The Lipster

Three weeks ago, I was invited out to New York for an exclusive audience with Björk. I went there to speak to her for a week-long series of interviews for The Lipster to preview the UK leg of her Volta tour, and to write a print interview for the New Statesman magazine. Naturally, I accepted.

A few days later, on March 2, Björk’s tour arrived at the International Gymnastics Centre in Shanghai. Little did I know when I accepted her invitation that her performance of Declare Independence that night, and the comments she made after it about Tibet, would send shockwaves around the world.

Eight days later, I met Björk in Manhattan. Bar a brief statement on her website, she had not spoken publicly about her comments before. A full version of this interview will appear in the March 28 edition of the New Statesman, but here we publish Bjork’s first public comments about the controversy.

“When I said "Tibet, Tibet", I whispered it three times. There was no fuss in the room. It happened afterwards on websites. It shows more than anything that China has become the next superpower in the world. And the issue is: how are they going to deal with Western moral issues like freedom of speech? China said, ‘It's obvious Björk planned a trip to China with the purpose of political propaganda gathering… and I was like, no! It's not true! It's a question of [them] sensationalising it.”

But Björk was desperate to point out that she wasn’t a political spokesperson. “Perhaps after what's happened, people will find that difficult to believe. But I'm still working from an emotional core, and my songs come from private and personal experiences. Even songs like Declare Independence for me are about humanity.”

She added: “I stand by what I said, but I think what I should do is make more music, go in the studio and make more songs, have that connection to people.”

The New Statesman interview runs on March 28. The Lipster’s week of interviews with Björk begin on Monday, April 7.