Who are Bob Vylan? The British punks who had their US visas revoked for anti-IDF chants

The Guardian

3 days ago

Until this week, the punk-rap duo Bob Vylan were largely unknown by mainstream audiences, despite having a UK top 20 album and an award from British rock magazine Kerrang! for album of the year. Now they've made headlines around the world after frontman Bobby Vylan led a crowd at Glastonbury in chants of 'death, death to the IDF'.
The chant was met with widespread condemnation in the UK. Glastonbury festival said the remarks 'crossed a line' and characterized the chant, which targeted the Israel Defense Forces, as antisemitic. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said the chant was 'appalling' and said groups 'making threats or inciting violence' should not be given a platform.
The incident sparked particular outrage because the chant was interpreted as a call for the death of Israeli soldiers. Frontman Bobby Vylan, in an Instagram post on Tuesday, clarified that he was not 'for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people'. He wrote: 'We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. A machine whose own soldiers were told to use 'unnecessary lethal force' against innocent civilians waiting for aid. A machine that has destroyed much of Gaza.'
But Avon and Somerset police, who organize policing for Glastonbury, have launched a criminal investigation into whether the comments amounted to a criminal offense.
On Monday, the duo, from Ipswich, in the east of England, gained international attention when US deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau said their US visas had been revoked. The group had planned a US tour in the autumn.
'The [state department] has revoked the US visas for the members of the Bob Vylan band in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants,' Landau wrote on X. 'Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country.'
The incident is the latest in a series of controversies over the line between criticism of Israeli action in Gaza, which the UN likens to a genocide, and antisemitism. Some see Bob Vylan's remarks as a incitement to violence against Jews globally, while others see it as valid political speech.
The duo, who released their debut album in 2020, go by the aliases Bobby Vylan, the frontman, and Bobbie Vylan, the drummer. Interviewed in the Guardian in 2024 they told Jason Okundaye they deliberately obfuscate their identities to resist what they see as a surveillance state, although Bobby's real name, Pascal Robinson-Foster, has been widely reported since this weekend.
Robinson-Foster began his artistic career as a teenager, as a performance poet and grime artist sometimes called Nee-Hi. He was involved in local community outreach projects, mentoring young people in Ipswich and was invited to perform at the Black and Asian Police Association Conference in 2005. He began Bob Vylan after meeting his bandmate in a London bar in 2017 (neither are Bob Dylan fans; they just thought the name was funny).
The duo make politically charged music that combines elements of punk, grime, reggae and indie. Much of it is of a sunny, rebellious disposition, with a strong anti-establishment thrust. On 2022's Take That, for example, Robinson-Foster raps 'give Churchill's statue the rope and see if it floats … Yeah, let the bitch drown, got the gammons all feeling sick now, wipe my backside with a St George's flag.'
The group have tackled a number of progressive topics in their music, including food poverty, sexism, exploitative landlords and institutional racism.
But the movement for Palestinian freedom has always been central to their project. Robinson-Foster told the Guardian in 2024 he attended his first pro-Palestine protest at the age of 15 and remembers a 'feeling of people coming together and using their voice'. He has criticized other bands associated with the left for not being more outspoken on Palestine.
Bob Vylan are still an underground group with a relatively small fanbase, but they have released five albums, each more successful than the last. Earlier in 2025 they appeared at Coachella for the first time, a sign of their increasing global popularity.
The Glastonbury set, on the West Holts stage, was supposed to be a crowning moment of this success. They were playing before Kneecap, the Irish alternative punk act with whom they share political values and an eagerness to court controversy. Many in the audience brought Palestinian flags – as they did to almost every act at the festival – and the stage's backdrop showed messages such as 'United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a 'conflict'.'
On Monday, Israel killed at least 30 people at a busy Gaza cafe, and last week killed 18 more at a food distribution centre dispensing flour. Israel has killed at least 61,000 Palestinians since the Hamas terrorist attacks of 7 October, in which an estimated 1,139 Israelis were killed.
At one point Robinson-Foster told the crowd: 'Sometimes we have to get our message across with violence, because that's the only language some people speak, unfortunately.' But it was the chants of 'death to the IDF' that led Glastonbury to publicly apologize and the US state department to act.
Since the beginning of the Trump administration there has been a draconian crackdown on immigrants, with Ice agents empowered to arrest students and legal migrants on the streets. Amid the crackdown, a number of musicians have complained about increased difficulties in touring the US. In March, members of British punk rock band UK Subs were denied entry into the US, which their bassist Alvin Gibbs said he suspected was due in part to their vocal and frequent opposition to Trump.
Also in March, Canadian artist Bells Larsen, who is trans, had to cancel a US tour after receiving legal advice that because US Citizenship and Immigration Services now only recognizes two 'biological sexes – male and female' he would not be able to travel. Larsen had already changed his gender marker on his Canadian passport.
Kneecap lost their US visas after they were dropped by their visa sponsor and booking agent Independent Artist Group (IAG). That move came after the group's April Coachella performance, where they displayed messages such as 'Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people' and 'Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.' They say they are currently looking for a new visa sponsor.
But the incident with Bob Vylan appears to be the first time the US state department has publicly announced it is banning a musical act because of political statements. The group have also been dropped by their agents.
New York immigration attorney and music lawyer Matthew Covey told NPR that reports of 'unprecedented Ice enforcement' are prompting artists to bow out of US tours.
As well as Glastonbury and Keir Starmer, Bob Vylan have been criticized by politicians and the BBC. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said it was 'clear' the duo were 'inciting violence and hatred' and should be prosecuted. In the UK, freedom of speech is not protected in the same way as the US, and incitement laws criminalise encouraging a crime.
The UK's chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has condemned the BBC for streaming the performance unedited, called the group's actions 'vile Jew-hatred' and said that the group had 'couch[ed] their outright incitement to violence and hatred as edgy political commentary'.
But a number of musicians and commentators have said that the outrage is disproportionate.
Australian punk group Amyl and the Sniffers, who also played Glastonbury, said Bob Vylan and Kneecap were being unfairly singled out when pro-Palestinian sentiment was the central theme of the 250,000-strong festival. They said: 'The British media in a frenzy about Bob Vylan and Kneecap, but artists all weekend at Glastonbury, from pop to rock to rap to punk to DJs, spoke up on stage, and there were tons of flags on every streamed set. Trying to make it look like just a couple of isolated incidents and a couple of 'bad bands' so it appears the public isn't as anti-genocide as it is.'
Writing in the Guardian, columnist Owen Jones compared the chant by Vylan with the killing by Israeli forces of hundreds of Palestinians seeking food. 'How morally lost is a society in which a chant against a genocidal foreign army provokes a political and media firestorm, but the intentionally starved, unarmed human beings being mowed down on the orders of the IDF high command do not?' he asked.
Pascal-Robinson has defended the chants on Instagram, writing: 'We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story. And whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction … The more time they talk about Bob Vylan, the less time [the UK government] spend answering for their criminal inaction. We are being targeted for speaking up. We are not the first. We will not be the last. And if you care for the sanctity of human life and freedom of speech, we urge you to speak up too. Free Palestine.'
The Guardian has contacted Bob Vylan for comment.