In the past month Wiley has seen another turbulent phase of his career, but this time with a surprising and drastic fall out.
After a series of anti Semitic tweets aimed at the music industry, his management, and Israel, Wiley saw an instant backlash from the Jewish community all over the UK.
Wiley’s twitter outbursts have been their own important part of UK music since he signed up. What he calls “rarling up the net” has been at best entertaining but at worst unnecessary and harmful. He has never quite earned a place next to Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins until now, but he has been known to take to the app to (in generous terms) criticise the likes Labrinth, Krept and Konan, Dizzee Rascal, Skepta, Drake, his manager John Wolff, and most notably, Ed Sheeran and Stormzy, resulting in an explosive and intense clash with the latter.
The response to this most recent provoking rant was swift and powerful, and resulted in Wiley being instantly banned from Twitter, Instagram - and when he chose to vent his frustrations on YouTube, he was banned there to.
After attention and condemnation from the media, the police, the Home Office and the music industry as a whole, Wiley has now been completely alienated from the music industry, with his Godfather album being removed from streaming services and Big Dada (the label he put out a lot of classics with) donating the proceeds of his royalties to charity.
Wiley has since been absent from the conversation, last being seen in his trademark McLaren speeding off and ignoring the controversy.
However, after an unsatisfactory response on ITV News, he has now had the opportunity to voice his side of the story at length: speaking to the systematic oppression in the music industry, protesting his good faith - but also continuing to racialise the issue by blaming the Jewish executives for these biases.
Wiley is outspoken but not the best communicator; prone to passionate outbursts, long tangents and shocking non-sequiturs. But appearing on an impromptu, socially distanced Amsterdam based episode of Poets 1PO Show, he attempted to make his points clear.
It is unclear at this stage if he will return to the music industry in the favour that gained him respect from rappers worldwide and an MBE, but if you want to know more about his thought process and his intentions - you can watch the video below.
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