Glastonbury 2019: Stormzy gets crowd to shout 'F**k Boris' on live BBC TV
The star is known for utilising his live performances as a stage for political protest, including his memorable freestyle rap during last year’s Brit Awards
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Your support makes all the difference.Stormzy‘s headlining set at Glastonbury, which aired live on the BBC, saw the crowd chant along to the words “F**k Boris”, in reference to Boris Johnson, the frontrunner to succeed Theresa May as the prime minister of the UK.
The statement is part of the lyrics to the rapper’s track “Vossi Bop”, released in April of this year, which sees him declare: “I’ll never die, I’m Chuck Norris/F**k the government and f**k Boris”.
It was one of the few overtly political statements of the set, although The Independent‘s Jazz Monroe wrote: “But to look for outright polemic misses the point. From the disarming ballet suite to footage of grainy street spats on the video screen, the set seeks to erase the binary between those people of colour deemed, by the ruling class, to be acceptable and those not.”
“Some illustrious guests (Dave and Fredo also feature) and a buttoned-up live band can’t hide that this set was pure, uncompromising Stormzy – a grime masterclass from an astonishingly versatile performer who, it seems, can do anything he pleases.”
The BBC previously confirmed in a statement that the set would be “broadcast live on BBC2 post-watershed with the appropriate language warnings, in accordance with the BBC’s editorial guidelines.
The star is known for utilising his live performances as a stage for political protest, including his memorable freestyle rap during last year’s Brit Awards, in which he condemned Theresa May for her response to the Grenfell tragedy.
“Yo Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell?” he asked. “What, you thought we just forgot about Grenfell? You criminals and you’ve got the cheek to call us savages/ You should do some jail time, you should pay some damages/ You should burn your house down and see if you can manage this.”
Glastonbury continues today with sets from Janet Jackson, Johnny Marr, Chemical Brothers, Maggie Rogers, Lewis Capaldi, Liam Gallagher, and The Killers.
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