{"id":6736,"date":"2026-09-24T20:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T20:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/6736\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T20:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T20:48:14","slug":"us-rapper-macklemore-announces-free-palestine-tour-after-ed-sheeran-fallout-israel-palestine-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/6736\/","title":{"rendered":"US rapper Macklemore announces Free Palestine tour after Ed Sheeran fallout | Israel-Palestine conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Macklemore says \u2018being apolitical during a genocide doesn\u2019t work\u2019, promises to donate proceeds to Palestinian causes.<\/p>\n

Grammy Award-winning rapper Macklemore has announced a string of shows in support of Palestine after he was controversially dropped<\/a> from Ed Sheeran\u2019s<\/a> United States tour after speaking out against Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza.<\/p>\n

The 43-year-old American rapper, who has almost 40 million monthly listeners on Spotify, announced his Free Palestine Tour on Thursday, with shows set to take place in Dublin, Paris and London in late October.<\/p>\n

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Macklemore said he will be joined by other musicians and will announce their names soon. He added that US shows are currently being organised.<\/p>\n

He said all proceeds raised from the tour will be donated to causes supporting the Palestinian people and the wider movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf these last couple of weeks have shown us anything, it\u2019s that something has shifted over the last three years,\u201d Macklemore said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a collective awakening around Palestinian liberation, the power of billionaires that try to censor that call, and what we expect from artists right now. It\u2019s 2026. Being apolitical during a genocide doesn\u2019t work anymore,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are asking artists to show up, educate themselves and be in community. To use the stage for more than entertainment. To push back when the call for a Free Palestine is met with attempts to silence it.\u201d<\/p>\n

English punk rap duo Bob Vylan<\/a> have expressed their support for the tour, responding to Macklemore\u2019s Instagram post with a heart emoji. The British YouTuber and influencer known as Chunkz, who has more than four million followers on Instagram, also praised Macklemore.<\/p>\n

Attempts to silence Macklemore<\/p>\n

On September 4 at New Jersey\u2019s MetLife Stadium, Macklemore, who was one of Sheeran\u2019s opening acts, expressed support for Palestine.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: \u2018Free Palestine\u2019 \u2026 My message is for peace; love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality,\u201d Macklemore told the audience at the time.<\/p>\n

Soon after, the rapper announced that he had been dropped from the Sheeran tour.<\/p>\n

Venue owner Robert Kraft<\/a> later confirmed that Macklemore was barred from performing at his Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Kraft denounced what he described as the rapper\u2019s \u201cbroader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery\u201d and argued that such actions led him to decide that allowing Macklemore to perform at his venue \u201cwould cross that line\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kraft is a Jewish-American billionaire and has donated to several Israeli causes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, said in 2019 that Israel did not have a \u201cmore loyal friend\u201d than Kraft.<\/p>\n

\"JERUSALEM,From left, Sara Netanyahu, Robert Kraft and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Genesis Prize at The Jerusalem Theater on June 20, 2019 [File: Getty]<\/p>\n

Macklemore claimed Sheeran and his team removed him from the tour following pressure from Kraft.<\/p>\n

He alleged that Kraft rallied the owners of the remaining stadiums that the tour would include and persuaded them not to allow him to perform. The rapper said that Kraft then told Sheeran the tour would not go ahead unless he was dropped.<\/p>\n

Neither Kraft nor Sheeran have commented on Macklemore\u2019s allegations that stadium owners were contacted by Kraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Macklemore says \u2018being apolitical during a genocide doesn\u2019t work\u2019, promises to donate proceeds to Palestinian causes. Grammy Award-winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5712,21,50,171,30,914,1443,33,1769,58,5713,20,951,1442,696,39,168],"class_list":["post-6736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-censorship","tag-conflict","tag-conflict-news","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-human-rights","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-middle-east","tag-music","tag-news","tag-palestine","tag-protests","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@conflicts\/117327987096875553","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/conflicts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}