It must have come as a surprise to Ed Sheeran when all of his support acts withdrew from the remainder of the US leg of his tour. The American rapper Macklemore had triggered the walkout when he gave an impassioned speech calling for a “free Palestine” on stage and was dropped for doing so. The decision by the remaining acts to drop out in solidarity exposed a deep divide in the modern music industry. Some artists still insist on keeping politics out of music, while others expect music to speak to our perilous times.
After he was dropped, Macklemore wrote that Sheeran’s “typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before”, to which Sheeran responded: “I am not complicit” and “those who come to my shows do not expect a political forum”.
