{"id":115463,"date":"2026-05-15T16:07:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/115463\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T16:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:07:15","slug":"kanye-wests-unlikely-new-concert-partner-live-nation-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/115463\/","title":{"rendered":"Kanye West\u2019s Unlikely New Concert Partner: Live Nation Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nothing could illustrate the absurdity of 2026 quite like an upcoming concert by Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West<\/a>, in a former Soviet republic being produced by Live Nation<\/a> Israel.<\/p>\n

On June 12, the rapper will perform at Dinamo Arena in Tbilisi, Georgia, billed as the latest A-list booking by Starring Georgia<\/a>, an initiative partially funded by the Georgian government, whose stated goal is \u201cto bring to Georgia the most in-demand contemporary artists \u2026 who have never performed in our country before.\u201d The effort appears to be working, as the 70,000 tickets put up for Ye\u2019s headlining date sold out within a day.<\/p>\n

In fact, staffers and contractors handling the show\u2019s production are already on the ground in the Georgian city in advance of the show, according to social media posts shared by Live Nation Israel head and Bluestone Group founder Guy Beser. Sources say LN Israel has effectively rebranded as Live Nation Central Asia, which in 2025 brought the likes of Justin Timberlake to Azerbaijan and Guns N\u2019 Roses to Georgia. Beser and a representative for Ye did not respond to requests for comment; a Live Nation spokesperson clarifies that \u201cLive Nation is not producing the Ye show in Georgia; the show is being produced by Blue Stone Productions\u201d and that the Central Asia designation is an internal moniker for the developing markets of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia.<\/p>\n

A local producer \u2014 in this instance contracted by Starring Georgia \u2014 typically handles all issues related to the venue, including staging, sound, security, marketing, and PR. So how did Ye, whose antisemitic comments and praising of Nazism led to concert cancellations in at least four European countries \u2014 he infamously declared he was \u201cgoing death con 3 on Jewish people\u201d on social media, in addition to releasing a song called \u201cHeil Hitler\u201d and wearing a swastika openly \u2014 end up working with an Israeli crew?<\/p>\n

To get to the source of this unlikely partnership, you have to rewind to the concert industry in Israel before Oct. 7, 2023. In the years leading up to the terrorist attack on southern Israel \u2014 during which Hamas killed or took hostage more than 1,000 people (many attending the Nova music festival<\/a> near the Gaza border) \u2014 the Israeli music market was growing thanks to a booming economy, a period of relative calm in the region, and the possibility that better relationships with neighboring countries would help establish a regional touring market. Major music companies \u2014 labels and publishers \u2014 were starting to set up Tel Aviv offices<\/a> to promote Western repertoire and sign local talent, while acts like OneRepublic, Lady Gaga, and Jennifer Lopez had performed to tens of thousands in Israel. (Bruno Mars<\/a> was scheduled to headline a concert in Tel Aviv on the night of Oct. 7.)<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Since then, hardly any international acts have performed in Israel, as the country has grappled with a multi-front war and a near-constant barrage of rockets. Even before the latest U.S. and Israeli military escalation in Iran, several prominent Western artists (like Lorde and Massive Attack, the latter of whom canceled a 2024 concert in Georgia<\/a>, citing \u201cthe government\u2019s attack on basic human rights\u201d) were geo-blocking their music in Israel in protest of the country\u2019s war in Gaza. All of which made for a sad reality for Israeli music fans, and the company in which Live Nation invested with the hope of \u201cfirmly establish[ing] Israel as a \u2018must-play\u2019 market on any world tour,\u201d as stated in a 2017 announcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Live Nation Israel was formed in 2017 (along with Ticketmaster Israel) when the concert giant took majority ownership in Israeli concert-production company Bluestone, a joint venture between Guy Oseary, Madonna\u2019s longtime manager, Beser, veteran Israeli promoter Shay Mor Yosef, and others. Bluestone, which launched in 2014, was responsible for hosting Tel Aviv concerts by such artists as Bon Jovi<\/a>, Backstreet Boys, Enrique Iglesias, Major Lazer, and OneRepublic.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Ye\u2019s Tbilisi performance would have preceded a called-off concert in Chorzow, Poland, that was scheduled for June 19. That country saw the highest death toll of Jews during World War II, a fact Poland Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska noted in her comments<\/a> on social media regarding the planned Ye gig. \u201cIn a country scarred by the history of the Holocaust, we cannot pretend that this is just entertainment,\u201d she wrote. \u201cArtistic freedom does not mean giving a free pass to everything. Culture cannot be a space for those who exploit it to spread hatred.\u2026 We are talking about an artist who has publicly expressed antisemitic views, downplayed crimes, and profited from selling swastika T-shirts. These are not \u2018controversies.\u2019 This is a deliberate crossing of boundaries and the normalization of hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n

That an Israeli company would work with an artist who\u2019s been disparaging of the Jewish people is confounding. After all, London\u2019s massive Wireless Festival, where Ye was scheduled to headline over three nights in July, called off its 2026 edition<\/a> entirely once the artist\u2019s visa was revoked. \u201cWe are clear that the past comments and actions of this artist are offensive and wrong, and not reflective of London\u2019s values,\u201d a spokesperson for London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Rolling Stone last month. One has to wonder if the Israeli staffers at Live Nation Central Asia had any such moral qualms, or if it\u2019s simply a matter of business.<\/p>\n

It appears the concert giant made the quiet, if economically sensible, decision to move the small Israel team to nearby territories, dubbed Central Asia. Operating out of Tbilisi made sense as well. A three-hour flight from Tel Aviv, Georgia is a popular tourist destination for Israelis, and has reportedly seen a steady increase in Israeli visitors since the Oct. 7 attack. Its Jewish roots are also deep, dating back hundreds of years.<\/p>\n

As a former republic of the Soviet Union, Georgians fought against the German army during World War II \u2014 sharing a common enemy in the Nazis \u2014 at a high human cost on the battlefield. Jewish citizens, however, faced persecution both before and after the war, as Soviet authorities clamped down on Jewish life in the form of arrests, arson, or other violent antisemitic incidents, which continued into the 1960s. It declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Today, it\u2019s estimated<\/a> the native Jewish population in Georgia numbers between 500 to 1,000 residents.<\/p>\n

West has been making overtures to the Jewish community in recent months. In January, he took responsibility for his past behavior \u2014 which included wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe while spewing inflammatory rhetoric \u2014 with a full-page Wall Street Journal ad<\/a>. \u201cI owe a huge apology once again for everything that I said that hurt the Jewish and Black communities in particular,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAll of it went too far.\u201d Skeptics referred to the ad as marketing, paving the way for his Bully album, which released in March and debuted at Number Two on the Billboard 200.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very disturbing,\u201d one prominent Israeli music executive tells Rolling Stone. \u201cEverything Kanye has said and done against the Jewish community is unforgettable, and for many people, deeply hurtful. At the same time, it raises difficult questions about where the industry draws the line between business, entertainment, and accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, a report by Israeli news outlet mako published last week<\/a> suggested a future concert by Ye in Israel was in the works, with the rapper allegedly fielding multiple offers<\/a>. That\u2019s unlikely, two industry insiders say, seeing as the artist has essentially been locked out of some of the world\u2019s biggest touring markets: the U.K., France, and potentially other countries with strong anti-hate speech laws. But not impossible?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite his controversial behavior, Ye sold out a pair of Los Angeles stadium shows<\/a> with first-rate production that featured a dome-shaped stage evoking the Earth. Additional tour dates include upcoming stops in India, Turkey, the Netherlands, Italy, Albania, Portugal, and Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nothing could illustrate the absurdity of 2026 quite like an upcoming concert by Ye, the artist formerly known…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[22943,39782,3765,9367,37,38694,39459,9416,39783,39781,39779,39780],"class_list":{"0":"post-115463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-concert","9":"tag-dinamo-arena","10":"tag-exclusive","11":"tag-georgia","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-kanye-west","14":"tag-live-nation","15":"tag-show","16":"tag-sold-out","17":"tag-tbilisi","18":"tag-ye","19":"tag-yeezy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116579456965664991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}