Who are Bob Vylan, the punk duo who led a ‘death to the IDF’ chant at Glastonbury? – The Jewish Chronicle
The performance will not be available to review on BBC Iplayer.
Bobby, the singer and guitarist of the group, who made the song, published an Instagram story to his 115,000 subscribers after the drama, holding a cup of pink ice.
“While the Zionists cry over the social, I have just had an ice in the end of the night (vegan),” he wrote. The singer would have kept veganism for 10 years.
During his set, Bobby shared an anecdote on the way he worked for a record company under a boss “who would speak very strongly about his support for Israel”.
He continued: “We have done everything, to work in bars to work for F **** Zionists, and if we can do it, I promise you a lot, you can do absolutely everything you have put in mind.”
A government spokesperson said: “We firmly condemn threatening comments made by Bob Vylan in Glastonbury.”
But who are Bob Vylan and have they already been frank on Israel?
The two members use stage names to retain their identity and collectively qualify as “the bobs”. However, the Telegraph Named the main singer like Pascal Robinson-Foster. Their age is also unknown, although Bobby is in their thirties and has a child.
The group was formed in 2017, with a musical style mixing elements of grim, punk rock and hip hop. To date, they have three albums: We live here (2020), Bob Vylan presents: the price of life (2022), which entered the painting of British albums at number 18, and Humble as the sun (2024).
The principal singer went to his first pro-Palestine demonstration at the age of 15 and has since participated in numerous national demonstrations since the start of the War of Israel-Gaza on October 7, 2023.
During this first demonstration, he remembered “feeling of people meeting and using their voice to say that they do not maintain the actions of this country,” he said Tutor journalist Jason Okundaye.
The singer was publicly critical of the musicians for not having spoken in support of Gaza, including the Sleaford mods and the slowdown during a show in Dublin in November 2023. “How the F *** can you call you a political group of political left if you do not speak for people who have no voice at the moment?” He said on stage during a performance.
Interestingly, it was during Bobby’s tirade against the “cowardly” musicians that he apparently invoked Bob Dylan, the Jewish songwriter who seems to inspire the name of his own group.
“Bob Dylan – Bob Vylan – prefers the fight, you f *** Ing Bandly Bands,” he told the crowd. It is not clear if Dylan’s mention was an accidental discharge.
Having grown up between Ipswich and Stepney Green, Bobby started making music like a child on the PlayStation game Music 2000. He said to Tutor that he developed a political conscience at a young age thanks to the meeting of a woman who led local African-Caribbean events, who opened their eyes to “the treatment of other people, no matter where they are in the world”. He met Bobbie in a London bar in 2017, and together they formed the group.
A large part of the duo’s music is openly political, including I heard you want your country to come backFrom their first album, which they interpreted as Glastonbury. The lyrics include: “I heard that you wanted your country to come back / close the F *** Up / I heard that you want your country to come back / UH-UH, you cannot have it.”
During the performance of the song duo yesterday, the expression “This country was built on the back of immigrants” was projected in the background.
The song ReignFrom the most recent album in the group, argues the repairs of slavery: “I have a message for thieves at the palace / We want our jewelry back / burn, Britannia.”
