We genuinely didn’t see this coming! We’ve taken down the exhibition of our ceramic #lemon12 plates at Café40 in Amsterdam earlier than planned today. We did this because Café40 removed one of the six plates – the one for our song Insta Queen – without informing us. The reason? The staff had an issue with it.
One of the owners told us the staff were uncomfortable with the “sexy” image on the plate. An image that deliberately references Japanese manga style (which, in its hentai form, usually goes quite a bit further than just “sexy”). It’s artwork that fits the lyrics perfectly. Big thanks to visual artist Rodger Werkhoven!
Another point, of course, was the lyrics themselves: “She’s posting pictures, she wants to be seen. She needs your attention, though she’s barely seventeen.” So basically, Café40 had a problem with everything we’re trying to express with this track. When we released it in May last year, Jyla’s Blog wrote: “Insta Queen might just be their catchiest and most thought-provoking single yet.” Seems like we didn’t provoke quite enough thought among the Café40 staff — because if we had, they might’ve actually understood the message.
Insta Queen came out over a year ago, and neither our fans nor any of the blogs reviewing it have said anything negative about the artwork or lyrics since. Honestly, we’re a bit disappointed about that — we actually wanted to spark a discussion. A discussion Café40, unfortunately, wasn’t willing (or able?) to have with us either. Where do we end up if we just shut everything down the moment something challenges us, instead of talking it through? We’re living in sad times.