Meet the Vylan: Censorship, Solidarity, and the Price of a Punk Chant

The Bob Vylan Controversy and the Ethical Inconsistencies it Exposes

“Death, death to the IDF!,” called out the front man of a UK-based rap-punk duo named Bob Vylan as his band’s June 28, 2025 set was broadcast live by the BBC. “Death, death to the IDF!,” called back thousands of fans attending England’s Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts.

Earlier in the day, the Associated Press reported that dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes launched overnight and into the morning in Gaza. The grim death count grew to at least 72 people. “Three children and their parents were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent camp in Muwasi,” the Associated Press reported. Relatives told journalists the family was killed in their sleep.

Of these two events—a music festival performance, on the one hand, and a relentless airstrike campaign killing 72, on the other—only one led the United Kingdom to launch a criminal investigation, the United States to revoke visas, and the BBC to issue a public condemnation. The musical performance. And that selective outrage offers us insight into the weaponization of censorship and the moral inconsistency of those ostensibly opposed to violence. For it seems that some in political power believe that words are more dangerous than bombs or, more simply, that some lives are more important than others.

Repression: Criminalizing Dissent

The Bob Vylan duo took the Glastonbury stage in front of a black backdrop with white writing read, “United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a ‘conflict’.” After performing “Pretty Songs,” a raucous ode to forcefully combating systemic oppression, vocalist, Pascal Robinson-Foster, who goes by Bob, joined the crowd in chanting “Free, free Palestine.” A few chants in, Bob pivoted sharply, “Alright, but have you heard this one?” The next chant— “Death, death to the IDF”—rocked Glastonbury and shook the political establishment, as thousands roared back the condemnatory chant, “Death, death to the IDF.”

One of two Bobs of the duo, Bob Vylan, performing before a Palestinian flag, at the Glastonbury Festival, June 28, 2025

Bob Vylan’s provocative chant against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) drew immediate scorn and rebuke. The UK police quickly launched a “criminal investigation” into the group's performance. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the chant as “appalling hate speech,” and the BBC issued an apology for broadcasting what it deemed “antisemitic sentiments.”

The antisemitism accusation collapses against the vividly anti-Nazi message of the song performed before the contentious anti-IDF chant. In “Pretty Songs,” Bob declares that he's no pacifist when it comes to racists, and that he won't be swayed from “punching Nazis.”

The British row occurred one day after the BBC singled out Irish hip-hop trio, Kneecap, announcing they would not broadcast the group’s Glastonbury performance. Kneecap has outspokenly supported Palestinians against the Israeli siege. Celebrity and festival promoter, Sharon Osborne, called for the trio’s U.S. visas to be revoked after they condemned Israel’s onslaught against the Palestinians during their second set at the 2025 Coachella music festival. During the set, Kneecap member Mo Chara noted that the Irish were “persecuted at the hands of the Brits” not long ago but were spared the indignity of being bombed from the sky. “The Palestinians have nowhere to go.”

Two months later Kneecap member, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, was arrested for purportedly displaying the flag of Hezbollah, an organization deemed a terrorist organization by the UK government.

Earlier in Bob Vylan's Glastonbury set, before leading the crowd in the incendiary IDF chant, the duo’s vocalist dedicated their social justice fight song, “Pretty Songs,” to artists including Kneecap facing backlash over Palestinian solidarity.

Though the U.S. State Department opted against revoking Kneecap’s visas, they swiftly revoked Bob Vylan’s following the Glastonbury show. Breaking with standard policy, the State Department publicly announced the cancellation of the group’s visas. “Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country,” they explained in a social media post.

Earlier in the year, the class-conscious duo visited the U.S. to play at Coachella. The cancelation of their visas means Bob Vylan is barred from joining grandson, known for lending vocals to the class solidarity anthem, “Hold the Line,” for a U.S. tour of cities including Chicago, Detroit, New York, Seattle, and Boston scheduled for fall of 2025.

Following their performance, the militant anti-racist and anti-capitalist group responded to the controversy and backlash with a statement issued on social media. “We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people,” wrote Bob Vylan. The target of their chant was not any particular ethnic group, but “a violent military machine” responsible for destroying “much of Gaza” and killing “innocent civilians waiting for aid.”

As the U.S. and UK governments seek to suppress the artistic-political expression of Bob Vylan, they are actively shielding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from prosecution for ordering and supervising war crimes and a campaign in Gaza that the United Nations Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices and Amnesty International determined constitutes a ”genocide.”

Just three days before Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz reported that Israeli soldiers were ordered to use unnecessary lethal force to disperse starving Palestinians waiting to receive aid. This despite posing no threat to the soldiers. One soldier told the paper, “We fired machineguns from tanks and threw grenades. There was one incident where a group of civilians was hit while advancing under the cover of fog.”

One week after banning Bob Vylan, the U.S. government welcomed Benjamin Netanyahu to dinner at the White House. It was Netanyahu’s third visit to Washington in seven months despite an outstanding warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu and former defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024 for using starvation as a method of warfare along with crimes against humanity including murder.

Western government's punishment of Bob Vylan and enabling of Netanyahu reveals jarring moral inconsistency. The U.S. and UK forcefully police political discourse directed at a foreign nation’s military. Meanwhile, the U.S. opens the doors to the White House to a man leading a military perpetuating crimes against humanity. Italy, France, and Greece neglect their duty as signatories of the Rome Statue to arrest Netanyahu given his outstanding ICC arrest warrants by allowing that same man to fly over their airspace on his way to the U.S.. As Bob Vylan expressed in their public statement following Glastonbury, their band is “not the story” but “a distraction” from the inaction of those in power to end the killing and starving of Palestinians.

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Resistance: When Repression Amplifies Art

Though Bob Vylan wished to keep the focus on Palestinian suffering, media outlets were quick to spotlight the controversy and band’s apparent fall from grace.

Mainstream media accounts suggest that Bob Vylan’s defiant Glastonbury performance has been the death knell of the duo’s career. On July 4th, Newsweek published a story titled “Bob Vylan’s Career has Been Destroyed By Glastonbury Performance: Experts.” The publication cited a London-based public relations expert claiming the duo’s career is “looking increasingly unlikely” to recover following their chant against the Israeli military. But Spotify and UK music charts tell a different story.

Curiously omitted from Newsweek’s story is the fact Bob Vylan’s following on Spotify surged from 273,000 monthly listeners to more than 520,000 in fewer than 10 days following the Glastonbury performance. The group has nearly 600,000 followers as of July 11, 2025.

The duo was dropped from shows in Germany, France, and Manchester’s Radar Festival. But they were not disinvited from the Release Athens festival, in Greece, where they performed just days after being condemned by UK and U.S. officials. The group’s defiant expression also inspired Dublin bands The Scratch and Hero In Error to withdraw from the Radar Festival in solidarity with Bob Vylan. Other artists including English trio Massive Attack have spoken out in support of the duo’s opposition to Israel’s war against the Palestinians.

Far from “destroying” the group’s career, the Glastonbury controversy has catapulted Bob Vylan’s latest album past Drake, Tyler the Creator, and Kendrick Lamar on the UK charts. According to Official Charts, the duo’s 2024 album, Humble as the Sun, reached number one on the UK hip-hop and R&B albums chart with Kneecap’s album, Fine Art following closely behind at 5th. Humble as the Sun also reached 7th on the Downloads Chart and 8th on the Independent Albums Chart.

Both Bobs of Bob Vylan just before taking the stage at Glastonbury Festival, June 28, 2025. Photo via Bob Vylan.

If musical careers are at least partly measured by the number of people listening to their music, then far from being destroyed, the group's career seems to have been all but launched. Two of Bob Vylan's prior albums have also made the Independent Albums Chart. Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life (2022) took the 40th position and We Live Here (2021) climbed to 61, its highest position ever.

We Live Here includes a song of the same name that is the group’s best known and most listened to (well over 5 million plays). The song is a frenetic attack on racism in which the singer recounts being viewed as an outsider in the UK— “go back to your own country!”—despite being part of the community — “we live here!”

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The group’s latest album, Humble as the Sun, features anti-misogynist anthem “He’s a Man” that ridicules patriarchal masculinity—“Yeah, he's a man (Yeah) / Till you say something he don't like and all his toys are out the pram”¹—and anti-feminist backlash—“The G-Spot don't exist mate, that's just feminist propaganda.”

The Price of Life features previously mentioned “Pretty Songs,” the headbanging jungle track, “Wicked and Bad,” fusing hip-hop, reggae, and bass, and a biophilic call to dietary action, “Health is Wealth.” “The killing of kids with £2 chicken and chips / Is a tactic of war, waged on the poor,” raps Bob, challenging listeners not to fall prey to the self-destructive harms of fast and processed foods. The group calls us to opt for quick and affordable whole food plant-based alternatives like “lentils and chickpea curry” to enhance wellbeing and combat climate change.

The duo’s chart-topping success registers support for Palestinian dignity. It may also suggest the resonance of class conscious songs like “Hunger Games,” from Humble as the Sun. The song, which the group closed their Glastonbury performance with, describes the hardships of living in poverty and the struggle to earn enough money for the necessities of life.

In a world where the poor are invited to address material depredation through reality TV competition, lotto ticket gambling, and “dog-eat-dog” internecine competition, Bob Vylan urges poor, marginalized, and other working people to resist self-defeating nihilism—to refuse to play the game.

“Alright, alright
What will you win yourself tonight?
Spin the wheel for the chance of a hot meal
Alright, alright
Spin the wheel for a deal, you might win a hot meal.”

Rather than adapting to unjust social norms, Bob Vylan beckons his brethren to love themselves and band together, to revolt against the commodification of their suffering.

“For the love of payment
The worst days of our lives will provide great entertainment
But I won't tune in
And watch us chase it
We're made for more
I say we take it.”

The song closes with an Alan Watts’ styled poetic recitation that deserves to be quoted at length. It begins with a radical rejection of personal identity formed around the wages working people receive within a capitalist economic system.

“You are more than your take home pay
Making barely enough to make it through the day
I know, I know, I know…
You are more than your ability to earn.”

In The Sane Society (1955), Erich Fromm wrote that workers within capitalism define themselves through an alienated “marketing orientation.” Through this lens, we see ourselves not as human beings primarily defined by our capacity for creativity, love, thought, experience, and authentic relation to the world. Instead, “man experiences himself as a thing to be employed successfully on the market.” We are defined in relation to our “socio-economic role” and base our value on how much we can sell our labor for.

“His sense of value depends on his success: on whether he can sell himself favorably, whether he can make more of himself than he started out with, whether he is a success. His body, his mind and his soul are his capital, and his task in life is to invest it favorably, to make a profit of himself.”

“Hunger Games” offers a mantra calling us return to ourselves, to chisel through the icy incarceration of alienation, to affirm our inner humanity and claim happiness.

“You are stronger than you think you are
You are love
You are not alone
You are going through hell, but keep going
Be proud, be open
Be loud, be hopeful
Be healthy, be happy
Be kind to yourself
Be decisive
Here, now

Do not live every day as if it is your last
Live every day as if it is your first
Full of wonder and excitement
As you wonder along, excited
Marveling at the possibilities of all that stands before you
Here, now.”

Bob Vylan isn’t just calling for a “free Palestine,” they’re calling for the liberation of ordinary, disadvantaged, and working people across all ethnic boundaries and national borders. And this rousing and cacophonous call has found a ready and waiting audience.

Ethical Reckoning: Toward Biophilia and a Genuine Opposition to Violence

Reasonable people can debate the choice of chant Bob Vylan presented their audience at Glastonbury. There is no debating the wrongness of chanting for the death of an ethnic group. But conflating a military organization—the IDF—with an ethnic group—the Jewish people—is a fallacious sleight of hand that weaponizes antisemitism and obscures the morally gruesome reality: that the Israeli military is perpetuating daily war crimes, including the starvation of a people, in the service of a larger genocide.

The mass killing of Palestinians has raised difficult ethical questions for many across the Western world. How do we, for example, comprehend and resist our governments’ active participation in a crime future generations will universally regard as unequivocally evil? What ethical means are available to us to oppose this brute use of necrophilic violence which has been used to kill more than 50,000 people—70% women and children—with Israeli military forces killing 700 people as they try to get food for themselves and families in just a few weeks.

This much is clear, those more disturbed by an artist’s threatening chant than a military’s execution of hundreds of unarmed and besieged people waiting for food confess their disregard for human dignity. For what is a call for the death of a soldier compared to the deliberate firing of guns into the flesh of gaunt human bellies grumbling for grains of rice? Have those in power succumbed to the most extreme form of racism by which we utterly deny the humanity of Palestinians such that their egregious and daily annihilation counts for less than abstract threats to the perpetrators of such harms?

Israeli soldiers told investigative journalists with +972 Magazine that the IDF has weaponized Chinese-manufactured commercial drones for use in depopulating neighborhoods in Gaza. In the report, published July 10, 2025, soldiers describe killing unarmed civilians including children. “It was clear that they were trying to return to their homes—there's no question,” one soldier explained. “None of them were armed, and nothing was ever found near their bodies. We never fired warning shots. Not at any point.” The soldier said the bodies weren't collected, and that he saw stray dogs eating the bodies of the killed. “I couldn't bring myself to watch a dog eating a body, but others around me watched it. The dogs have learned to run toward areas where there's shooting or explosions—they understand it probably means there's a body there.”

The political leaders denouncing Bob Vylan insist that they oppose the use of force to resolve conflict as implied in the IDF chant. Yet some of these leaders are the same who are actively contributing to the military onslaught in question. “It is clear that indignation against the use of force, as it exists in the Western world today, depends on who uses force, and against whom,” wrote Erich Fromm in 1961. “Indignation against force is authentic only from a pacifist standpoint, which holds that force is either absolutely wrong, or that aside from the case of the most immediate defense its use never leads to a change for the better.” Those endorsing a military committing war crimes but condemning a punk band wishing for the demise of that military, make their endorsement of force clear and, thus, demonstrate acute moral inconsistency.

The effort to censor and criminalize Bob Vylan's expression does more than reveal moral hypocrisy; it also reminds us that censorship trivializes public discourse. For rather than exploring the substance of the duo’s timely criticism, discussing Amnesty International’s recent report documenting the use of starvation by the Israeli government and military, media organizations like Newsweek made the fallout of the band’s “cancelation” the story.

Despite such failures within mainstream media discourse, the Bob Vylan controversy showcases the inadequacy of censorship as a tactic of thought control. Censorship often generates the opposite of the intended effect. When free-spirited people are told they cannot hear what someone has to say—words bestowed with purportedly magical powers to harm—their curiosity ignites and anti-authoritarianism sensibilities swell. For humanistic thinkers have long known, those whose first moves are to cancel, censor, or repress, are often playing from a weaker hand and seeking to conceal a greater truth.

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1. A “pram” is a baby stroller with a bassinet feature.