US rapper Kanye West, whose concerts have been banned in several European venues over controversial antisemitic remarks, may perform in the Netherlands for two concerts in June, officials said Friday.<\/p>\n
The 48-year-old, also known as “Ye”, has sparked widespread anger over remarks glorifying Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and for antisemitic rants, which he has blamed on having bipolar disorder.<\/p>\n
The mayor of the eastern city of Arnhem, Ahmed Marcouch, has granted a permit for the June concerts to go ahead despite what he described as “reprehensible statements made by the artist in the past”.<\/p>\n
The majority of the Dutch House of Representatives had called for the rapper to be denied entry to the country.<\/p>\n
But asylum and migration minister Bart van den Brink said there were no formal legal grounds to bar him from the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
“You need clear reasons to bar people from your country. We did not find those in the analyses that were conducted,” said Van den Brink.<\/p>\n
West is scheduled to play in Arnhem on June 6 and 8 — the latter date being the rapper’s birthday.<\/p>\n
He is also slated to appear in Istanbul on May 30.<\/p>\n
However, his extreme statements and actions — last year he released a song called “Heil Hitler”, with swastika T-shirts advertised on his website — caused a backlash against his planned European tour.<\/p>\n
In April, the British government banned him from entering the country to headline a festival, forcing organisers to cancel the event.<\/p>\n
A week later, he postponed a concert in Marseille following reports France’s interior minister was seeking to block the performance.<\/p>\n
A Polish stadium cancelled a West concert scheduled for June 19, with the culture minister saying Poland wanted to bar him over his “promotion of Nazism”.<\/p>\n
Later, Swiss football club FC Basel told AFP they had turned down an approach about hosting a West concert.<\/p>\n
In January, West took out an advert in the Wall Street Journal to defend himself, saying: “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite” and “I love Jewish people”.<\/p>\n
He attributed his behaviour to a manic episode brought on by bipolar disorder.<\/p>\n
He is also set to perform in the Albanian capital Tirana on July 11, and in Prague on July 25.<\/p>\n
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