Ed Sheeran, Macklemore, and the politics of staying silent

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1:45It's drawn in the American billionaire Robert craft, figures from all over the entertainment world, and the musician Ed Sheeran, one of the most successful singer-songwriters of all time. It's raised questions about anti-Semitism, how the war in Gaza is viewed, and the very meaning of free speech. From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC. And I'm Tristan Redmond in London. Today on The Global Story, can pop music ever be apolitical?

2:24So to talk us through this all, we are joined by our BBC colleague, Mark Savage. He's the BBC's music correspondent. And Mark, thank you for joining us first time on the show. It's a really newsy time on your beat, so I appreciate you taking the time. I should note that we are recording this conversation on Wednesday, September 16th, a little after 10 a.m. Eastern time, which is... 3 p.m. in London. 3 p.m. And I want to note that because things may have changed by the time people hear this episode. But I think it's worth backtracking and just going over the wild story of what has happened over the last few days.

3:03This is a story about Ed Sheeran, whose music I think many folks will know. But it's also about a musician that many folks may have not thought about in a while, and that is McElmore. I remember he had these songs, what, Thrift Shop, Same Love. This was 2012, I think. 2012, yeah. Yeah, it's been a while. Look, he was popular at the time. He sold millions. I feel like I may have one of his old songs, maybe somewhere deep in Spotify. But he's not really been topping the charts lately. How did he find himself at the center of this story? Well, McLemore and Ed Sheeran have been friends for more than a decade.

3:38And they've worked together. They've toured together before. and according to Ed, McLemore asked if he could be the support act for these shows that he's putting on in America, playing in massive stadiums, 80 ,000, 90 ,000 people a night. And Ed said yes, because they're good friends. And on the very first show at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, as part of his set, he came out, as he has been doing for several years, and shouted, Free Palestine.

4:07I said, Free Palestine!

4:14I want those words to be loud and clear so the people from Gaza all the way to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten them. And he sang a song or rapped a song called Heinz Hall, which is dedicated to pro-Palestinian protesters at U.S. universities. It's a song that does characterize Israel's military action in the Gaza as genocide. Obviously, the Israeli government contests that characterisation. Thank you to those students that risked their diplomas, that risked their tuition, that risked their scholarships, that stood up and said no. CUAD students, students for justice in Palestine and Jewish voices for peace.

5:00Thank you guys. And he showed images of devastation in Gaza on the big screens across the stadium. If you watch the footage back, some people cheer what he said. But the criticism was almost instantaneous. The Israeli-American council launched a petition demanding his removal from the tour. And the campaign group Stop Antisemitism said the musician had ambushed fans with propaganda. And that really went viral when another pop star, Pink, reposted their statement on Instagram. and that triggered what has essentially been a two-week onslaught of media coverage about these statements. And he essentially doubled down at the next performance.

5:42He said that although he'd been accused of anti-Semitism... To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters... He said criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide... In no way is a criticism of you. My message is for peace, love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect and equality. But of course, that just fueled the flames even higher. And I think one of the things that's really important to note here is that after those two shows, for some reason, there was a two week gap in the touring schedule. So basically what happened was we had 10 days where commentators on both sides, pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, were able to fight this out.

6:27And it just became a bigger and bigger story. And in the background of that, venue owners who were going to be hosting some of the next gigs on the tour started to talk to each other and put pressure on Ed Sheeran and on his promoters to drop McLemore from the lineup. And so that's how we got to this week, where the story really started to make major headlines, and that is because Macklemore announced that he had been dropped from Ed Sheeran's tour. Why did that happen? What have we been told about why it happened? So we have a couple of sources on this. Macklemore himself said that he had been told by Ed and his promoters that he was no longer part of the tour.

7:07In his statement on Instagram, he said that it was venue owners who had put pressure on the touring operation to have him removed. He specifically named one venue owner, a man called Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots in Massachusetts and the stadium that they play in, the Gillette Stadium. Yeah, a well-known figure in Boston. He is someone who throws his weight around from time to time in politics. He's known to be chummy over the years with President Trump, so I think his politics are a bit murky. He's also, to my knowledge, donated to Democrats over the years. He has been a very vocal and strong financial supporter of Israel over the years.

7:46And he actually went on the record and spoke to Rolling Stone magazine and confirmed that, yes, he had certainly put pressure on McLemore to be dropped from his venue. He didn't address the claims that he had rallied around other venues and got them on board. And we have to also mention, of course, that he is a friend of Ed Sheeran's. Ed Sheeran performed at his wedding in 2022 and went on the record after that talking about what a wonderful night it was and called Bob Craft a sweet guy, he said. But he said that he found what McLemore had said offensive and that paired with what he characterised as a history of anti-Semitic statements and imagery had led him to ask for McLemore's removal.

8:30Now, that claim about anti-Semitic imagery relates back to an incident in 2014, kind of around the time when Macklemore was starting to come off the crest of the wave of his success and head back into semi-obscurity. He appeared on stage at a gig in America wearing a wig with a black beard and a witch's nose. To a lot of people, that costume seemed to play on stereotypes of Jewish people. He later apologized, but it is an incident that has kind of dogged him ever since. And as I say, that really contributed in part to him dropping off as a big commercial force. I mean, there were other incidents too.

9:14At the 2012 Grammys, he won a huge hip hop award and beat Kendrick Lamar, who was a newcomer at that point. There was a large backlash to that decision on the Grammys. It kind of played into the viewpoint that historically the Grammys have been a racist organization and that have overlooked black music. And certainly, you know, as a white rapper, did Macklemore have a benefit or a boost over Kendrick Lamar, who comes from Compton in L.A.? But this whole era marks a downturn in his commercial fortunes. And really, like you said, Asma, at the beginning of the show, we haven't heard from Macklemore that much over the last 10 years.

9:54And I think it was a surprise to some people that he was suddenly getting this huge prominent support slot on the Ed Sheeran tour. And this has been the result. OK, so at this point in our story, the backlash is growing. And you mentioned earlier on that Pink gets involved. What is her role in all of this exactly? And who is Pink, very briefly, for those who don't know? So Pink, huge pop star, also performs stadium tours, often swinging off a trapeze while she sings. hits going back to the early 2000s. She wasn't there at the MetLife Stadium gigs where Macklemore made his statements, but obviously saw them on social media and saw what the group Stop Antisemitism had said and amplified their post by reposting it on her Instagram page.

10:44She said later on, by way of explaining her intervention, that she is a Jewish mum and that some of the things that had been said in that stadium made her feel scared for her family. You know, there have been a lot of Jewish groups and pro-Israel groups who've said that even the phrase free Palestine can imply the desire for the extinction of the Israeli state. And that is one interpretation of the phrase. It's not everybody's interpretation of the phrase. But I think in an era where there is heightened fears around violence towards Jewish people, that if you were in a big public stadium of 80 ,000 people and someone starts talking about what they call a genocide in Israel, it could absolutely make you fear for your safety.

11:32And have her fans gone with her on that stance that she's taken? I think some people do support her and some people think that she's stepped over a line and said too much.

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13:38It is curious to me that Macklemore would have been dropped for speaking about Israel, about Gaza, when you say that he performed this song, Hinshall, which is actually from a few years ago. And presumably the people who booked him would have known that. He has been outspoken in his support for Palestinians over the last several years. Is there a sense that Ed Sheeran didn't know that or the venue owners didn't know that prior to this all happening? I would be amazed if Ed Sheeran, who is a friend of McLemore's, was not aware of his continued support for pro-Palestinian causes. He has recorded songs about it.

14:19He has constantly talked about it on stage. It cannot have been a surprise that he'd said what he did on that stage in New Jersey. I think perhaps people were not prepared for the backlash, even though there have been similar criticisms of acts like kneecap when they made pro-Palestinian statements at the Coachella Music Festival two years ago. It seems inconceivable to me that this was not predictable. This has turned into good publicity for him, though, hasn't it? I mean, it looks like he's getting his message out there to many more people than he would have counted on if it just stayed in the stadium, right?

14:56Yeah, there's a bit of Streisand effect to all of this by Robert Kraft intervening and having Macklemore thrown off this tour. He has put a spotlight on what he said. And, you know, that doesn't mean that everybody who hears what Macklemore says will suddenly go, well, I agree with him. But it certainly has thrust the debate back into the mainstream news cycle. Yeah. And we see Bracklemore acknowledge that as much, that in some ways he didn't need 10 shows, he said from Ed. He just needed two to make his point. That's right. He said, from that point of view, this is the most successful tour of my life.

15:32How has Ed Sheeran justified publicly that decision to drop his supposed good friend from his tour? If I can say quite badly, he put out a statement on Tuesday, almost 500 words. and he almost tried to wash his hands of the situation. He was saying this was not my decision. This was the decision of the promoters. I have my personal views on Gaza, but I'm not going to say them on stage. I want my concerts to be a safe haven, a place of solidarity. And obviously I'm aware there are children in the audience, so I don't want to upset them. But it all felt like he was trying to distance himself. and you know I spoke to one crisis PR manager who said this is quite literally the worst statement he could have put out because it just made him seem like he was trying to play both sides of the argument without really backing his friend or condemning him if he had a separate political beef he just wanted to try and remain above it all he's trying to be apolitical in this moment yeah and I'm not sure you can be apolitical because from the very point that you book McLemore, knowing his history of political statements, then you're giving him your stage.

16:47And that seems to a lot of people like an endorsement, whether or not you share those opinions. I mean, one of the things he noted in his statement is that it was not his decision to drop McLemore. Is that accurate? I mean, doesn't an artist as popular and as well known as him, wouldn't they dictate some of their own terms? That's certainly been one of the criticisms. You know, it's interesting in his statement that on the one hand, he said Macklemore asked him if he could be part of the tour and Ed said yes. And then when it was time for him to be kicked off the tour, oh, well, that's not my responsibility.

17:22So do you only hire and you don't fire? I'm not sure that's entirely how it works. And there have been some people, we were speaking to Jem Aswad, who's the music editor at Variety magazine, who said, you know, Ed Sheeran is someone that could have thrown his weight around a little bit here and said, well, if you're not going to let my support act play at these venues well then we just won't come to these venues we'll find somewhere else and we'll put the tour on on our terms now that all very much depends on all of the many many legal contracts that go into staging a tour you know you have a separate agreement with every venue on the tour and there will be cancellation policies within that there will be insurance policies within that if you were to withdraw simply because you didn't like something that the venue had said or a stipulation that they had made, you may end up being the one paying for it.

18:14So, you know, without knowing the intricacies of all of the paperwork that was signed around this huge tour, over a million people going in the next three months, it's hard to be absolutely certain that Ed Sheeran did or did not have the final say. In his statement, if the vibe is, I am apolitical, he's saying, I have views, but I keep them to myself. And that he wants peace, he says. Yes. To what extent does that stand up match up to his previous actions in public? Has he ever taken political stances in the past? He absolutely has, yes. And to be fair to him, most of those political stances have been related to the music industry.

18:56So in the UK in particular, he has lobbied the government on copyright reforms, on the reduced opportunities for British musicians after Brexit, things like that that affect the business that he is part of. But that said, he has endorsed Labour candidates during general elections. For his political candidates. Yeah. One gig at Wembley Stadium wore a T-shirt that said Justice for Grenfell in reference to the disastrous fire that claimed many, many lives in London a couple of years ago. Earlier this year, he recorded a charity song for Ukraine with U2 that was dedicated to the victims of the war in Ukraine.

19:32It is striking because I didn't realize his advocacy so publicly as it pertains to Ukraine. It seems like he is trying to stay quiet in a conflict in which there is so much polarized opinion. And the public doesn't entirely want him to stay quiet, right? I mean, there were over 1 ,000 Israelis killed by Hamas on October 7th. We've seen more than 70 ,000 Palestinians killed. in the subsequent war. We have seen millions of people displaced Palestinians. And being quiet, I think to some people, feels like a political decision in and of itself. I mean, again, I cannot tell you what Ed Sheeran thinks.

20:12But I suppose if you were to contrast Ukraine, where in the West, at least, it is very much seen as a Russian war of aggression, and the Israel-Gaza conflict, where there are people who advocate for both sides, it's a much trickier and thornier debate to get involved in. And it is worth noting that in his statement on Tuesday, Ed Sheeran said he was appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine and the suffering on pain caused on both sides. So he's not necessarily staying completely out of it, but I think he is also aware that this is an issue that divides people, you know, even within families.

20:56And that's a very tricky area to get into if you are someone that is trying to play a concert where 80 ,000 people all come together to celebrate and have a break from the realities of the world. What does all this mean for Ed Sheeran's reputation? Because in the global story scene, we've been watching the story of Macklemore and Ed Sheeran develop over the last 24 hours. And I think probably this time yesterday, it seemed like a Macklemore story. And now it seems firmly to be an Ed Sheeran story. What does this all mean for him? In the short term, it means he's got to go on tour by himself, because every other musician on the tour, apart from Ed Sheeran, has dropped out.

21:40That includes the support act's Phineas, who is Billie Eilish's brother and an incredible artist in his own right. The Danish band, Lucas Graham, an Irish singer-songwriter called Aaron Rowe, who's up and coming and could very much have used the publicity of being on this Ed Sheeran tour. And then as well, he doesn't even have his backing band, the Irish folk band, Beoga, who turn up in the middle of the show to play Galway Girl and other songs with him. And they all said that they did not feel they could continue with this tour while Macklemore was being pushed out. Ed Sheeran is perfectly capable, by the way, of playing a stadium concert by himself.

22:16I've seen him do it. He just turns up with his little three-quarter size guitar and a loop pedal and he layers up the songs and sounds like a full band all by himself. So that's not necessarily a problem. I think the tour will continue. I think he doesn't want to let down fans. He doesn't want to let down the hundreds of people who work behind the scenes that rely on those gigs for their livelihood. I do think it has caused a shift in the way the public perceive him. You know, he is always considered the kind of nice guy of pop. He used to donate his clothes to charity shops. He adopted a rescue kitten.

22:53He used to go and play his songs in old people's homes. He has a charity in the UK that supports music education at a time when the government is making cuts to music education. There is a sense that the way he has handled this has not painted him in a good light. But some of that is coming from people who were predisposed to dislike Ed Sheeran in the first place. I saw one comment online today. Someone said, I'm trying to work out how I can boycott Ed Sheeran's music any more than I already am. Oh, wow. I think there are Ed Sheeran haters who are predisposed to dislike Ed Sheeran and will use this as a very useful tool to beat him with.

23:37I think there are millions of people that listen to Ed Sheeran that are not engaged in politics and do not listen to the news or read blogs or comments on the internet that will not even know that this has happened. But they will turn up to hear, thinking out loud or perfect, the songs they had played at their weddings, the ones that they had played at their school dances, and they will have a blast. He's quite a wedding song type of guy, as you said. He really is, isn't he? All right. On that note, we're going to say thank you, Marthas, for joining us on the show. We have to let you go. You're one of the most in-demand journalists at the BBC today.

24:12Today, yeah. Thank you. Always, Mark. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

24:21Well, Asma, that was an absolutely fascinating conversation with Mark. apart from this question of politics or apolitics in pop, the other big set of questions that all of this has raised for me is the question of freedom of speech, which is a topic that we keep coming back to on The Global Story. When I woke up this morning, I hope you were still asleep at the time because it would have been the middle of the night in Washington, I heard this fascinating interview on the BBC Today programme, which is the kind of start-the-day radio show, between our colleague Justin Webb and a man called Elon Carr of the Israeli-American Council, who were involved as an organization with some of the early criticism of what Macklemore had said.

25:06Here's their conversation. Freedom of speech is sacrosanct in the United States. Of course, we have a First Amendment. But the First Amendment protects people who want to utter their views from censorship or from imprisonment. It doesn't guarantee them a stage in front of 80 ,000 paying concertgoers. But it does guarantee you, doesn't it, the right to say what you want to say. And for instance, the words free Palestine don't necessarily mean, do they, that anything awful should happen to Jewish people or indeed to the state of Israel. They might be talking about a free Palestine alongside a state of Israel.

25:43In other words, he has the right, doesn't he, to say things, provided they're not openly calling for violence and for those things to be heard and people to make up their own minds? The First Amendment and the principle of freedom of speech allows people to say what they want to say, but not anywhere they want to say it. Not, for example, in a classroom with students who can't leave and not in a concert where people have paid to go. He has no right to hijack a stage at a concert. And number two, I beg to differ, free Palestine. And I don't by the way, purport to know Macklemore's intentions, but free Palestine absolutely is a call for the extermination of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.