UK star Plan B has explained his decision to wear a T-shirt featuring a mention of neo-Nazi punk band Skrewdriver.
Plan B, aka Ben Drew faced a barrage of criticism yesterday for being pictured in the T-shirt on the cover of free magazine Shortlist.
He also wore the shirt, which showed background graffiti bearing Skrewdriver's name, during his set supporting the Stone Roses at Heaton Park last month.
However, in a statement to site The Quietus, Drew said he was unaware of the band and their politics, adding that the offending garb was something he had created using a book which chronicled the history of the skinhead movement.
The mention of the band appeared in some graffiti at the back of a photograph used on the T-shirt.
"I was ignorant to the existence of the band Skrewdriver," he said. "I don't listen to music like that so I wouldn't know the names of bands that make that music. I was wearing a t-shirt I created using a photograph from the photographer Gavin Watson's book Skins.
"I asked him if I could print shots from his book on to t-shirts. I made a number of these t-shirts. Gavin's photos are relevant to me because they represent the demonised youth of the past. Just like my generation of young people are demonised in the media to all be hoodie wearing thugs and chavs so were the skinheads in the 80's.
"Not all of them were racist but because some of them were, the rest were all tarred with the same brush. That is why I feel the images of the skinheads represented in Gavin's work are relevant to me and this generation. Gavin is a friend and the people he took photos of were his friends who listened to reggae and ska music. He documented life in those times, some of the people he shot may have been racists but his family and close friends weren't.
"Most of the t-shirts I had made were of his brother. The boy on the image is Neville Watson. Neville is Gavin Watson's brother. The graffiti behind him is graffiti. Neither Gavin or Neville put it there, it was already there when Gavin took the photo. Gavin did not know I had printed that image on a t-shirt and I was not aware of the significance of it. The minute I found out what the words on the t-shirt meant I was angry with myself for not questioning them. The t-shirt is not official nor is it on sale anywhere. It was of my own doing and therefore it is my mistake, but that is all it is."
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