British rapper Lowkey vows not to be silenced on Palestine after bid to remove him from Spotify

British rapper and activist Kareem Dennis has said he “will not be silenced on Palestine” after a pro-Israel lobby group campaigned to get his tracks off Spotify music streaming platform over his pro-Palestine stance and condemnation of the Israeli occupation.

This coordinated campaign is an extension of the brutalization of the Palestinians, Lowkey, better known by his stage name Lowkey, told London-based online news outlet Middle East Eye.

“Palestinians are routinely arrested by Israel for posts on social media, even children. Dareen Tatour spent almost a year in occupation jail for posting a poem to her Facebook,” he said.

“The attempt to remove my music from Spotify by a group which was birthed and cultivated by BICOM (Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre), worked with the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and publicly identified itself as an Israel lobby group is ultimately an own goal for the apartheid regime,” he added.

“Artists and musicians should never have to fear threats to their livelihood or person for the music they make. We will not be silenced on Palestine, not now, not ever” Lowkey asserted.

The pro-Israel British grassroots group “We Believe in Israel” has said it is lobbying to remove the British rapper's music off Spotify after calling his songs “problematic” material, including his 2010 song “Long Live Palestine – Part 2.”

The director of the group, Luke Akehurst, is reportedly a regular attendee at Israeli regime events aimed at developing ideas on how to ban pro-Palestine solidarity from online platforms. 

The Music industry, links to Zionism

The music industry is at the forefront of the campaigns to boycott the Zionist state. As the impact of the cultural boycotts bite deeper, the Zionist lobby has gone to great lengths to marginalize all expressions of support for the Palestinian cause.

In 2019, the Israeli Act.IL online troll army listed We Believe in Israel as one of its partners. 

This is not the first time that Lowkey has been targeted by the Israeli lobby for his support of the Palestinian cause.

Earlier this month, the Cambridge Palestine Society was forced to postpone a talk by the rapper following a smear campaign by the Israeli lobby on campus. 

While the talk went on a week later despite the attempts to cancel it, Lowkey’s planned appearance at a conference organized by the National Union of Students (NUS) was canceled.

The move was due to a campaign from another pro-Israel group called the Union of Jewish Students to get him removed from the panel.

Lately, an independent UN human rights expert denounced Israel for practicing “apartheid” against Palestinians over the past decades, calling on the world body to devise a list of measures aimed at effectively holding the occupying regime to account for the crime.

Harvard Law School recognizes Israel as apartheid regime

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In a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, complained about “a deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system” that privileges 700,000 settlers in occupied East al-Quds and the West Bank.

“With the eyes of the international community wide open, Israel has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world,” he wrote.

“The Special Rapporteur recommends that the international community accepts and adopts the findings … that apartheid is being practiced by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory and beyond.”

He also explained that Israel conforms to the internationally-understood legal definition of apartheid as a system of institutionalized racial segregation practiced in South Africa prior to its dismantling in the early 1990s.

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