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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
James Brinsford

Bob Marley's son hits back at Lenny Henry's Glastonbury Festival diversity comments

Sir Lenny Henry's comments about a lack of diversity at Glastonbury Festival has been called out by Bob Marley's son, Ziggy.

The 63-year-old actor and comedian had said that you won't "see any black people" at Worthy Farm and that he is "always surprised by the lack of black and brown faces at festivals" and that this was "still very much a dominant culture thing."

Speaking to TalkTV’s The News Desk tonight, 53-year-old musician Ziggy has challenged that view.

Ziggy said: "I've stopped looking at skin colour. You know, I don't really focus on that anymore. We look at humanity. We're all human beings."

He went on to add: " So, I don't really focus on the colour of people's skin."

Ziggy Marley has called out Sir Lenny Henry (FilmMagic)

Ziggy also expressed his excitement at playing at Glastonbury over this weekend, where he will be playing a full set of his father's songs.

He said: "I mean for everybody is going to be so great to get back together and listen to live music, so it's going to be a good vibe.

"The full set is going to be Bob Marley songs. Because we had planned to do this for originally, for his 75th birthday, which was a few years ago, but because of COVID we had to postpone it.

"So, we can fulfil in that, that dream that we had to do this and this is something very special because I won't be doing this a long while after this so I hope people can catch it."

Lenny Henry spoke about diversity at festivals in a recent interview (Getty Images)

When asked what his favourite Bob Marley song is, Ziggy said that this was fluid and can change all the time.

He said: "It changes every day, it depends on the day. I really don't have a favourite I mean Redemption is the most emotional connection I have because that's the song when he passed away.

"So, there is a strong like memory of that sound during that period of time and it has a very emotional connection with me so I would say that for now."

Ziggy Marley, the son of legendary reggae singer Bob Marley, will perform his father's songs at Glastonbury (Reuters)

Ziggy also shared his views on whether Jamaica should become fully independent and if the time is right for the Queen to be removed as the head of state.

The reggae singer said: "We got independence in 62, but we weren’t truly independent because we still had a Governor General who represented The Queen, so it's about time.

"It's about time for Jamaica to be truly independent. That's our freedom, our right. So, it's something that we were looking forward to for a long time and now it will finally happen."

*The News Desk airs weekdays at 7pm on TalkTV.

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