Kanye West’s European tour in doubt as more concerts cancelled in Poland and Switzerland

FC Basel and Polish stadium stop US rapper’s upcoming shows, after similar cancellations in France and UK over antisemitic comments

Kanye West’s upcoming concerts in Poland and Switzerland have been cancelled, as a growing number of European countries have stopped or postponed the US rapper’s performances amid a furore over his past antisemitic comments.

Swiss football club FC Basel, which is responsible for concerts and events that take place at its St Jakob-Park ground, told Reuters on Saturday that after reviewing a request for West to perform there in June, it decided against it.

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Kanye West postpones Marseille concert as France considers blocking him from performing

Interior minister is ‘highly determined’ to block US rapper from performing in the southern city in June due to his past antisemitic remarks, sources say

Kanye West has announced he will postpone an upcoming concert in France, just after reports emerged that France’s interior minister is seeking to block the US rapper from performing due to his antisemitic remarks.

“After much thought and consideration, it is my sole decision to postpone my show in Marseille, France until further notice,” the rapper, legally known as Ye, wrote on X.

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Farage says Trump’s Iranian ‘civilisation will die’ threats went ‘way too far’– UK politics live

The Reform UK leader says he is ‘shocked’ by the remarks which were ‘over the top in every single way’

The Green party is backing resident doctors who are on strike. This morning the party issued a statement on the dispute from its co-deputy leader, Mothin Ali, saying:

Rather than shifting goalposts or arm twisting resident doctors with threats over training places, Wes Streeting needs to get serious about resolving resident doctors long term concerns over pay, training and working conditions. The government’s 10-year plan for the NHS will go nowhere if the workforce feels unappreciated, devalued and demotivated.

I think I’m going to stay out of the selection of music by different bands. We live in a free country; people are going to say things. Let’s just let people listen to the music they want to.

People should choose their music and they don’t really they need advice from John Swinney unless they want to listen to The Jam or Amy McDonald.

Well, the government should go on and take their decisions within their powers, but I’m not going to give a running commentary on music taste.

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Pepsi drops Wireless sponsorship amid criticism of Kanye West booking

Sponsor pulls out after Keir Starmer calls decision to book rapper who wrote song titled Heil Hitler ‘deeply concerning’

Pepsi has said it is withdrawing its sponsorship of a UK music festival that is due to be headlined by Kanye West after Keir Starmer joined criticism of the event.

The musician is understood to have not yet made an application to come to Britain and could be blocked under powers allowing the authorities to do so if his presence is deemed not conducive to the public good.

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Slovakia festival hosting Kanye West cancelled after thousands sign petition condemning Heil Hitler rapper

Rubicon hip-hop gathering in Bratislava, due to be held on 20 July, says several performers and partners withdrew

The Slovakia festival due to welcome Kanye West next week has been called off after the uproar over the US rapper’s May release of a song glorifying the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Before the 20 July gig was cancelled, Bratislava’s Rubicon hip-hop festival was set to be West’s only confirmed live performance in Europe this year.

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Kanye West barred from entering Australia over Hitler song, Tony Burke says

Home affairs minister says decision to revoke rapper’s visa came after widely condemned track released in May

The US rapper and artist Kanye West has been barred from travelling to Australia after the release of his widely condemned song Heil Hitler, which has been banned on Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube.

The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, disclosed on Wednesday that the government had revoked the rapper’s visa after his song referencing the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was released independently in May.

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Petition launched to stop Kanye West appearing at Slovakian festival

The rapper is booked to headline the Rubicon festival in Bratislava, which protesters have called ‘a debasement of all victims of the Nazi regime’

A petition has been launched calling on the mayor of Bratislava to prevent Kanye West – legally known as Ye – from headlining a festival in Bratislava, calling the planned appearance “an insult to historic memory, a glorification of wartime violence and debasement of all victims of the Nazi regime”.

The Rubicon festival in the Slovakian capital claimed that they had secured an exclusive performance by the “hip-hop visionary, cultural icon and controversial genius” for mid-July.

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Kanye West performs in China after rare approval by country’s censors

Flow of foreign artists to China has slowed to a trickle, but economic pressures could be forcing authorities to rethink

When Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, took to the stage in Haikou on Sunday, his Chinese fans could barely believe it. One of the biggest and most controversial foreign acts in the world had been allowed in by China’s notoriously censorious regime.

Ye’s only China show – all the more surprising for skipping big cities in lieu of the holiday island of Hainan – was announced just days earlier, and more than 42,000 tickets sold out within minutes. It was his first time back in the country for 16 years. In that time the Chinese government’s tolerance for western musicians has diminished, while Ye’s reputation for controversy has grown.

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Kanye West suspected of attacking man who allegedly sexually assaulted his wife

Following reports of battery investigation into West against unnamed man, rapper’s team allege wife Bianca Censori was being assaulted

Representatives for Kanye West have alleged that a man physically and sexually assaulted his wife Bianca Censori in an incident in Los Angeles.

Sources previously told TMZ that West was being investigated as a suspect in a battery incident earlier this week, after the rapper was alleged to have struck a man who had grabbed Censori.

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Ozzy Osbourne criticises Kanye West for using sample: ‘He is an antisemite’

Rock star said he wants ‘no association’ with artist after he claims a sample of a Black Sabbath song was used without permission

Ozzy Osbourne has called out Kanye West for using a sample of his music without permission.

In a post on X, Osbourne claims he denied a request for a portion of a 1983 live version of the Black Sabbath song War Pigs to be used on West’s new album but heard it was used anyway during a listening party this week.

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Taylor Swift lambasts music industry and says Kim Kardashian feud ‘took me down psychologically’

In a lengthy interview as she is named Time’s person of the year, Swift speaks about toll of high-profile spat, and criticises music industry over treatment of young stars

Taylor Swift has spoken of the psychological damage of her feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, and lambasted the music industry over its treatments of young pop stars, in a new interview with Time, which has named her their person of the year.

After a year in which she has been at the centre of cultural conversations for her massively lucrative Eras tour, Swift spoke damningly of what she sees as a short-termist approach by record labels to replace, rather than nurture its stars. “By the time an artist is mature enough to psychologically deal with the job, they throw you out at 29, typically,” she says. “In the 90s and 00s, it seems like the music industry just said: ‘OK, let’s take a bunch of teenagers, throw them into a fire, and watch what happens. By the time they’ve accumulated enough wisdom to do their job effectively, we’ll find new teenagers.’” She said her solution was to change style with each new album project: “I realised every record label was actively working to try to replace me. I thought instead, I’d replace myself first with a new me. It’s harder to hit a moving target.”

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Elon Musk reinstates Kanye West’s Twitter account after ban

Social media platform rebranded as X lifts ban on rapper-producer imposed after swastika tweet

Kanye West’s account on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has been reinstated almost eight months after he tweeted an image of a swastika blended with a star of David.

The rapper-producer and designer, legally known as Ye, embarked on a series of antisemitic rants on social media and during interviews towards the end of last year. In October, he tweeted that he would go “death con 3” on Jewish people. His account was subsequently locked but he was soon readmitted.

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Kanye West sued by teacher fired from his California private school

Former employee Isaiah Meadows of Yeezy Christian Academy says he was fired in retaliation for reporting unsafe conditions

Kanye West is facing legal action after a former employee of his private school in California alleged that he was fired after reporting unsafe conditions in the school.

Ye, as the rapper now goes by, was named as a defendant in a lawsuit by former employee Isaiah Meadows of the Yeezy Christian Academy, a private Christian school started by Ye, according to the lawsuit shared with the Guardian.

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Kanye West suspended from Twitter after posting swastika inside Star of David

Elon Musk intervenes after rapper posted image hours after airing antisemitic views in Alex Jones interview

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has been suspended from Twitter after he tweeted an image of a swastika blended with a star of David, less than two weeks after he returned to the platform.

The suspension took place hours after Ye praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in an interview on Infowars, a show hosted by the rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

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Republicans delete tweet that appears to support Kanye West after he praises Nazis

House judiciary committee account contained cryptic post - ‘Kanye. Elon. Trump’ – that seemingly expressed support for Ye

Leading Republicans in the US Congress have deleted a tweet that seemingly expressed support for Ye, a rapper formerly known as Kanye West, after he praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Since October, a Twitter account run by Republicans on the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee has contained a cryptic post that said: “Kanye. Elon. Trump” – apparently claiming Ye, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and former president Donald Trump as their own.

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Kim Kardashian and Kanye West reach divorce settlement

Rap mogul will pay ex-wife $200,000 a month in child support, and both will share custody of children

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have reached a settlement in their divorce, averting a trial that had been set for next month, court documents filed on Tuesday showed.

The former couple and their attorneys filed documents asking for a judge’s approval of terms they have agreed on, including $200,000 a month child support payments from Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, to Kardashian.

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Jewish conservatives condemn Trump for meeting antisemite Nick Fuentes

Mike Pence, Chris Christie and several Republican senators were also critical, to varying degrees, of former president

Several Republican lawmakers and prominent Jewish conservatives have condemned Donald Trump for meeting with white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes, in a rare distancing from the ex-president.

Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and several Republican senators were critical, to varying degrees, of Trump, who has come under fire after dining with Fuentes last week.

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Trump condemned for dining with white supremacist Nick Fuentes

Democrats, anti-racist groups and some Republicans criticize president for meeting Fuentes at dinner with Kanye West

Democrats, anti-racist groups and some Republicans have condemned Donald Trump for having a dinner with American white supremacist and anti-semite Nick Fuentes after details of their encounter at the former US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida emerged.

The meeting is the latest in a long line of incidents involving the former US president and the far right, including once referencing the Proud Boys in a presidential debate and his comments that there were “very fine people on both sides” after 2017 clashes at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one anti-fascist protester dead.

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Trump reportedly dines with white nationalist at Mar-a-Lago

Ex-president ‘dined and conversed’ with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West a week after announcing his 2024 campaign

Donald Trump reportedly “dined and conversed” with infamous white nationalist Nick Fuentes at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach on Tuesday.

Trump’s encounter with the openly racist Fuentes – who was in the company of disgraced rapper Kanye West, now known as Ye – came one week after the former US president declared his 2024 campaign.

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Kanye West announces 2024 presidential bid amid far-right ties

Declaration comes amid Adidas investigation and fashion brands dropping the rapper over antisemitic comments

The disgraced rapper and designer formerly known as Kanye West has said he plans to run for president in 2024, amid a series of antisemitic tirades and new far-right associations.

The declaration of his candidacy, which referenced several political figures and aides associated with US white supremacist and anti-democracy movements, would make him the second person to enter the race after Donald Trump.

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