Street artist Banksy’s band, Massive Attack, to headline Hong Kong festival ... could it be true?
With fresh rumours swirling that the anonymous graffiti artist is in fact vocalist of the band Massive Attack, will Hong Kong see its first Banksy mural when they play at Clockenflap festival in November?
Hong Kong may be about to get its first brush with mysterious British street artist Banksy, whose identity appears to have been accidentally revealed.
In a podcast rant yesterday about art and profit, British rapper Goldie seemed to imply that Banksy is in fact Robert Del Naja, vocalist of the band Massive Attack, which will headline this year’s Clockenflap festival in Hong Kong in November.
“Give me a bubble letter and put it on a T-shirt and write ‘Banksy’ on it, and we’re sorted. We can sell it now,” Goldie said on Thursday. “No disrespect to Robert, I think he is a brilliant artist. I think he has flipped the world of art over.”
Massive Attack, Feist to headline Hong Kong’s Clockenflap festival 2017
Listeners made the connection and quickly took to Twitter to analyse the apparent slip-up. “Is it me or did Goldie just out Banksy?” one asked. Another suggested that the gaffe may have been more calculated: “Marketing/publicity stunt for album sales possibly?”
The link between Massive Attack and Banksy was first put forward by investigative journalist Craig Williams, after he noticed that a lot of Banksy’s art was appearing in the same cities in which Massive Attack was booked to play a gig. For example, six murals were spotted in San Francisco shortly after the band played two dates in the city.