Grace Jones replaces MIA as Afropunk London headliner
Grace Jones will replace MIA as the headliner of the inaugural Afropunk London.
Last week, organizers dropped MIA from the bill after her comments on the Black Lives Matter movement. Jones joins musicians including SZA, Laura Mvula, Benjamin Booker, Kwabs and more.
“We are excited and honored to do our first Afropunk Festival in London and want to do it right,” the organizers wrote in a statement last week. “After discussing the situation with the artist and the community, a decision was agreed upon by all involved that MIA will no longer headline Afropunk London.”
MIA received criticism after her comments on Black Lives Matter by saying that black artists on the world stage spend too much time focusing on black issues.
“It’s interesting that in America the problem you’re allowed to talk about is Black Lives Matter,” MIA told The Evening Standard in April. “It’s not a new thing to me — it’s what Lauryn Hill was saying in the 1990s, or Public Enemy in the 1980s. Is Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar going to say Muslim Lives Matter? Or Syrian Lives Matter? Or this kid in Pakistan matters? That’s a more interesting question.”
The music festival takes place on September 24 at Alexandra Palace.