Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has shared a video of himself asking Maroon 5 to “take a knee” during their Super Bowl Halftime performance.
The Adam Levine-led band will play at halftime during Super Bowl LIII, which takes place at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday (February 3).
Big Boi and Travis Scott will join them as special guests after they reportedly struggled to find artists who would agree to play the event due to the treatment of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The player hasn’t been involved in a game since 2016 and has claimed that he was shut out of games for protesting police brutality and racial justice by kneeling during the National Anthem.
In a statement, Waters said: “My colleagues Maroon 5, Travis Scott, and Big Boi are performing during the halftime show at the Super Bowl this coming Sunday, I call upon them to ‘take a knee’ on stage in full sight. I call upon them to do it in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, to do it for every child shot to death on these mean streets, to do it for every bereaved mother and father and brother and sister.”
Roger Waters and band take a knee
There is a petition on Change.org/takeaknee aimed at persuading Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Big Boi to take a knee at halftime on Sunday:This is my band taking a knee at the end of a gig in Hartford, Connecticut on Sunday 24th of September 2017. We did it in solidarity with San Francisco Quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s gesture of protest against the endemic racism and often deadly force meted out by police departments across this land. It was the third Sunday of Colin Kaepernick’s lock out by the NFL. The message was clear, “Shut your mouth, boy!" Next Sunday will be the 36th Sunday he has been locked out of your national game. This is not a victory for the NFL, it is a defeat, you have denied football fans everywhere the pleasure and the honor of watching one of the greatest quarterbacks who ever played the game, and you have shown your true colors. You can sit in your boardrooms and huff and puff on your cigars in your glass boxes, but your action is a poke in the eye for everything that is decent in America. Colin Kaepernick is an American hero. If the USA is to have a future, it is the Colin Kaepernicks of this world who will lead you there, in fact, it is Colin Kaepernick who is leading you now. My colleagues Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Big Boi are performing during the halftime show at the Super-bowl this coming Sunday, I call upon them to “take a knee” on stage in full sight. I call upon them to do it in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, to do it for every child shot to death on these mean streets, to do it for every bereaved mother and father and brother and sister. My mother used to say to me, “In any situation there is nearly always a right thing to do, just do it.” So, there you go my brothers, you are faced with a choice, I’m not saying it will be easy, all the Presidents men, all the huffers and puffers, will be royally pissed off, but, $#@%’em, I call upon you to do it because it’s the right thing to do and because somewhere inside you know it.LoveRoger Waters
Posted by Roger Waters on Wednesday, January 30, 2019
He continued: “My mother used to say to me, ‘In any situation, there is nearly always a right thing to do, just do it.’ So, there you go my brothers, you are faced with a choice, I’m not saying it will be easy, all the Presidents men, all the huffers and puffers, will be royally pissed off, but, $#@%’em, I call upon you to do it because it’s the right thing to do and because somewhere inside you know it.”
The video the musician shared showed him and his backing band taking a knee at the end of a gig in Hartford, Connecticut in September 2017. You can watch the video above.
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Scott has said he only agreed to perform at the event on the condition that the NFL make a donation to a social justice cause. Together, the rapper and the American football organisation gave $500,000 (£389k) to “social justice accelerator” Dream Corps.
The ‘Astroworld’ star claimed he had consulted Kaepernick before agreeing to play. However, the football player seemed to disagree with those reports, retweeting criticism of Scott’s participation in the event from Hot 97’s Nessa and Ebro Darden. “There is NO mutual respect and there is NO understanding for anyone working against @Kaepernick7 PERIOD. #stoplying,” Nessa wrote in one tweet.