In 2003, the Dixie Chicks faced boycotts, radio bans and death threats<\/a> after Natalie Maines criticised George W Bush over Iraq. What sets Sheeran apart is that he did not say the controversial thing himself \u2013 someone he chose to put on his stage did. Choosing Macklemore was not the same as endorsing everything he says. But Macklemore\u2019s politics are not incidental to who he is.<\/p>\nEd Sheeran\u2019s people knew that Macklemore\u2019s music was \u2018explicitly political\u2019, says Billy Bragg. Photograph: Isabel Infantes\/Reuters<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can\u2019t say: \u2018I didn\u2019t know Macklemore was going to do that\u2019,\u201d said Billy Bragg, who has spent decades making explicitly political music. \u201cMacklemore has been speaking out about Palestine and the war in Gaza for quite some time now. His song Hind\u2019s Hall and its accompanying video are a central aspect of his set. Ed\u2019s people must have seen that on every other night of the tour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephen Millar, the author of Sounding Dissent, calls it \u201ca maelstrom partly of Sheeran\u2019s own making\u201d. Sheeran had chosen an artist whose politics were well established, he said. \u201cBy doing that you could say that was his effort to the cause. But to pull that back is almost like wanting your cake and eating it.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Hesmondhalgh, a professor of media, music and culture at the University of Leeds, said while artists should not be compelled to take a position on everything, \u201cSheeran arguably gains credibility from associating himself with an act like Macklemore whose star persona is based on strong political commitments \u2026 So his declarations of neutrality look a bit spineless\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018A real S-storm\u2019<\/p>\n
The episode also points to a broader shift in what people expect of celebrities. Social media and the sheer weight of feeling over Gaza have made the old split between public image and private politics much harder to hold. \u201cIf you\u2019re not using your platform, you\u2019re seen as doing something wrong,\u201d Millar said.<\/p>\n
At the same time, artists have become proxies for arguments much bigger than themselves. Lynskey pointed to figures such as Gal Gadot and Mark Ruffalo, who have become stand-ins for opposing sides of the Israel-Palestine debate. \u201cThere is this sort of proxy war fought out with celebrities. People have been protesting for almost three years and it doesn\u2019t seem to have made any difference, so I think they\u2019re getting more and more angry and frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro made a similar point to CNN: \u201cThere\u2019s an increasing antipathy towards Israel, regardless of left or right, and popular culture gives people a way in \u2013 they\u2019re not talking about what\u2019s happening in Congress, but this they can understand.\u201d She pointed to a second layer, too: \u201cBoth the left and right feel like they don\u2019t have control over their free speech \u2026 today there\u2019s a perception that pro-Palestinian voices get censored. So it\u2019s become a real S-storm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celebrities like the actor Gal Gadot, pictured, and Mark Ruffalo have become proxies in the Israel-Palestine debate. Photograph: Amazon MGM Studios<\/p>\n
Lisa Nandy, the UK culture secretary, said she had \u201cenormous sympathy\u201d for Sheeran, calling his position \u201creally difficult and impossible\u201d \u2013 he wanted to platform his support acts, she said, while promoters were warning himthey would cancel shows over politics on stage.<\/p>\n
Bragg also acknowledged the practical realities. \u201cUndoubtedly Ed has contractual obligations, and he\u2019d get sued and it would cost him money,\u201d he said. \u201cI can understand it.\u201d But he believes Sheeran could have drawn a cleaner line between defending Macklemore\u2019s right to speak and endorsing every word of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t have to come out and say \u2018free Palestine\u2019. Put purely on the grounds of free speech, he can say an artist must be able to express their view. He needs to let people know how he feels about billionaires deciding what can and can\u2019t be said from a stage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, someone like Kanye West should be banned because of the antisemitic things he\u2019s said. But drawing attention to the suffering of civilians in Gaza is not a reason to lose your gig. Culture has to entertain, but it can also challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The point found an echo on the American left. \u201cWhen you see what Robert Kraft did, to line up all of the stadiums to censor speech in that one specific way, it\u2019s become clear this isn\u2019t about one or two music artists \u2013 it\u2019s about how a handful of stadium owners and the elite can bury an entire massive issue. In this case, the genocide in Gaza,\u201d Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told TMZ. \u201cWe need to be very clear about how dangerous a precedent this is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lynskey worries about the wider lesson. \u201cAre you just going to vet your support act for politics? Is the lesson that big artists learn that you don\u2019t book anybody who might be a bit spicy? That would be terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taking a stand<\/p>\n
Sheeran is due back onstage at Philadelphia\u2019s Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday \u2013 with no support acts and no band. \u201cI can\u2019t think of a clear precedent where a star of that size has been put in that kind of situation because of support acts,\u201d Lynskey said. It\u2019s a sharp contrast to his last tour, one of the best-attended of all time; this time thousands of tickets sit unsold, some going for $65 online. Classic Hits Radio in Ireland has dropped him from its playlist \u201cfor the foreseeable future\u201d, citing listener reaction.<\/p>\n
Finneas is among the musicians who have pulled out from the Loop tour, leaving Sheeran to perform alone. Photograph: Jerod Harris\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Ireland, rebel songs were used to resist against British occupation for centuries, so the fact that Sheeran makes so much of his Irishness makes his stance all the more jarring,\u201d Millar said.<\/p>\n
Sheeran has tried to answer the controversy on his own terms: through money instead of words. Macklemore has pledged $1m of his Loop tour earnings to humanitarian organisations in Gaza; Sheeran and Kraft have each promised $2m for \u201caid in the region\u201d. It is a way of showing he cares about the human cost without making any overt political statements \u2013 but whether it satisfies the people who wanted him to speak is another matter.<\/p>\n
Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Independent Veterans of America, who was inside MetLife Stadium with his two young children on the night of Macklemore\u2019s statement, told CNN Sheeran might be better placed than most to do some good here: \u201cMaybe Ed Sheeran is the person who can actually bring people together around this. But it\u2019s not going to be by throwing Macklemore under the bus or by appeasing Bob Kraft.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bragg said: \u201cBy trying to be Mr Nice Guy and not take sides, he\u2019s in danger of becoming a pariah himself. And that would be a shame, because it\u2019s not his fault. He does need to make a choice here, and it\u2019s one I think that will define him in the eyes of the public for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ed Sheeran has long been known as the \u201cMr Nice Guy\u201d of music. His is an unthreatening kind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-852991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}