Organisers defend booking rapper investigated for antisemitic tweets at popular Bucks festival

A popular annual festival in Buckinghamshire has defended the decision to add the rapper Wiley to its 2024 line-up.

PennFest organisers have defended adding the man behind ‘Wearing My Rolex’ to their 2024 line-up.

As one of the pioneering and best known artists in the Grime genre, Wiley, was one of the most popular acts in the UK in the late 2010s. But a series of tweets sent in 2020, completely altered his career trajectory.

He was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, after posting a number of comments considered antisemitic by the social media sites.

Among the inflammatory remarks the 44-year-old made was a tweet comparing Jewish people to the Ku Klux Klan. In other posts people of Jewish descent were described as “cowards” and “snakes”. He was dropped by his management company, A-List Management, in the summer of 2020 with his former manager announcing the company had cut all ties with the musician.

A criminal Metropolitan Police investigation into the language used by Wiley was dropped by the force after it was discovered that his tweets were sent in the Netherlands.

Taking place in the village Penn, Wiley is scheduled to appear on a three-day line-up which includes a number of high profile stars in the world of entertainment. This year’s headliners, for the festival taking place between 19 and 21 July are former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft, pop superstar Jess Glynne, and British music icon Paul Weller. Television star Gok Wan, beloved ex-Eastenders actor Shaun Williamson, and popular children’s television presenters Dick and Dom are also performing.

Pennfest organisers said: “Pennfest under no circumstances supports racist or antisemitic comments made by any artist. Wiley publicly apologised for his comments in 2020 and has assured PennFest he is strongly against racism of all kinds.”

Most-recently the former star of the UK rap scene, who has released singles that reached the top of the UK’s official chart, made headlines when the Metropolitan Police released an appeal to find his whereabouts.

In May 2022 he was wanted by police in London for no-showing a court case six months earlier. He later admitted to assaulting an emergency worker, failing to surrender to custody, damaging a property, and burglary with the intent to cause damage. He was given a combined five-month suspended jail sentence.

Concerned Bucks Herald reader Oliver Bowling said: “I was shocked to see that someone with a history of making antisemitic comments had been booked for a festival when it is well known that there has been a recent rise in hate crimes. I tried to make contact on Instagram but my message raising the issue wasn't responded to, which is why I thought I'd bring it to the attention of the newspaper.”

As mentioned by PennFest’s organisers, Wiley apologised for the tweets that got him booted off social media in 2020. In an interview with Sky News he said: "My comments should not have been directed to all Jews or Jewish people. I want to apologise for generalising, and I want to apologise for comments that were looked at as antisemitic."