Armada Music Staff threatened by music fans over Merzo’s comments

The power of social media continuous to grow as part of everyone’s daily routine. It is a platform for expressing opinions, for starting debates and resolving issues, however sometimes not in the most positive (if at all) way. On the receiving end this once is Dutch Music outlet Armada Music over controversy surrounding one of their artists.

Many of us sometimes say or do things under the influence of emotions, especially during events such as the UEFA European Championship final, where team preferences have often been the cause of global unrest. Such is the case with Armada-signed artist Merzo, who took social media on expressing his lack of support for Portugal in this year’s final, maybe not in the most politically correct way:

What initially was a moment of of perhaps emotions and heat during the game, it escalated rather quickly, resulting in the artist shutting down his Facebook page post unsuccessful apology attempt.

Unfortunately even that set of actions did not seem to resolve the situation, as Armada Music released a statement about receiving hateful comments, as well as threats towards some of their staff:

“We are receiving very hurtful comments on our social channels, we are receiving hate-mail and our staff is even receiving horrific threats.”

We, as a global platform, are in full support of the fact that music is about peace, unity, love, respect and care for each other. Each one of us has made a mistake and as human beings, we all hope to be understood in such situations. The music community should be united & constructive in its moments of criticism. We encourage positivity, as it would create a better environment for all of us.

“Armada Music is about music and for us, music is about uniting people in their love for music. Music is not about which country you are from or which gender you are, music does not care about which religion you are or what age, and music certainly does not see your race. Nor do we. Let go of the negative and please help us bring positive vibes into this world.

Love will win over hate!”

Whilst we encourage artists to act as role models and be the best examples to their fans, it is also worth reminding that every person is an individual with its own preferences and opinions, therefore third parties should not be held accountable for anyone’s actions.

See the full  Armada statement below: