As Eurovision approaches: where are all the protest singers?

Ahead of Eurovision and calls for Bambie Thug and other artists to boycott the competition, Suzanne Harrington wonders if protest singers are a dying breed

Bambie Thug performing Doomsday Blue wins The Late Late Eurosong Special to represent Ireland in Malmö, Sweden in May of this year at the 68th Eurovision Song Contest. Photo Andres Poveda

As the Eurovision looms, the sugary pop event has been poisoned by the presence of Israel. 

Unlike Russia, Israel has not been excluded from the competition, despite its ongoing massacre of Palestinian civilians. 

The refusal of the contest’s organisers to disqualify Israel places pressure on individual artists from other participating countries — do they boycott or turn up?

In March, Irish entrant Bambie Thug, alongside artists representing Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, San Marino, and Portugal issued a joint communication, stating it was “important [for] us to stand in solidarity with the oppressed and communicate our heartfelt wish for peace, an immediate lasting ceasefire and the return of all hostages”.

Thug added: “As an Irish person with a shared history of occupation and a queer individual, I cannot and will not remain silent.” 

However, their refusal to outright boycott the competition continues to frustrate many. In April, more than 400 Irish artists signed a letter urging the Cork act to pull out. But at least they said something.

Unlike Bono, who has remained extraordinarily silent as Gaza is bombed to dust. 

Paul David Hewson, known by his stage name Bono, speaks with Cathedral Canon historian Jon Meacham at the Washington National Cathedral, Monday, Dec. 5, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

So much so that on February 12, Irish musician David Kitt wrote him an open letter via Instagram. At the time, U2 were still weeks from concluding a 40-date residency in Las Vegas, grossing $244.5m.

“Dear Bono,” wrote Kitt. “Your activism had a massive impact on me as a young kid. I joined Amnesty International because of you….” 

He had a question for his hero. “I just can’t fathom how you don’t use your platform to call for a ceasefire…. what would your dear friend Nelson Mandela have to say? …. He’d be as perplexed and saddened by your silence as I am.”

Meanwhile, vocal anti-famine campaigner Bob Geldof has remained entirely schtum on the famine in Gaza. 

While voicing concerns in a 2022 Euronews interview about “using food as a weapon”, he was referring to Vladimir Putin. 

In 2011, Geldof accepted an honorary degree from an Israeli university in acknowledgement of his work raising awareness of famine in Africa. He has not, as far as I know, handed it back.

Mick Flannery, singer and musician, one of those to withdraw from this year's SXSW festival

BIG NOISE FROM THE UNDERGROUND

Such silence from these former social justice Goliaths contrasts keenly with the big noise made by all the smaller Irish bands who boycotted the South by South West (SXSW) music festival in Texas recently, because it was sponsored by the US military and weapons manufacturers linked to the Gaza genocide. 

All 12 Irish acts — Kneecap, Sprints, Soda Blonde, Gurriers, Mick Flannery, New Dad, Gavin James, Cardinals, Robert Grace, Chalk, Enola Gay, Conchur White — pulled out in protest.

“I do not wish to be associated with weapons manufacturers,” Flannery commented.

In February, the Belfast hip hop trio Kneecap, despite RTÉ’s policy of political neutrality, made a visual statement on The Late Late Show in February — a display of the Palestinian colours — as one of the group, Mo Chara, said: “We’re here to use our platform to highlight the genocide happening in Gaza.”

They issued a longer statement explaining their decision to boycott SXSW, as did Soda Blonde, whose guitarist said it had been a “big deal” for the band to be invited to the festival, before discovering several days before flying to Texas the involvement of the military and weapons manufacturers. 

They talked for four hours and realised staying away was, “for us personally… the only decision we could make.”

Soda Blonde: withdrawing from SXSW was "the only decision [they] could make"

The Irish musicians who boycotted SXSW were some of the 115 acts and five labels — out of a total of around 1,500 acts — to pull out of the nine-day arts festival. 

Their stance had little impact on the event, which carried on as normal. Nine-tenths of the performers turned up, unperturbed at being sponsored by missiles.

Are protest singers — or even just singers who use their music to occasionally protest — like old-school rock stars, becoming a dying breed? A thing of the past? 

Is hip-hop the only genre to consistently tackle wider social issues — “the CNN of Black America”, as Public Enemy’s Chuck D memorably put it — as everyone else now sings earnestly about themselves, their personal development, their personal journey, their personal empowerment?

These days, mainstream music seems mostly about me-me-me rather than us-us-us. 

Is this because mainstream musicians are too afraid of being deplatformed? Of offending already polarised listeners? For successful, high-profile artists, is it better to keep your wealthy head down? 

Is it fair to expect artists to be political — or unfair of them not to be?

IS SILENCE COMPLICITUDE?

Billionaire Taylor Swift won’t perform in Israel, but won’t speak out either. 

While she reportedly attended a fundraiser for Palestinian aid in New York last December, she has not used her global platform to speak out. Beyoncé, whom for many embodies liberation and empowerment, has not issued any statements either, although in 2015 cancelled performances in Israel, citing logistical issues.

Other musicians who are not keen to perform in Israel include Coldplay, Lana del Rey, Neil Young, Backstreet Boys, Dua Lipa, Zayn Malik, Lauryn Hill, Faithless, Lorde, Elvis Costello and the 80-year-old Pink Floyd guitarist Roger Waters. 

Those who have performed include Radiohead, who said that playing in a country is not an endorsement of the country’s government, and Nick Cave, who said he was “taking a principled stand” against censorship of musicians. 

Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, and Macy Gray have also performed there, although Gray said that in hindsight she regretted her decision.

Perhaps the most comparable instance of musicians saying yes or no to performing in problematic places was in the early 1980s in apartheid South Africa. 

In 1985, Artists United Against Apartheid released Sun City, a track which included a wide range of artists from Bob Dylan to Run DMC, Keith Richards to George Clinton to Bonnie Raitt — and Bono and Bob Geldof.

Not everyone abstained from playing Sun City, the whites-only luxury resort which opened in 1979; Liza Minnelli, Rod Stewart, Beach Boys, Linda Ronstadt, Cher, Status Quo and Queen all performed there, ignoring an unofficial cultural boycott.

“The band is not political. We play to anyone who wants to come and listen,” Queen’s guitarist Brian May said in 1984, suggesting a lack of comprehension on how apartheid worked. 

Frank Sinatra was paid $2m for a weekend’s work at Sun City — the same amount was turned down by Stevie Wonder, Ella Fitzgerald, and Tony Bennett. 

Meanwhile in 1980, Peter Gabriel released Biko, in honour of the South African activist Steve Biko, murdered aged 30 by Afrikaner police, and in 1984, the Special AKA released Free Nelson Mandela, which became a global anti-apartheid anthem and was played at ANC rallies in South Africa.

But is meaningful protest music all in the past? 

PRIVATE GIGS FOR DICTATORS

While the era of Pete Seeger’s ‘We Shall Overcome’, Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ is long gone, a handful of American 20th-century protest singers carry on. 

Willie Nelson is still touring at 90, as is Neil Young aged 79, although 83-year-old Joan Baez has hung up her guitar. 

The most articulate of them all — Nina Simone — is long dead, as is her predecessor Billie Holiday and her haunting Strange Fruit. 

Also gone is Gil Scott-Heron, whose revolution was never televised. 

Tracy Chapman disappeared for decades, as did Patti Smith. And the Dixie Chicks were cancelled, pre-internet, for criticising George W Bush, sometime before Beth Ditto’s band Gossip belted out Standing In The Way of Control. 

Bruce Springsteen’s widely misinterpreted protest song Born In The USA was used by Donald Trump, much to The Boss’ horror, while Green Day amended the lyrics of American Idiot for the MAGA crowd.

It’s not easy to make a living as a musician — to expect hard-working up-and-comers to render themselves invisible for their principles is asking a lot. 

But, perhaps we can instead request a special place in hell for the private-jet gang who do private gigs for dictators. 

In 2013, J-Lo performed for the dictator of Turkmenistan, the same year Kanye West was paid $3m to perform for the dictator of Kazakhstan.

But the gold prize goes to Sting, once keen on human rights and environmentalism, who in 2009 performed for the dictator of Uzbekistan, an individual known for boiling his enemies. Sting justified his move by dismissing cultural boycotts as “pointless gestures”. 

Tickets to his concert cost 45 times the average Uzbek monthly salary, and he was paid $1m. 

His friends Bob and Bono remain unavailable for comment.