Ed Sheeran has responded to Wiley’s “Culture Vulture” allegations.
Following the release of the “Take Me Back to London” remix which featured Stormzy, Aitch and Jaykae, Wiley took to Twitter to call out Ed for being a culture vulture and “using” the grime scene.
In one particular tweet, the Godfather of grime wrote, “I’m sick of people using grime to look good for 2 minutes fuck Off FFS. Shall I get my guitar and foot pedal out? Anyone who uses us and our sounds are culture vultures. Don’t come to grime if your (sic) a clout chaser and a culture vulture stay away”.
Wiley then gave an explosive interview to Dotty over on BBC 1Xtra where the artist called out Ed Sheeran and Drake again with further allegations and verbal assaults.
Wiley said to Dotty, “I know Ed is big business, I’m not saying he is not big business. What I’m saying is: Ed Sheeran going number 1 means nothing to him, the sales mean something to him, because people can go number 1 on quiet weeks with low numbers. He knows he gets number 1’s but that’s not his thing. It’s numbers, isn’t it?”
He also added, “Stay away from culture vultures. Stay away from pagans. And stay away from people who wait until you are blown to come and stand next to you and collect money – but they waited until you were blown. They weren’t there during the hard times, they weren’t there when man had to build up their name and fanbase. They just turned up when everything was easy peazy squeezy”.
Wiley also accused Ed of refusing to collaborate with him, “Listen, we helped that guy get into the picture. I done something for him – “You”. It’s on his album, isn’t it? So when I went to do my one I was told, ‘You can’t do this, Ed can’t do the video. You can’t use Ed’, basically. He didn’t want to stand up to his label – he folded. I knew life wasn’t fair, but I didn’t know it was this unfair.”
After staying quiet for several weeks over the controversy, Ed Sheeran has now responded.
The artist wrote on Instagram, “I never said no to doing a song for you after we made “You” for No.5. I merely asked if you could move to a week before or a week after, which you did, the song came out, and I’m still very proud of it”.
The chart-topper added, “You know I have a deep love and respect for the scene, and for you. I look forward to Godfather 3, excited to hear it. This is the last I’ll say on this”.
Check out Ed’s full Instagram post below.
As we keep you updated on this story, click here for new music from Ed Sheeran and here for Wiley.