Wylie vs Pagans - rapper says he won't pay fee back

Wiley has said he has no intention of returning his (self) reported fee to promoters of the CockRock Festival in Cockermouth, Cumbria, after organisers of the charity event said they were planning legal action after the rapper walked off stage after just fifteen minutes of his 45 minute set and referring to the audience as 'pagans'.  Wiley (real name Richard Kylea Cowie) had received a hostile reception at the event partly because he had been criticising the festival on Twitter ahead of his arrival with one tweet saying "Just the name makes me not wanna go," with Wylie adding: "My agent knows that there are cool places to play and other places are just not worth the hassle

The rapper says he left the stage early because the audience were throwing things at the stage, adding that staff at the festival had advised him to walk if that happened.Organisers have countered that the atmosphere during the short Wiley set was not as hostile or dangerous as the rapper has claimed, and that security had it under control. The rapper told the BBC: "They say it's a charity event and they want their money back. I've just stood on stage and been coined and bottled. Obviously I'm not giving the money back". Adding that the critical tweets ahead of the show were aimed at his agent, not the CockRock audience, he continued: "When I went on I knew some people were going to be unhappy ..... after fifteen minutes I looked at the floor and it was covered in coins. Any one of those coins could have taken my eye out". 

The rapper had previously been a no show at the Glastonbury Festival in June, and has fallen out with his label, Warners, admitting he was unhappy with their choice of next single from the record, he tweeted in April: "My label are doing 'Lights On' next but I do not like that so you will not see me in the video. "If my first two singles were dance and third was drum and bass, why am I doing a dance single fourth. my musical mind is better than that." He later added: "I am walking out of Warner today, I don't need em anymore. [I've] rinsed majors for every penny, enough is enough. He had asked his agent not to book him into any more 'farms' as he is a 'yardie'.