to attend glasto, and by doing so, expect a certain level of entertainment.
“Kanye has been very outspoken on his views on music….he should listen to his own advice and pass his headline slot on to someone deserving! Lets prevent this musical injustice now!”
Glastonbury’s co-organiser Emily Eavis told the Guardian: “To say that our headliners should be “rock” is, I think, a bit silly. Those acts never have been limited to rock, and they never will be. Stevie Wonder, the Prodigy, Curtis Mayfield, the Chemical Brothers, Jay Z, Gorillaz, Beyoncé and plenty of others prove that.”
“I’ve seen people this week saying that Kanye shouldn’t appear because, in their opinion, he’s not a positive role model or because they think he’s too self-assured. We book our acts by choosing the best and most challenging musicians on the planet – not by applying some kind of arbitrary morality test.
“But I would also remind people that this a man who made a version of a worldwide hit single which highlighted the social issues that conflict diamonds cause in west Africa. And wouldn’t you have a bit of a spring in your step if you’d won 21 Grammys?
“It’s important to point out that the signatories of the petition are not limited to ticket holders. From what we can see, an awful lot of them aren’t even from the UK. Even the originator of the petition admits that he has never actually been to the festival.
“I’m told that there were only four more requests for ticket refunds on the day after we announced Kanye’s performance than there had been the previous Tuesday. The overwhelming majority of our 135,000 ticket-holders are clearly not too concerned by that particular two-hour slot on one of the 100 stages at our five-day event. Our message to the man who started the petition is that like any other ticket-holder, he is very welcome to get a refund.”
