Campaign launched to cancel Travis Scott's Utopia show at Giza Pyramids over Afrocentrism

Rapper is scheduled to perform songs from his long-awaited fourth album at historical site this month

Travis Scott performing during the Astroworld Festival at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, in 2019. AFP

A campaign to cancel a Travis Scott concert scheduled for this month at the Giza Pyramids has gathered pace with Egyptian social media users.

After an announcement from the US rapper on Monday that he would be launching his long-awaited fourth album Utopia at the ancient site on July 28, critics of so-called Afrocentrism took to social media to call for the show’s cancellation.

The hashtag cancel_travis_show has been trending in Egypt since Scott's announcement.

“The fact that this hashtag is trending sends a clear message. He is not welcome here," one user wrote on Twitter.

Despite the criticism, tickets to the event have sold out.

While Scott has never publicly commented on ancient Egypt, Egyptian culture or its relation to black African heritage, the backlash seems to have stemmed from him being an African American. Many of the comments on social media calling for the cancellation appear to be racist in tone.

Afrocentrism is an approach to studying world history that aims to highlight the role of black Africans in the shaping of humanity’s narrative, which supporters of the movement say has been played down due to racist academic traditions inherited from Europe. But critics say it diminishes the contributions of other cultures.

In June, the Egyptian government revoked excavation licenses from a team of Dutch archaeologists from the Leiden National Museum of Antiquities in the Netherlands.

The museum was banned from digging at the prominent Saqqara necropolis after it hosted an exhibition titled Kemet: Egypt in Hip-Hop, Jazz, Soul & Funk, aiming to highlight the prominence of ancient Egyptian culture and its influence on music genres made famous by artists of African descent.

The museum was informed by the Egyptian government in an email that its licence had been revoked on the grounds that the exhibition was “falsifying ancient Egyptian history."

Scott’s show at the pyramids comes on the heels of the release of a Netflix docudrama about ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra, which angered many in the Arab world’s most populous nation over her portrayal by a black actress.

A number of lawsuits have been filed against Netflix and the series’ creators for what some Egyptologists deem an inaccurate depiction.

Adele James, the actress who portrays Cleopatra in the series gave critical interviews on the response from Egypt, which accused the show’s creators of “blackwashing”.

“Blackwashing isn’t a thing, is it?” she said. “I find it sad that people are either so self-loathing or so threatened by blackness that they feel the need to do that, to separate Egypt from the rest of the continent.”

Her response was met with outrage from a number of commentators who pointed out that while Egypt might be on the same continent as other African countries, each one has a distinct culture and traditions that make it unique.

In addition, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, the country's former antiquities minister who was among the film’s harshest critics, responded by producing a documentary of his own for Netflix aimed at telling Egypt’s side of the story.

A show by actor and comedian Kevin Hart was also cancelled in February after a campaign on social media in Egypt circulated past comments of his in which he said ancient Egypt’s kings were black Africans.

The comments in question have not been verified and Hart has not yet publicly commented on the controversy.

Organisers of Hart’s show said it was cancelled due to “logistical issues”. The decision was celebrated on social media in Egypt as a win for the boycott movement.

Scott's event is being organised by Live Nation, which has previously put together shows for the rapper, as well as a May concert in Cairo by '90s boy band Backstreet Boys.

Live Nation’s involvement has also been met with apprehension by some Egyptian media outlets after a 2021 show it organised for Scott in his hometown of Houston, Texas, ended with 10 deaths, 25 people being taken to hospital and more than 300 people being treated for injuries.