Cellist subjected to racist abuse after speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs
Sheku Kanneh-Mason has sparked furious debate about ‘Rule, Britannia!’ by questioning its suitability for the Last Night of the Proms. Interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the British cellist, 24, said that hearing it sung on the big occasion made him feel ‘uncomfortable’, and that other options should be considered to replace it.
‘I don’t think it should be included,’ he told presenter Lauren Laverne. ‘I think maybe some people don’t realise how uncomfortable a song like that can make a lot of people feel, even if it makes [those singing it] feel good. I think that’s somehow a big misunderstanding about it.’
Kanneh-Mason, who hit the headlines by winning the BBC Young Musician competition in 2016 and then went on to perform at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle two years later, played at the Last Night of the Proms in 2023 but says he did not stick around to hear the traditional revelries at the end. Asked what should replace the song, Kanneh-Mason replied, ‘There is so much wonderful British music. The wealth of folk music from this country is astonishing. I think that would be a wonderful thing to take its place. I think there’s so much worth celebrating.’
It is not the first time in recent years that ‘Rule, Britannia!’ at the Last Night of the Proms has come under discussion. In 2020, the BBC proposed featuring an orchestra-only version of Arne’s tune, ostensibly to fall in line with Covid restrictions, but that idea was eventually scrapped, with the song being performed instead by a small group of singers. And as with 2020, reaction to the story has once again ranged from the reasoned to the extreme – while some have argued that the song’s words, written by James Thomson in 1740, have more to do with Britain defending itself against foreign aggression than with the slave trade, others have responded by subjecting the cellist to racist abuse on social media.
Kanneh-Mason has since received messages of support from organisations including the Musicians’ Union and the Royal Philharmonic Society, while on X/ Twitter his mother Kadiatu has expressed her ‘horror, rage, heartbreak’ at the abuse aimed at ‘someone trying to engage in a conversation about music and inclusion’.
The BBC itself has a
