Kanye West concert in Poland will be cancelled, venue says
The cancelled concert in Poland adds to recent setbacks in Europe for the US rapper Kanye West over his past antisemitic remarks.
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WARSAW: A Polish stadium said on Friday (Apr 17) that it will cancel a concert by US rapper Kanye West days after he postponed a show in France amid a furore over his past antisemitic comments and celebration of Nazism.
"We would like to inform you that the Ye (Kanye West) concert planned for 19 June 2026 at the ... Slaski stadium will not take place due to formal and legal reasons," stadium director Adam Strzyzewski said in a statement posted on Facebook.
The decision by the Slaski stadium in the western city of Chorzow, first reported by Wyborcza newspaper on its website, comes just over a week after Britain blocked the 48-year-old from travelling there to headline a festival.
There was no immediate comment from the rapper, now known as Ye, who in January apologised for his behaviour, which he attributed to untreated bipolar disorder, and renounced past expressions of admiration for Adolf Hitler.
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Authorities in Poland had already signalled they would seek to ban the planned June 19 concert.
"In a country scarred by the history of the Holocaust, we cannot pretend that this is just entertainment," Polish Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska said on Thursday.
More than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War Two. Nazi Germany killed more than 3 million of Poland's 3.2 million Jewish population.
Ye was barred from Australia last year after releasing a song promoting Nazism and advertising swastika T-shirts on his website.
He has performed in the United States and Mexico City this year, with further concerts planned in Europe and Asia.
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