Kanye West (AKA Ye) pulled off a series of big L.A. concerts in April, but may not have the same luck in Texas.
One day after tickets went on sale for the controversial hip-hop superstar’s July 4 performance in San Antonio, that city’s mayor said she supports “canceling the @kanyewest concert.”
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones continued, “Military City USA should not host someone with a record of hate speech and antisemitic comments in a city-funded facility like our Alamodome—not ever, and certainly not on July 4th, our Nation’s 250th birthday.”
Despite the mayor’s call, tickets are still available for the show on Ticketmaster and on West’s website.
Jones is not alone in her opposition.
An upcoming show in Prague fell apart earlier this month when the venue pulled out.
An June performance in Poland was canceled last month due to “formal and legal reasons,” but the nation’s Culture minister wrote of the decision, “In a country scarred by the history of the Holocaust, we cannot pretend that this is just entertainment. Artistic freedom does not mean giving a free pass to everything. Culture cannot be a space for those who exploit it to spread hatred.”
A French festival was forced to postpone after local officials vowed to block the Grammy winner from performing. AFP said it had been told by sources close to the country’s interior minister that he was looking at “all possibilities” to stop the concert.
The mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, had already declared his opposition to West’s performance on social media in late March. “I refuse to let Marseille be a showcase for those who promote hatred and unashamed Nazism,” he said in part.
In April, the UK’s home office banned the rapper from entering the country. As a result, the Wireless Festival there was canceled.
Last year, he was denied a visa to enter Australia.
In January, Ye took out an ad in the Wall Street Journal to plead for forgiveness after his antisemitic rampage in 2025. Ye said he suffered a “four-month-long manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.” During that period, Ye sold $20 shirts with swastikas and made numerous antisemitic posts including declaring himself to be a Nazi.
Two concerts he has scheduled later this month in Tampa have also elicited calls for cancellation.
Florida Senator Rick Scott, noting that the arena West is set to play is owned by the public, wrote in a letter to the Tampa Sports Authority Board of Directors that “Kanye West’s consistent antisemitic attacks are an affront to the values of the people of the Hillsborough Community.” (The City of Tampa Bay lies in Hillsborough County.)
