New Delhi: American rapper Macklemore has announced the “Free Palestine” tour, featuring three shows in Dublin, Paris and London, following his removal from Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour over his pro-Palestine remarks during a concert at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium earlier this month.
The “Free Palestine” tour will bring Macklemore together with artists and friends for a series of performances that centre on Palestine and help provide humanitarian aid and support to the Palestinians.
With this concert, the benefits will go to organisations such as Anera, Glia, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Taawon, HEAL Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement and Jewish Voice.
The Grammy-winning rapper announced the tour on 23 September in an Instagram post, where he shared that the last couple of weeks had shown that there is a collective awakening around Palestinian liberation, the power of billionaires who try to censor that call, and what we expect from artists right now.
“It’s 2026, being political during a genocide doesn’t work anymore. People are asking artists to show up, educate themselves and be in community. To use the stage for more than entertainment. To push back when the call for a free Palestine is met with attempts to silence it,” he wrote.
He added that he spent last week reaching out to artists who have spoken up and used their stages to stand in solidarity with Palestine, regardless of the consequences.
“Artists who understand that our platforms mean very little if we’re only willing to use them when it’s safe,” he said.
After Macklemore was dropped from the Loop Tour, he announced that he was donating his entire $1 million salary to organisations sending aid to Palestinians.
Macklemore shared on 14 September that he was forced off Sheeran’s US tour after the English singer was pressured by billionaire and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
“Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium,” he posted, soon after his exit from the tour. The next show of the Loop Tour is being held at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is owned by the Kraft Group.
Following Macklemore’s statement, Sheeran shared that he wanted to be an “activist musician”. During his concert at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field on 19 September, he addressed the controversy and spoke about the situation in Gaza.
“I’ve had to take and make difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes, and I’m so, so sorry,” he said.
Sheeran added that the events in Israel on 7 October were “horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain”, while describing the situation in Gaza as “catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate”.
“My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilian lives, of children’s lives, and this systemic injustice we’re seeing unfold in the West Bank cannot be overlooked,” he said.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)