Massive Attack have been very vocal about the situation with Gaza – the group have refused to play in Israel since the late ’90s. With that in mind, they have announced an alliance comprised of musicians, hitting out against “intimidations from within” the music business.
On social media, they shared a statement about an alliance of artists who speak out against the Israel-Palestine war, lambasting attempts of censorship, intimidation, festival slot cancellations and more.
They say: “The scenes in Gaza have moved beyond description. We write as artists who’ve chose to use our public platforms to speak out agains the genocide occurring there & the role of the UK Government in facilitating it.”
“Because of our expressions of conscience, we’ve been subject to various intimidations from within our industry (live & recorded) & legally via organised bodies such as UK Lawyers For Israel; whose range of activities has now finally been exposed in a new documentary film projected last night by the Led By Donkeys collective.”
“Having withstood these campaigns of attempted censorship, we won’t standby & allow other artists – particularly those at earlier stages of their careers or in other positions of professional vulnerability – to be threatened into silence or career cancellation. In this spirit, we encourage artists who’ve been placed in this position, or those who now wish to use their platforms to talk about Palestine, but are concerted about industrial or legal repercussions to contact us.”
Speaking to the Guardian Massive Attack added: “This collective action is really about offering some kind of solidarity to those artists who are living day after day in a screen-time genocide, but are worried about using their platforms to express their horror at that because of the level of censorship within their industry or from highly organised external legal bodies, terrifying them and their management teams with aggressive legal actions. The intention is clear and obvious: to silence them.”
Here’s the Led By Donkeys documentary.
The Pop Corporation 
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