Chaos. Absolute, beautiful, gin-soaked chaos. In a move that has left the fashionably furious clutching their pearls and their artisanal Italian leather goods, the Italian government has declared Kanye West and Travis Scott persona non grata.
The ban, a masterpiece of bureaucratic belligerence, cites ‘public safety concerns’ as the official reason, but we all know the truth: Italy is terrified of being turned into a giant, inflatable, mosh-pit-ravaged stage for a pair of gentleman who treat reality like a particularly annoying Spotify playlist. Meanwhile, the British music industry, having studied this pantomime of panic with the intensity of a pigeon watching a dropped pasty, has announced its own ‘security protocols tightening’. This is not a drill.
This is the sound of a thousand PR departments updating their emergency contingency plans, which until now probably consisted of ‘offer them a glass of champagne and a firm handshake’. The gig economy just got a whole lot more threatening. One can only imagine the meetings: ‘Right chaps, we need a strategy.
Kanye wants to build a pyramid in Hyde Park and Travis Scott wants to unleash a rave so intense it turns the Thames to Lucozade. What do we do?’ The answer, as ever, is bafflingly simple: let them in, but make them sign a form promising not to reinvent gravity or declare themselves emperor of the O2 Arena.
It is a farce. It is a circus. It is the only logical response to an era where pop stars behave like minor despots with better trainers.
This fever dream of a news bulletin, scraped from the sticky floor of a Soho nightclub, is brought to you by the ghosts of punk rock and a double measure of Gordon’s. It means nothing, as you will understand.
