Macklemore has announced a “Free Palestine” tour, a series of live shows that will feature the US rapper performing alongside musicians and friends to raise funds for humanitarian causes in Palestine. The news comes after Macklemore (AKA Benjamin Haggerty) was removed from Ed Sheeran’s US stadium tour after he called for a “free Palestine” onstage and said he wanted the people of Gaza and “the occupied West Bank” to know “we have not forgotten about them”. The speech, made on 4 September, prompted venue owners to refuse to allow any concerts featuring Macklemore to take place on their property.
Sheeran responded to the backlash over Macklemore’s removal with a written statement in which he declined responsibility for the decision and said: “I am not complicit.” All Sheeran’s remaining support acts subsequently dropped out of the tour – Irish songwriter Aaron Rowe, Billie Eilish’s older brother Finneas and Danish band Lukas Graham – alongside the Irish trad group Beoga, who were to accompany Sheeran for portions of the show. Macklemore posted on Instagram alongside his tour announcement: “If these last couple of weeks have shown us anything, it’s that something has shifted over the last three years. There has been a collective awakening around Palestinian liberation, the power of billionaires that try to censor that call, and what we expect from artists right now.
Being apolitical 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. When the billionaire class can decide which voices are allowed on stage and which ones are too dangerous to hear, everyone should be paying attention.” On his solo return to the stage in Philadelphia on 19 September, Sheeran read an apology about “making mistakes” from a teleprompter. Small groups of fans protested outside the venue, with some of them having sold their tickets in protest.
Other concertgoers said they were sticking by the musician. A tearful Sheeran told the crowd: “Everyone is telling me to cancel, and I’m feeling all of my friends and family and people I know abandon me and I look at the end of the week and I see 50,000 people who haven’t abandoned.” In the days since the controversy kicked off, Sheeran is estimated to have lost almost half a million followers across social media, according to data from Social Blade reported by the Independent. Macklemore’s statement continued: “So, as you all know, my schedule freed up a bit.” He said he had been using his time to contacts “artists who have shown up and used their stages to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, 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.” No further lineup details have yet been released for Macklemore’s tour. Two of Sheeran’s former support acts are Irish and many Irish musicians have been outspoken in their support for the Palestinian people, citing their own country’s history of occupation and oppression, as Rowe did in his statement explaining his departure from Sheeran’s tour: “As Irish people, we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation,” Rowe wrote. Institute for Middle East Understanding, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and UNRWA USA.
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