Roger Waters tells Maroon 5 to 'take a knee' during Super Bowl halftime show

Maroon 5 are going ahead with their halftime performance despite calls from protesters for them to drop out

Roisin O'Connor
Music Correspondent
Friday 01 February 2019 09:28 GMT
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Pink Floyd's Roger Waters has shared a video of himself and his band taking a knee in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, and is calling on Maroon 5 to do the same during their Super Bowl halftime performance.

"My colleagues Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Bi Boi are performing during the halftime show at the Super Bowl this coming Sunday," Waters said in an accompanying statement.

"I call upon them to 'take a knee' on stage in full sight. I call upon them to do it in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, to do it for every child shot to death on these mean streets, to do it for every bereaved mother and father and brother and sister."

Waters and his band kneeled at the end of a concert in Connecticut back in Spetember 2017, around the time US president Donald Trump began attacking NFL players who performed the same protest.

Kaepernick has not played a game since 2016, and has alleged collusion (via a lawyer) that he has been blacklisted from games because of his protest.

Waters also said he supports a Change.org petition asking Maroon 5 to drop out of the halftime show. The petition has been signed by more than 112,000 people, with a goal of 150,000.

"My mother used to say to me: 'In any situation there is nearly always a right thing to do, just do it," he said. "So there you go, my brothers, you are faced with a choice. I'm not saying it will be easy, all the President's men, all the huffers and puffers, will be royally pissed off, but $#"%'em, I call upon you to do it because it's the right thing to do and because somewhere inside you know it."

Maroon 5 has made a $500,000 donation to Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America with the NFL, in an apparent move to quell criticism over their upcoming show. Travis Scott made an earlier statement saying he had only agreed to perform on the condition that the NFL made a joint donation of $500,000 to a social justice charity.

Several major artists, including Rihanna, Cardi B and Jay Z, have turned down offers to perform at the Super Bowl since 2016 out of solidarity with Kaepernick.

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