A Kanye West concert in Poland has been cancelled, the venue has announced, following government pressure and condemnation over a string of antisemitic, racist and pro-Nazi comments by the US rapper.
West, also known as Ye, was scheduled to appear at the Silesian Stadium in Chorzów on 19 June, his first performance in Poland for 15 years, but the venue said on Friday it would now not take place due to formal and legal reasons.
Marta Cienkowska, Poland's culture and heritage minister, had described the decision to book West as unacceptable. This comes days after West postponed a gig in France and a week after the UK banned him from entering the country to headline Wireless Festival.
In February last year, West started selling swastika T-shirts, prompting the commerce platform Shopify to take down his web store. Three months later, he released the track Heil Hitler, in which he claimed a child custody battle turned him towards Nazism.
In January, prior to the announcement of his European tour, he published an advert in the Wall Street Journal apologizing for his previous actions. I am not a Nazi or an antisemite, he wrote, asserting that he loves Jewish people and cited his mental health issues as affecting his judgment.
Promoting Nazi symbols is a criminal offence in Poland, where anyone found guilty of such acts can face imprisonment for up to three years. The rapper's statements strike particularly deep in Poland, where the Nazi occupation led to the murder of three million Polish Jews.
Cienkowska stated, We are talking about an artist who has publicly expressed antisemitic views, downplayed crimes, and profited from selling swastika T-shirts. This is a deliberate crossing of boundaries and the normalization of hatred. Culture cannot be a space for those who exploit it to spread hatred.
Initially, blocking the concert was complicated because there was no applicable law; however, Minister Jędrzejewski confirmed that the Polish foreign ministry had agreed the concert should not occur.
West was also due to headline the Wireless Festival in London, but that event was abruptly canceled after the UK government blocked his visa application.
