Fans are calling on the U.K. government to lift its "petty" ban on Tyler, the Creator.
In 2015, Tyler was informed he was prohibited from entering Britain for the next three to five years. Legal documents state the decision was due to the rapper's controversial lyrical content, specifically citing songs from the 2009 Bastard and 2011 Goblin projects. He was issued a letter that referenced the country's Home Office policy on "behaviours unacceptable in the UK"; this was a set of guidelines created in 2005 to prevent suspected terrorists from entering the country.
The UK Home Office addressed the ban in the following statement:
Coming to the UK is a privilege, and we expect those who come here to respect our shared values. The Home Secretary has the power to exclude an individual if she considers that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good or if their exclusion is justified on public policy grounds.
The decision was announced about a month after Tyler took to Twitter to announce the cancelation of his Australia tour. He told fans he was banned from Oz after feminist organization Collective Shout pressured the government to deny his visa.
"Now [the UK government] are just followers. Everyone is a follower, just following what other countries are doing," he told The Guardian, suggesting the UK was taking cues from Australia. "Now I’m getting treated like a terrorist. I’m bummed out because it’s like, dude, I’m not homophobic. I’ve said this since the beginning. The “hating women” thing – it’s so nuts. It’s based on things I made when I was super-young, when no one was listening [to my music]."
Recently, a fan named Sam Roberts created a petition that demanded the UK government end Tyler's ban immediately. The petition page states that the lyrics in question were "intended as adult humour" and no longer reflected the person Tyler is today.
According the page, the petition needs to receive at least 10,000 signatures to get a reaction from the government, and at least 100,000 signatures to be considered for debate in Parliament. As of Friday night, the petition had garnered nearly 1,900 signatures.
