Exclusive: London’s force denies conflating rap with criminality, but venues accuse them of ongoing racial profiling and censorship
Last October, days before what would have been his biggest home town show yet, the chart-topping drill rapper Digga D posted a statement online. “I’m gutted to announce that my Brixton Academy show next week has been rescheduled for reasons beyond my control,” he wrote. “Without going into too much detail, you can probably guess why this might have happened.”
The detail that Digga omitted was that the Metropolitan police had spent the preceding weeks putting pressure on the venue – sponsored by O2 and operated by the Academy Music Group (AMG) – to pull the plug on the show.
