At Berlin’s Zitadelle, Massive Attack and 47Soul Merge Sound and Dissent

The Zitadelle Spandau, a castle moated and freighted with frogsong, feels like a natural extension of Massive Attack’s hermetic visual universe. On 7 June, the Bristol group returned to Berlin’s self-styled most beautiful venue, a space infamous for subduing bass under open sky. The hour’s delay only deepened the oddity: a man in a MAGA hat, rows ahead, slowly gave in to the night’s first rhythms.

Those came from 47Soul, the Jordanian-Palestinian duo who molded dabke, synths, and guitar into lean, politically charged shamstep. Keyboardist Ramzy Suleiman told the crowd they no longer talk about politicians, but about families and friends. Against Berlin’s crackdown on Palestinian expression—bans on Arabic at protests, on cultural symbols, on solidarity gatherings—the flag raised on stage felt not symbolic but necessary. The audience met it with open applause.

Massive Attack’s own history resists separation from such moments. From full-page NME ads opposing the Iraq War to Robert Del Naja’s decades of anti-institutional activism, the group has never retreated into aesthetics. That night, inside the citadel walls, the membrane between surreal sound and sharp reality stayed thin. The headlines outside the venue didn’t pause for the setlist, and the music didn’t pretend they would.