Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis has hit out at the “strangely hysterical” public reaction to Jay-Z being booked as one of the Glastonbury 2008 headliners.

Pointing out Glastonbury’s long history of booking rap artists, Eavis was particularly keen to dismiss the presumption that Jay-Z was booked in a deliberate attempt to appeal to find a new, younger audience for the festival: “That is just not the case. It is much simpler than that: we respect Jay-Z as an amazing artist and so, obviously, we want to see him at the festival.”

Her comments come in the wake of an outburst from Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher, who dismissed the notion of hip-hop at Glastonbury as a betrayal of the festival’s core audience: “I’m sorry, but Jay-Z? Fucking no chance… It’s wrong.”

Eavis, however, questioned the closed-minded attitudes of some critics, identifying a troubling “undercurrent” in the “suggestion that a black, US hip-hop artist shouldn't be playing in front of what many perceive to be a white, middle-class audience. I'm not sure what to call it, at least not in public, but this is something that causes me some disquiet.”

You can read Emily Eavis’ full statement here.