There are A LOT of people who don’t want Kanye West to perform at Glastonbury.
The major British music festival, which typically draws upwards of 175,000 people, recently booked Mr. West as a headliner for their 2015 festival, and fans have been protesting the decision ever since. A petition titled “Cancel Kanye West’s headline slot and get a rock band” has garnered over 119,000 signatures in a mere five days.
Speaking out against all of the haters, the festival’s co-founder, Emily Eavis, wrote a full-length editorial piece in The Guardian. In it, she says:
“We think the story this year should not be: “Why is Kanye coming?” but: “How amazing is it that Kanye is coming?” One of the world’s biggest superstars and a music legend, always interesting, never boring. He has agreed to play a festival where headliners get paid a fraction of their normal rate in support of Oxfam, Water Aid and Greenpeace as well as thousands of other worthy causes. We think that’s pretty great.
“I’ve realised over the years of announcing line ups that, literally, whoever you reveal will be met with some hate online. I have such faith in humanity, but believe me, some of the vitriol being thrown around this week has made me question the dark underbelly of the web. Who are those people silently shouting in disgust, throwing out threats from behind their screens? It certainly isn’t pleasant to be on the receiving end of that. I can’t even imagine how it makes Kanye feel.”
Regardless of how you feel about Kanye, it’s admirable to see Eavis’ dedication to the festival and its programming.