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02/07/2025
I wrote off Glastonbury as a ‘white’ festival – until I finally went
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Jason Okundaye |
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Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This weekend I was at Glastonbury reviewing the bands with the Guardian’s music team; it was my second year at the legendary arts and music festival, and I’ve become a total convert, preaching the glory of Worthy Farm after years of assuming that an event like it wasn’t for someone like me. I’ll talk you through some of my reflections on Glasto after the roundup. |
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Weekly roundup |
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 Team work … some of Jamaica’s Black River festival participants, including organiser Ava Eagle Brown, centre. Photograph: VKVISION.TM |
Jamaica’s film industry boom | Our Caribbean correspondent Natricia Duncan visited Black River film festival in Jamaica over the weekend. The festival brought together producers and directors from the US, Europe and Africa to explore collaborations with local film-makers, who are to benefit from major government investment.
Officers in Child Q case dismissed | Two Met officers were dismissed for gross misconduct after a disciplinary hearing found that their strip-search of Child Q, a black teenage girl in east London, was “disproportionate, inappropriate and unnecessary”.
Lesotho PM targets activist for youth | Campaigner Tšolo Thakeli was arrested after posting a video complaining about Lesotho’s unemployment rate. The arrest sparked protests about freedom of expression in the capital, Maseru.
Liberal Afrikaners rebuke Trump | As white South Africans arrive in the US to escape “unjust racial discrimination”, many progressive Afrikaners feel angry at Trump’s false portrayal of them as victims of a “white genocide”.
Africa’s football taskforce | After all the African teams were eliminated at the group stage for the Club World Cup, Fifpro Africa general secretary Kgosana Masaseng has called for a greater focus on raising standards, talent retention and investment.
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In depth: How Black culture belatedly found a home at Worthy Farm |
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 Pioneering … Jay-Z at Glastonbury in 2008 – his lead billing was criticised by some at the time. Photograph: Danny Martindale/WireImage |
In recent years, Glastonbury has come under fire for the perceived whiteness of the event. In 2022, the Black British comedy legend Lenny Henry said in a Radio Times interview that “it’s interesting to watch Glastonbury and look at the audience and not see any Black people there” – even if a Black artist had a key billing. Stormzy’s headline set in 2019, considered one of the most electrifying in Glastonbury’s long history, was the first solo headliner ever by a Black British artist; even festival organiser Emily Eavis seemed embarrassed that it had taken so long.
Much more damaging to Glastonbury’s image, however, was Noel Gallagher’s response to Jay-Z being announced as a headliner for the festival in 2008. The Oasis songwriter called it “wrong”, claiming that hip-hop had no place on Worthy Farm – opinions that he later recanted. When tickets sold slowly for Glastonbury that year, some commentators blamed Jay-Z’s presence on the bill – rather than the terrible weather of the year before. I was only 11 in 2008, but I remember that my parents, hip-hop fans themselves, were infuriated by the backlash. To them, it demonstrated the constraints placed on Black people’s careers, as well as a reminder that, regardless of success or achievement, there were spaces in this country in which we still weren’t welcome.
Certainly, for a long time I had no interest in attending Glastonbury. That’s not so much down to my music taste – I love a lot of pop and rock music, and some of my most anticipated sets last year were Avril Lavigne and Coldplay (for my sins), and this year, Lorde and Charli xcx. If I could travel back in time to catch a set it would be Lana Del Rey in 2023. But there was also this lingering idea that camping and not showering for days just to see live music was “something white people did”.
From Fela Kuti to Beyoncé, the legends that paved the way
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 Maverick … Fela Kuti’s appearance at Glastonbury in 1984 is regarded as one of the festival’s greatest moments. Photograph: Paul Curry/Alamy |
Evidently, Glastonbury’s image as a forum for white, male rock stars still lingers – and a Sunday afternoon slot for Rod Stewart this year, who the day before suggested that the country should embrace Nigel Farage, will have set things back a bit. Yet it has not always been this way. In the 1980s, Glastonbury increasingly became a home for international Black music.
The American “gentle genius” Curtis Mayfield became the first Black headliner at Glastonbury in 1983. That same year, King Sunny Adé became the first Nigerian artist to perform at the festival. The roots reggae band Black Uhuru (who returned to Glastonbury this year after a near four-decade absence) were headliners in 1984. Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti’s Pyramid stage set that year, with 20-piece band Egypt 80, with its storming political messages and confrontations of authority and broken democracy, is widely regarded as one of Glastonbury’s most iconic performances. Since then, Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Beyoncé have served as headliners – Beyoncé defying the same accusations of inauthenticity and non-belonging that her husband did, three years after Jay-Z silenced his critics with a shutdown performance.
Naturally though, Black cultural progress often fluctuates. Last year, our arts and culture correspondent Lanre Bakare wrote that the increase in Black artists at the festival (among them Janelle Monáe, Burna Boy and Little Simz) reflected a “cultural shift”, and that while Black festivalgoers had to work to overcome “psychological barriers”, they were breaking through in order to experience what is surely one of the greatest festivals in the world.
I think that is true for me, too. My approach to Glastonbury is to embrace the eclecticism of its lineup. I attended sets by artists I’ve never heard playing music I’d never usually listen to, that cliche of broadening your horizons. I found myself strangely emotional during what was an odd combination of a minimalist piano performance and then DJ set by Breton composer Yann Tiersen, and then imagined myself smelling alpine plants and orchids in a Yakushima forest during Japanese folk singer Ichiko Aoba’s show.
Glastonbury’s power has always resided in its ability to loosen your inhibitions and transport you to other worlds. However, that does not mean it is a space free from the more undignified strata of British society. One white boy asked if I would “pattern man some loud” (sell him weed); another hit me with a rogue “wagwan?” and fist bumped me; another saw me in my vest and asked “How comes Black people get so hench?” But by and by, these were easy to shrug off as business as usual when living in Britain, rather than expressions of hostility.
A community under canvas
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 A thriving Black community … DJ Chidera in the Black at Glasto space. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images |
I can honestly say that coming to Glastonbury for a second year felt like coming back home. Yes, it is still predominantly white, but there is a thriving and visible Black community: on Saturday, I had the night of my life dancing to Larizzle, one of my favourite DJs, at the Black at Glasto tent at Silver Hayes, a hub for Black culture at Glastonbury launched last year by the community design agency ourppls. I “glamped” so I can’t say that I’ve exactly beaten my aversion to camping, yet there can be little doubt that other Black Britons are embracing life under canvas. There has been a surge of Black birdwatching groups, hiking clubs, skiing trips – a rebuke to the idea that certain activities are “for us” and others aren’t.
The lineup for this year, while perhaps not as stacked as 2024, still offered a banquet of local and international Black talent: Black Uhuru, Ezra Collective, Cymande, Celeste, Doechii. I spoke to Ghanaian-American singer Amaarae, who told me that, as a child, she had watched footage of Amy Winehouse on the West Holts stage, and felt honoured to be performing in the same spot. She added that, though there had been improvements, she had previously viewed the festival as predominantly for white artists. Had she thought she would ever play here? “I definitely thought that one day I was going to be a star, so it was always an aspiration,” she told me. “I didn’t know how, but I knew that I could make it possible for myself.” Truly, there is no greater force against double consciousness than west African self-belief and manifestation.
Nonetheless, Gallagher’s claim that rap had no place at Glastonbury lingered in my mind. Stormzy was the first Black British solo artist to headline, but there hasn’t been one since. AJ Tracey and Pa Salieu were the only Black British rappers on this year’s bill. But then came a twist. Skepta was pulled in at the 11th hour to fill in for an illness-struck Deftones. And in just 30 minutes spitting on the mic, he produced such a thrilling set that you couldn’t help but hope the headline spot is his soon. Let’s just say that if, when Glastonbury returns in 2027, there’s a Skepta and BBK link-up on the Pyramid stage, the streets will be there – by any means necessary.
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What we’re into |
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 Best in class … Quinta Brunson, second from right, and the cast of Abbott Elementary. Photograph: Gilles Mingasson/Disney |
Quinta Brunson’s multi-Emmy-winning school-set comedy Abbott Elementary returns for its fourth season this week. It’s said that “this season’s undercurrent has been an exploration of gentrification as a nearby golf club threatens the school’s amenities”. It’s sure to be timely and brilliant. Jason |
I’m hardly an avid gamer, but I’m enjoying the hype around Relooted, a heist game set in an Afrofuturistic world centred on reclaiming real African artefacts held by countries that have reneged on commitments to return looted objects. The game, from South African studio Nyakop, includes items in the British Museum and New York’s Met. Maya Wolfe-Robinson, editor of Cotton Capital |
I had a delicious apple crumble this weekend, and I’ve been craving hot, fruit-based desserts ever since. Lopè Ariyo’s recipe for a plantain cobbler, drenched in plantain syrup, looks like exactly the kind of indulgence I’m seeking. Jason |
Jerk X Jollof is a night founded in Detroit that aims to create African diasporic unity through amapiano, dancehall and afrobeats with Jamaican jerk and west African jollof rice on the side. It sounds pretty up our street at The Long Wave, so I was excited to see a tour planned that takes in North America, Europe and Africa this year. Maya |
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Black catalogue |
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 ‘Did she really throw the first brick at Stonewall?’ … Marsha P Johnson. Photograph: Barbara Alper/Getty Images |
Constructing a true history of the life of Marsha P Johnson, the American gay liberation activist who campaigned on issues of Aids and the rights of sex workers and transvestites, has proven difficult. This is largely due to some of the prevailing mythologies around her life (did she really “throw the first brick” at Stonewall?), a lack of consensus over her gender identity, and the typical lack of record that can fracture public memory of Black historical figures.
But one step towards resolving this issue has been established by the artist and writer Tourmaline, who has written the | |
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