Top 5 Career #SHUTDOWNS of 2015 so far

It has been a pretty shaky six months.

In the turbulent climate of the digital age, the careers of some of our best loved musicians and artists are at risk of getting shut down. Allow us to clarify, we are not referring to the kind of victorious shutdowns that you might see when Skepta tears up Later With Jools Holland or the Moon Landing or something. We are talking about things actually getting shut down. Like Woolworths.

As the ratio of time to shutdown goes, the last six months have been particularly prolific. With the help of some expressive images of Skepta, we’ve ranked our top five career demises of the year so far and examined just how badly shit got shut down.

Truss me daddy.

05

Boddika

4/10: Mild Shutdown

Boddika flirted with a complete shutdown recently when he took to Twitter to insist that anyone working in a shop or restaurant in the UK who doesn’t speak English should, “FUCK OFF”. A few of his label-mates jumped to his defence and said it was a mixture of miscommunication and – erm – tiredness. Somehow this excuse slid Boddika silently past security and he narrowly dodged the full shutdown treatment. There were a number of disgruntled tweets but he is still hanging around on line-ups here and there. Let’s just say he didn’t get the Ten Walls Premium Executive Shutdown Package. More on that later.

04

1-800 Dinosaur

5/10: Firm Shutdown

Back in April the Crack Magazine team – along with countless excited fans – wasted an evening at a 1-800 Dinosaur night under the false pretence than Frank Ocean would be appearing. Check out the full story here. ‘BoysDontCry’ (the name of Frank’s upcoming LP) was added to the bill, James Blake opened an Instagram caption with “To be Frank…” and all signs pointed to a pop-up show. It never happened. We were left with James Blake spinning D’Angelo at a sweaty and underwhelmed crowd. Pretty nuanced shutdown here. Standalone, the night would have been alright if we hadn’t effectively been promised a Frank Ocean show. Considering James Blake’s huge following, we doubt the collective will be looking at a full flop. Just be warned, if Young Fathers tell you they’ve got Miguel hanging out back-stage or Swamp81 announce a UK tour with The Weeknd – you might be on the verge of a shutdown.

03

Sun Kil Moon

7/10: Moderate Shutdown

Pretty heavy shutdown right here. Sun Kil Moon aka Mark Kozelek aka your mate’s Dad who is in the kitchen but says NOTHING experienced an obstacle in his trajectory when freelance music journalist Laura Snapes called him out for a barrage of misogyny which took place when she interviewed him. On stage in front of a sold-out crowd, Kozelek decided to sing about Snapes being a “bitch” and wanting to “have his babies”. Make no mistake, Snapes shut this down. She shared the audio of his abusive singing. She shared a screenshot of all Sun Kil Moon music being roundly deleted from her iTunes, her article on The Guardian was met with more love than Caitlyn Jenner on Vanity Fair and the parting shot of her piece contained one of the classiest and smartest shutdowns on road: “The world don’t owe us shit, I learned that real fuckin’ young,” he sings on Universal Themes’ Little Rascals. If anything remains to separate Kozelek from his work, it’s that his music preaches that the least we owe one another is decency.” Check the full feature out out here.

02

GFOTY

8/10: Considerable Shutdown

PC Music’s foremost button-pusher found herself on the brink of a shutdown after Field Day where she referred to 49-year-old Malian musician Toumani Dibate (the world’s greatest living kora player) and his son as “Bombay Bicycle Club blacked up” and a “tribal band”. This was a multi-pronged shutdown. The publication that published GFOTY’s comments had to apologise for an “editorial oversight”, GFOTY herself admitted that she had “gone too far this time” and her label distanced themselves from her by asserting that the comments, “do not reflect our ethos to create an inclusive musical environment and community of people from all backgrounds”.

01

Ten Walls

10/10: Complete Shutdown

The mother of all shutdowns. Across the space of (approximately) 6 hours, the career of Lithuanian DJ and producer Ten Walls was systematically and justifiably shut-the-fuck-down. First, festivals such as Pitch, Creamfields and Sonar dropped him from their line-ups. Shortly after, his booking agent dropped him. Then the man himself swooped in at the final hour to announce a hiatus and a cancellation of all shows. Man tried to shutdown his own shutdown. The swift response that his comments were met with from the dance world were testament to the good nature of the industry as a whole. His abhorrent comments led to one of the most rapid and downright impressive shutdowns of recent history.

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