Multiple global festivals have removed Lithuanian producer Ten Walls from their bill following his homophobic outburst last week.
Austria’s Urban Art Forms joins the list of big names (including Creamfields, Amsterdam’s PITCH Festival and Sonar) to cancel the Walking With Elephants musician’s appearances, after Ten Walls shocked fans by writing anti-gay comments on his Facebook page.
Likening homosexuality to reported paedophilia by Catholic priests, amongst other rants, it was house musician Fort Romeau who kicked the ball rolling in terms of cancellations. Writing on his own Facebook page, the Brit said “hello. I was due to support Ten Walls at Koko, London in November, in light of recent comments made by him on Facebook I have decided to cancel”, before continuing “Its easy to romanticise electronic music culture and imagine it as a bastion of social liberalism and progressive ideology but the reality is that it simply reflects the larger social context where homophobia and (particularly) sexism are normalised and worse, codified into law. The graph below shows the percentage of rights accorded to Gay and transgender individuals across Europe. Clearly there is a long way to go. Until legal parity is accorded no snappy neo-liberal sloganeering about “freedom” and “individuality” really means anything. So while cancelling one gig is hardly going to change the world, it does stand as a personal rejection of bigotry, fear and intolerance.”
Adding to what looks like a career-breaking downfall for Ten Walls, CODA, who handle his bookings, have also confirmed they have dropped the producer. In a statement, CODA’s spokeswoman said “Coda Music Agency condemns all forms of discrimination based on race, religion or sexual orientation. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and to represent a hugely diverse roster of artists. We no longer represent Ten Walls”.
We have also taken similar stances to the aforementioned festivals, removing all Ten Walls music from our Soundcloud ‘Best of’ playlists.
The producer, real name Marijus Adomaitis followed the post with an apology, however many fans are [understandably] still bitter about his original outburst. “I want to apologize for the former post in my account” said Adomaitis, “I am really sorry about its insulting content which does not reflect my true opinion. I hope this misunderstanding will not provoke any more thoughts and opinions.”
More as we hear it.
