BOB VYLAN ARE A PRODUCT OF THE ESTABLISHMENT:
On the title track of their latest album, Vylan tells us:
Black man shine
Completing my goals on black man time
No blacks, no dogs, but the Irish are fine
This is a reference to the “No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish” signs which, as everybody knows, haunted Britain in the 50s and 60s. But they didn’t. It’s a myth. “Got a message to the thieves in the palace,” Vylan snaps on “Reign”, “We want our jewels back.” Repatriation is of course the cringing obsession of British museums — and there is no doubt that some artifacts were seized from British colonies. But the Crown Jewels, as a collection, have existed for the best part of 1000 years. Many more recent objects were legitimately acquired. Why Mr Vylan has a greater right to the Cullinan Diamond than Thomas Cullinan, who extracted and sold it, is unclear.
Onstage at Glastonbury, meanwhile, Vylan performed in front of the slogan “This country was built on the backs of immigrants”. This is an obvious reference to the “You called … and we came” Windrush narrative, most recently promoted by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. But, again, it is a myth. Non-European immigration played a small part in the post-war reconstruction of Britain. As Ed West writes, the prominence of HMT Empire Windrush in the national imagination can be boiled down to “well-intentioned inclusive myth-making”.
The Vylans are the angry product of a cultural orthodoxy which has confused reflexive oikophobia with deep and radical thought. Unlike self-flattering commentators, critics and curators, though, they have taken this thought to its emotional conclusions — being patted on the back by taste-makers as they do so. To prosecute them would be wrong on its own terms — but it would also be to affirm their radical delusions. Finally, it would be proof of revolutionary credentials.
Iowahawk notes that while they’re officially dropped, they could always drop in on a music festival:
