Kanye West concert in Poland cancelled over antisemitic comments

A Kanye West concert in Poland has been cancelled, the venue has announced, following government pressure and condemnation over a string of antisemitic, racist and pro-Nazi comments by the US rapper.

West, also known as Ye, was scheduled to appear at the Silesian Stadium in Chorzów on 19 June, his first performance in Poland for 15 years, but the venue said on Friday it would now not take place "due to formal and legal reasons".

Marta Cienkowska, Poland's culture and heritage minister, had described the decision to book West as "unacceptable".

It comes days after West postponed a gig in France and a week after the UK banned him from entering the country to headline Wireless Festival.

In February last year, West started selling swastika T-shirts, prompting the commerce platform Shopify to take down his web store.

Three months later, he released the track Heil Hitler, in which he claimed a child custody battle and the freezing of his financial assets turned him towards Nazism.

In January, prior to the announcement of his European tour and the release of his latest album, the rapper apologised for his actions in a statement published as a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal.

"I am not a Nazi or an antisemite," he wrote. "I love Jewish people."

West added that he had "lost touch with reality" because of his bipolar disorder.

Promoting Nazi symbols is a criminal offence in Poland and anyone found guilty of publicly promoting Nazism can be imprisoned for up to three years.

The rapper's comments were particularly painful in Poland, where under Nazi occupation during the Second World War, the Germans built and operated the concentration and extermination camps to carry out their plans to murder Europe's Jews, including three million Polish Jews.

The town of Chorzów itself was one of the first invaded by German forces at the outset of the conflict in September 1939.

"We are talking about an artist who has publicly expressed antisemitic views, downplayed crimes, and profited from selling swastika T-shirts," Cienkowska wrote on X.

"This is a deliberate crossing of boundaries and the normalisation of hatred.

"Culture cannot be a space for those who exploit it to spread hatred."

Prior to the stadium announcement, culture minister spokesman Piotr Jędrzejewski told the BBC blocking the concert was not straightforward because there was no applicable law to stop it going ahead.

He added that the Polish foreign ministry agreed the concert should not happen.

West was due to headline Wireless Festival in London and perform in Marseille in southern France as part of his European tour this year.