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Demonstrations take place outside the O2 Forum Kentish Town as punk-rap duo Bob Vylan perform. Photo by Abdullah Bailey\/Alamy<\/p>\nOf the hundred or so policemen who\u2019ve turned out for Bob Vylan in Kentish Town, most are flanking the Israel protest across the road while the Palestine one seems a little more self-contained. Banners bearing Trump slogans, St George crosses and Union Jacks are nestled amid stars of David and placards saying \u201cNo Jew hate\u201d. At the head of the crowd, a black British emcee is playing \u201cLion in Zion\u201d by Bob Marley; he segues into \u201cGod Save the King\u201d, the Israeli national anthem and then, curiously, the Benny Hill theme tune.<\/p>\n
Demonstrations take place outside the O2 Forum Kentish Town as punk-rap duo Bob Vylan perform. Photo by Abdullah Bailey\/Alamy<\/p>\n
The chant goes, \u201cYes! Yes! to the IDF!\u201d Then suddenly, it is over. \u201cWe\u2019re going to leave the lowlifes to do their vile little show. See you again on 29 November [the next national march for Palestine in London], when we will clean the trash again. Enjoy little Pascal Robinson\u2019s show\u2026\u201d Flags are folded neatly away out of respect for the Met. A harried steward, dealing with huge crowds behind the venue, orders, \u201cAnyone with balcony tickets, line up against the wall.\u201d A man in a smoking cap laughs: \u201cWhat, are we going to get shot?\u201d<\/p>\n
Pascal Robinson-Foster \u2013 Bobby Vylan \u2013 takes the stage very late, as stars do, with his drummer, Bobbie Vylan, behind him. He is dressed in blinding white and announces that he will start the show with \u201clight stretching and meditation\u201d (Bobby is a vegan). He touches his toes, reaches high to the sky, then raises his left arm parallel to his body, places his right over his heart, and lifts his knees \u2013 one-two, one-two \u2013 while executing small turns to demonstrate his march from side to side.<\/p>\n
The Manchester Evening News (MEN) recently interpreted this as a Nazi salute, but settled a legal threat from the band. On 1 November the MEN published an apology, accepting the duo\u2019s explanation that the moves were, in fact, \u201ca sun salutation\u201d, and part of a \u201cguided light stretching and meditation\u201d routine at the start of all their shows. Bobby Vylan will sue anyone else who says otherwise, he says on stage in Kentish Town. <\/p>\n
He is very effective at evoking an atmosphere and then turning away from it \u2013 not by straight denial, but with superiority, mild threat and Socratic reasoning: What do YOU think of what I just did? He is organised and endlessly self-referencing: his onstage chat constantly reminds the audience of the various media high points from his tumultuous year. \u201cIs there anyone here who knew who we were before June 28?\u201d he grins, referencing the Glastonbury performance that severed his ties with the BBC. There is a rather gauche moment when he says, \u201cYou might have heard me say this on the Louis Theroux podcast\u2026\u201d Bobby does his own PR. He recalls the moment he said he does not feel at home in the UK and considers himself pan-African.<\/p>\n
A portion of the audience, overwhelmingly white, are many pints in and turned on by hate \u2013 hate as a subversive energy, rather than any real violence, you suspect. It is this section of the crowd, not the duo, who reprise the \u201cDeath to the IDF\u201d chant from Glastonbury several times, and the majority of the audience join in; the girls up on the balcony behind me are doing it too \u2013 a sort of pantomime chant. Vylan never joins in, but he is grinning from ear to ear. He told Theroux he wrote those words because \u201cEnd the IDF\u201d isn\u2019t a rhyme. Some of his songs are brilliant, such as \u201cWe Live Here\u201d from 2020, about racism in a pre-Reform Britain, or \u201cManly Man\u201d, for which he makes all the women come down to the front. But most of the songs have the same rhythm, and he basically performs with a backing track \u2013 a sort of karaoke \u2013 which may need a little fleshing out if he is going to stay in the game.<\/p>\n
Vylan is charismatic, both on stage and in interviews: he\u2019d have a great voice for Shakespeare. I agree with everything he says about unconscious bias and the psychology of racism \u2013 that he\u2019s an easier villain than Kneecap because he\u2019s black. But there is something petulant and self-pitying about his response to the controversy he has stoked, and it is starting to grate. One of the few pop stars from Ipswich, he is at pains to place himself in the lineage of great rappers such as Chuck D (a friend) and Ice-T. He has said that his task \u2013 to bring positive change \u2013 is no different from what Nina Simone and Curtis Mayfield were doing. You suspect that he wants out of his present pariah state and into the rap elite \u2013 who wouldn\u2019t? \u2013 but he isn\u2019t sure what that path looks like. Meanwhile, as with so much in our political culture, there is the figurehead, and there is the power of the crowd and the unconscious forces they are releasing. At the moment, that is the source of his stardom.<\/p>\n
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