The two sold-out concerts by Ye, as the rapper is now known, have been cancelled in Russia. The artist was scheduled to perform on 10 and 11 October at the Gazprom Arena in St Petersburg.
The organizer, the Moscow-based agency Say Agency, confirmed the cancellation on Telegram on Thursday. The agency stated that Ye's concerts in St Petersburg would not take place on the scheduled dates. It added that refunds for tickets would be available from Monday, 12 October, with details of the refund process to be published later.
The cancellation followed weeks of uncertainty over whether the concerts would take place. The Gazprom Arena had initially promoted the event with enthusiasm on social media, referring to Ye as 'the most influential musician of our time'. In August, the arena's management announced that it had not signed a lease agreement with the organizers, and that the concerts could not take place there. The management stated that it 'was not and is not' responsible for the organization of Ye's performances, acknowledging that it had received complaints regarding the announced concerts.
The Russian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, described the situation as unacceptable due to Ye's 'glorification' of Adolf Hitler. Politician Nikolai Novichkov called for an investigation into the musician following his comments about Hitler. Novichkov stated that the concerts should be cancelled unless Ye publicly expressed 'moral support for Russia and the special military operation', as the Russian authorities officially refer to the war in Ukraine.
Ye had previously sold T-shirts featuring swastikas and released a track titled 'Heil Hitler'. In January, he purchased a full page in the Wall Street Journal to publish an apology under the headline 'To those I have hurt'. He wrote: 'I am not a Nazi nor an antisemite. I love the Jewish people'. The rapper also stated that he had been led by his bipolar disorder into a 'four-month manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behaviour that ruined his life'.
