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15 years ago, Ed Sheeran’s ‘The A Team’ portrays the harrowing experience of poverty. We’re never getting anything like it from him again.

“White lips, pale face / Breathing in snowflakes / Burnt lungs, sour taste,” thus begins the single titled ‘The A Team’ by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. For those who are lucky (or rather unlucky 15 years back) to not have heard of him, he’s once an aspiring musician back in the late 2000s who pumped out a few extended plays with one, 2010’s No. 5 Collaborations Project, landing him a big contract with Asylum Records. This then was followed up a year later with + (Plus), his first studio album which garnered generally positive reviews although it’s by no means a masterpiece. Its attempts at pop rap both lyrically and in terms of production comes off as awkward at best while the representations of the topics come off as authentic yet a tad bit hollow in its core. There are some noteworthy folk tunes in there with the romantic commitments of ‘Lego House’, the post-break up melodrama of ‘Drunk’, and of course ‘The A Team’.

‘The A Team’ was inspired by a homeless person whom Sheeran helped, while he’s volunteering for the charity Crisis, named Angel based on his Absolute Radio interview. One who grants the song one of its lines (‘Angels to fly’). While one can have a discourse over the seeming ethics of making a song that’s clearly modelled after a downcast person without financial support following its success, its genuineness is hard to ignore. Similes and metaphors such as “faces crumbling like pastries” both blend the surrealness of being inescapably rock bottom with a distinctly working-class relatability that reminds us of how close we are to failure. The acoustic guitar further adds to the authenticity where its lack of more elaborate production alterations allow its topic to stand as universal. Throw in the youthful voice from Sheeran himself and the song itself sticks out as a plea to help the downtrodden. It’s no ‘Fast Cars’ by Tracy Chapman, but it has a message to send out and it is able to hit millions.

What struck me with ‘The A Team’ lies in its authorial context compared to the years that followed. Sheeran then was noted as being modest and lax in attitude who’s by no means the best in his craft, but is otherwise hardworking and sincere in his works. That’s the summary of how publications like the BBC or the Guardian in reviewing +. Given the album’s release being around the time when similarly independent-driven names like Arcade Fire or Arctic Monkeys are winning major honours like the Grammy Award, some are wondering whether Ed Sheeran’s rags-to-riches commercial success might inspire a shift in interest towards those whose rise are fuelled in part by their individuality. Unfortunately, Sheeran not only acclimatised to the norms of mainstream celebritydom through his publicised friendship with Taylor Swift as one example. He wholly embraced the servitude of commercialism above principles itself.

This piece is written in response to the recent controversy between Sheeran and the American rapper Benjamin “Macklemore” Haggerty over a tour. A few days ago, Macklemore was dropped as an opening act for the Loop Tour that’s in progress over his support for Palestine in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. This event comes through an ultimatum from billionaires like Robert Kraft who argued that the rapper’s statements are “antisemitic” even as he unequivocally made clear his humanitarian reasons. While Macklemore does have his issues such as his disguise for a private concert back in 2014, it pales in implication to the fact that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide and how there’s an open secret now that much of the media around the world including the United States are attempting to censor it as well as negative depictions of Israel. I don’t need to get into the specifics as of now although I have written an article about anti-Zionist music even if they might inadvertently come from Zionists like Regina Spektor.

For Macklemore however, his backing of Palestine is without its clear background. In 2024, he released ‘Hind’s Hall’ in protest against the bipartisan support of Israel as well as his condemnation of ethnonationalism and authoritarianism. It comes with critical acclaim for its progressive messaging and how Macklemore, similar to Sheeran in that he’s by no means the best in his genre, is using his celebritydom to advocate for a humanitarian crisis that’s made public. His advocacy lets him sit with the likes of noted actor Mark Ruffalo, whose upcoming Marvel productions are guaranteed to be in jeopardy over his statements; director Jonathan Glazer, whose recent work was the Holocaust-centred Zone of Interest in 2023 and whose Oscar acceptance speech drew controversy as he drew parallels between his Jewish ethnicity’s trauma to Gaza; and YouTuber Ms. Rachel Accurso, whose focus on supporting children enables her to popularise charities and non-governmental organisations to help Gazan youths as statistics point towards disproportionate infant mortality rate compared to the global average.

Let us return to Sheeran once again. Compared to Macklemore, he likes to claim his apoliticalness although he too had advocated for stances like pushing for a second vote on Brexit back in 2018 or performing in a fundraising concert for Ukraine in 2022. For Palestine, he came out with an apology over his kicking of Macklemore and tries to absolve his involvement in the controversy in a way that comes off as slimy to say the least. On Instagram, he said that he’s “not complicit” and said that while he “respects” Macklemore’s principles, he is more interested in peace. This vagueness is said regardless of newfound scrutiny against the normalised discrimination from Israeli society against the Palestinians. A recording of his live apology is mocked over how disingenuous he comes across while his phrasing of the October 7th attacks as being equal to the Gaza genocide ignores the blatant unequal power dynamic that allows Israel to kill a disproportionate amount of civilians compared to Hamas’s.

What makes his stance ring hollow lies in the clear contrast between the slither of social consciousness in his early works compared to his music since then. At least with ‘The A Team’ do you get an impression of a young man who wants to bring attention to the crisis of homelessness and the deprivations that will lead to prostitution and drug use. Never again do you hear a song by him which seeks to further examine the social issues. Most of them are ballads or empty love songs such as ‘Thinking Out Loud’ that soon fade from public memory in a few decades’ time. There are “wisdom” baits like ‘Castle on the Hill’ which didn’t capture the same aged introspection as Five for Fighting’s ‘100 Years’. Or dance “bops” as is the case with  that ‘Shivers’ makes you wish for the old Sheeran to return which is akin to Coldplay.

Because there’s been no socially conscious music from Sheeran since +, Sheeran’s perceived apoliticalness denies him an outlet to actually make a stand for the greater good. He might go to a concert or two as a benefactor for the civilians in Ukraine, but he won’t give his money away to meaningfully provide food and water for those who lost their homes. He might push for funding the arts in the United Kingdom, but he isn’t interested in funding extra-curricular music lessons for impoverished aspiring artists. He can push for reversing Brexit and push for the UK to become a member of the European Union again, but he’s not going to break the mold and write songs which tackle the issues following the departure. He lacks the hunger that all-time greats like Bob Dylan have shown where their worldly awareness draws new attention towards global situations.

The takeaway from the ordeal is that a song similar in themes and intent as ‘The A Team’ will never come from Sheeran again. He’s too caught up in the shininess of being an accessible popstar to think about compromising on it if that means hurting his wallet in exchange for saving more lives. You can see how shallow his songwriting has gone over the course of his career with one featured piece from the Guardian noting his genre diversification being to ensure that he remains on top of the chart whenever he drops a new album. He’s incapable of expressing his true feelings because it will irreversibly shift his commercial success even if the long-term value is a net positive. The simple reality that this is bigger than music; Dead Presidents have made that message clear enough in their signature song ‘Hip Hop‘.

As for Macklemore however? He’ll be hitting the zeitgeist soon. His views have garnered levels of attention and praise rarely seen in the mainstream and his newfound fans will appreciate him for his commitment to social justice. As I mentioned earlier, he is not the best white rapper for sure, but he has the heart to push for a better world. I can’t say that I’ll be waiting for Sheeran’s upcoming release, but I will be curious to see how Macklemore’s next project might look in light of the current situations. It’s high time we get a charged work out of a name as big as him.