Here's how Ed Sheeran can find his spine. It starts with Kneecap

In the early days of grime and UK hip hop, artists who wanted to be heard lacked platforms. Pirate radio carried sets across the estates, clash DVDs were copied until the picture barely held, and MP3 tracks moved from phone to phone over Bluetooth. MCs built reputations by word of mouth, but no reliable, quick way existed to access some of the most magical moments of the early culture. That is, until Jamal Edwards launched SBTV.

Edwards filmed rappers on street corners on a camcorder and uploaded the footage to YouTube. SBTV’s audience grew because it was one of the few places to easily access UK grime and hip hop. The street-corner vibe, along with the home-video aesthetic, gave the channel what the mainstream lacked: authenticity.

This is where Ed Sheeran launched his career in 2010. His track ‘You Need Me, I Don't Need You’ quickly went viral, and the rest is history. Sheeran has acknowledged just how much SBTV changed his life.

Ironically, the very platform that propelled Sheeran to fame was built from below by artists who weren’t afforded space on mainstream channels. It featured testimony from the otherwise ignored, and the impact was transformative. As bell hooks put it, "within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture ".

The testimony of disenfranchisement can only go so far, though: to the point of actually accusing a perpetrator. Mainstream consumption wants to hear these stories but doesn’t want the systems of disenfranchisement named. In the case of Palestine, it’s the genocide perpetrated by Israel. This is where Sheeran now finds himself embroiled.

Controlling the acceptable

Sheeran built his career on a platform meant to give voice to people the mainstream would not host, and now he performs in rooms where the absence of that same voice is a condition of entry. The tragedy is not that he betrayed anything; it is that by the time you can fill a stadium, you no longer own the stage.

This was proven once again when Sheeran’s US Loop Tour was set to begin. Rapper Macklemore was removed from the line-up after the stadium owners warned that the shows would not take place if he performed. This followed his calls for a ‘Free Palestine’ at a prior show in New Jersey.

Sheeran’s apology, which came only after the backlash and once every remaining support act had withdrawn in solidarity with Palestinians, was also rightly criticised as carefully curated and as equivocating between both sides.

There was also an interesting admission nestled in Sheeran’s statement. Reportedly, it wasn’t just Robert Kraft but operators of other venues too: David Tepper, Arthur Blank and Jeffrey Lurie, who also pressured Sheeran to drop Macklemore.

The obvious point is that those with power and ownership get to dictate who gets access to their venues; they are the landlords, and the rest of us compete for media real estate to argue our views. It goes beyond simply allowing or banning free speech; these owners get to decide what is political and apolitical.

The framing creates a category with only one occupant; ergo, politics becomes whatever the landlords don’t already agree with. Macklemore, and anyone whose politics dissent, can be prevented from entering the venue with impunity. Not because they infringed free-speech laws (or any other laws) but because they didn’t agree to the house rules, which were never written down to begin with.

It is a secret menu of acceptability, coded into a culture that consumes stories from people at the bottom, refuses the ones that implicate anyone at the top, and calls the result universal.

Don’t mention genocide

During the last few years of Israel’s most recent genocide in Gaza, the backlash against artists who refused to ‘stay in line’ has been fierce and relentless.

For example, in 2025, Cornell University withdrew its invitation to Kehlani to headline its annual celebratory event, Slope Day, after pressure over her support for Palestine. This time, the enforcer was an institution that exists for debate. The language used to silence the artists was shrouded in ‘student safety’ and ‘belonging’.

That same month, Irish hip-hop band Kneecap projected messages about Gaza during their Coachella set. The British state responded with a counter-terrorism investigation; it charged one of the artists, Mo Chara, over a Hezbollah flag displayed at a London gig; festival appearances were subsequently withdrawn on police advice; and the musicians were banned from entering Hungary. The charge was eventually dismissed and the High Court rejected the prosecution's appeal in March 2026.

Bob Vylan was another band that received the weight of punishment reserved for artists who dared address the Gaza genocide when they led a chant about the IDF at Glastonbury Festival. Their American visas were revoked, their agency dropped them, and festivals removed them from bills. This is despite the fact that the artists were never charged with anything over their statements.

Of course each case of repression differs. For example, Kneecap's case involved a proscribed organisation's flag, which is a question of law rather than taste. Macklemore said that opposition to genocide is not an attack on Jewish people and called for a Free Palestine. They differ enormously in content, yet they barely differ in consequence.

A university, a government, a talent agency and stadium owners independently arrived at the same remedy, which was removal, and the severity of that remedy bore almost no relationship to the severity of the artists’ actions. Nobody organised this. There was no meeting. That is what makes it a structure rather than a conspiracy, and why the useful question isn't who gave the order, but what the limit is protecting.

Ed Sheeran went on stage in Philadelphia with no support act in sight. While he often performs alone on stage, this time the empty stage was not his choice. In some sort of cosmic symmetry, it mirrored his viral performance on SBTV, both performances were just Sheeran and his guitar. The former launched his career; the latter is putting serious strain on it; the loop, it turns out, closes (pun fully intended).

Beyond the obvious image of the empty stage, though, is the deeper point: when the people who supplied the room's meaning withdraw, what's left is the building. The art is hollow without our contributions.

It is worth remembering what the industry is actually selling. Not the stadiums, not the lighting rigs, not the sponsorship. It is selling stories, and the stories came from below.  So, the question the Macklemore affair leaves us with is not what the landlords will permit. It is what we are prepared to give them.

Whether we follow the artists who walked off the tour or the stage they walked away from. Whether we pay for testimony in the rooms that let them finish the sentence, or in the ones that cut it short. Whether the next Jamal Edwards builds a room of his own, and whether we turn up to fill it. The choice is ours.

A cultural and economic boycott directed towards the venues and artists who don’t clearly stand with Palestine is achievable and effective. Just look at the cultural boycott of South Africa during apartheid. The stories we tell were never the industry's to begin with. They were lent, and a loan can be recalled.

Nadeem Dawud studied History at Oxford and King’s College London, where he completed a Master’s in World History and Cultures. His interests lie in decolonialism, anarchism, and building resilient communities. A long-time activist in the UK Muslim community, he now focuses on grassroots projects that speak locally but resonate globally, and he co-hosts the Boys in the Cave podcast.

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