Photo: Wenn
Emily Eavis has responded to the outcry over Kanye West headlining Glastonbury, and says that she and her father have “no regrets” in their booking decision, despite the unexpected popularity of the petition to cancel his headline slot.
In a piece written for The Guardian, Eavis says: “Ultimately, there is no question in my mind that we have got one of the greatest artists of his generation headlining, and we have no regrets at all about booking him.”
She states that under normal circumstances, she would not even think about commenting on such a story and adding fuel to the fire, but considering how much global attention the petition has garnered, she feels compelled to respond.
“We think the story this year should not be: ‘Why is Kanye coming?’ but: ‘How amazing is it that Kanye is coming?’”, she shares. “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.”
She also points out that she has seen some people commenting that Kanye should not appear at the festival because he is not a “positive role model” or because he is “too self-assured”, but she and her father base their booking decisions on “choosing the best and most challenging musicians on the planet – not by applying some kind of arbitrary morality test.”
It’s also worth noting, as she adds, that many of the signatories on the petition have not purchased tickets to the festival, nor are many of them even from the UK. Plus, the creator of the petition has never actually even attended the festival.
“As the late, great Glastonbury regular Lou Reed said about Kanye: ‘The guy really, really, really is talented. He’s really trying to raise the bar. No one’s near doing what he’s doing, it’s not even on the same planet.’”, she concludes. “And we’ve got him coming to our farm! In rural Somerset! That’s great, right? I certainly can’t wait to see his performance.”
Michael Eavis also had a pretty great response to the Kanye critics - Emily recently posted this picture on Twitter.
— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) March 17, 2015
