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Dance World Collectively Shuns Producer Ten Walls Following Homophobic Rant

The international dance music community seems to have rallied together to condemn Lithuanian DJ Ten Walls, following a very homophobic Facebook tirade.

The Walking With Elephants producer has been dropped from at least six festivals, booted from his booking agency and shunned by DJs and dance fans across the globe since publishing the now-deleted rant, in which he compared homosexuality to paedophilia.

The outburst was first exposed by the people at Gay Star News, who found the offensive post written in Lithuanian on the producer, real name Marijus Adomaitis’s, personal Facebook page.

The post reportedly stated, in part: “I remember producing music for one Lithuanian musician, who tried to wash my brain that I don’t need to be so conservative and intolerant about them. When I asked him ‘what would you do if you realized that your 16-year-old son’s browny (anus) is ripped by his boyfriend?’ Well he was silent.’

Ten Walls then added nostalgically, “In the good 90s…these people of different breed were fixed”.

The producer, who also records under the alias Mario Basanov, has since apologised for the post, calling it “wrong”, “unacceptable” and “completely out of character”. However, as Billboard reports, that hasn’t stopped him from being canned from the lineups of multiple festivals, including HARD Summer, Sónar, Creamfields, Pukkelpop, PITCH and Urban Art Forms.

Nor has it prevented him from being dropped by his booking agency, Coda Music, or from Phonica Records cancelling all pre-orders for his new Sparta EP.

“Whilst we respect freedom of speech, we find [Ten Walls’] defamatory and prejudiced comments about the gay community extremely offensive and feel that this is not in line with the spirit of Creamfields or an opinion that we support,” said Creamfields in a statement.

“Creamfields is celebrated for being a festival that welcomes all and we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to hate of any kind. Everyone who attends our shows should feel welcome and safe. Comments like this, coming from one of the artists contradicts our festival ethos.”

Fellow DJs A-Trak, Tiga, Knife Party, Lane 8, Goldroom, Midland, Jimmy Edgar and more have also spoken out against Ten Walls, adding their voices to a storm of dissent encompassing thousands of fans across cyberspace.

In his follow-up apology post, Ten Walls claims he never meant to offend anyone. “I’m really saddened by everything that has happened and I would like to apologise to everyone I’ve let down, especially to my friends in the gay community, and my fans,” he writes.

Ten Walls says he’s also cancelled all of his upcoming shows, because he “needs a break” from music.

He last performed in Australia as part of Melbourne Music Week 2014.

UPDATE 11/06/15: Now even the Lithuanian President has spoken out about Ten Wall’s comments, saying that she hopes the incident will spark more open discussions about issues surrounding intolerance and homophobia.

Listen: Ten Walls – Walking With Elephants

Last week I wrote a Facebook post that was wrong and completely out of character and the result was a badly written post…

Posted by Ten Walls on Monday, June 8, 2015

http://twitter.com/midlandsound/status/607644314953510912

http://twitter.com/jimmyedgar/status/607935425752252416

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