A Major Artist Was Just Kicked Off a Tour For His Political Beliefs. Now I Have to Do the Unthinkable.

Fame Macklemore, Don’t Make Me Do This The rapper was just pulled from his tour over his political beliefs. There’s only one thing to do now. By Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Scaachi Koul? Sept 14, 20265:43 PM Kristy Sparow/Getty Images Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Well, Robert Kraft, I hope you’re pleased with yourself. Not since February 2019, when you were charged with solicitation after getting caught in a massage parlor sting in Florida, have I been so disappointed in you. It’s bad enough that Kraft, the billionaire real estate developer and owner of the New England Patriots, has foisted so many odious and charmless sports stars on us: Rob Gronkowski and his perfectly square head, Bill Belichick and his spooky little girlfriend, Tom Brady and whatever he’s up to, I’m not going to look it up, and Kraft can’t make me. Even if you don’t care about football, Kraft’s business interests have permeated our culture, often in ways that make our culture much worse. Why do I, a person who has never watched an entire football game, know who Wes Welker is? That makes me want to die!!! But now, Kraft has entered an echelon of supervillainery so cartoonish that he’s making us root for the most impossible of heroes. Did you know rapper Macklemore is opening for Ed Sheeran? Well, he is—was—and we all found out last week when Pink crashed out on Instagram over a clip of his recent performance in New Jersey. On stage, Macklemore said more of what he’s been saying for years, online and in his performances. “A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine,” he said. “I say Free America, Free Cuba to the Congo to Sudan to Iran, and all the people in America who have to live in fear because of this terrorist organization ICE.” He played “HIND’S HALL,” a protest song about the genocide and about Hind Rajab, the 5-year-old Palestinian girl who was trapped in a car for hours waiting for rescue, only to be killed by Israeli military. Ed Sheeran? Pink? Macklemore? What kind of niche millennial hayfever dream is this, you may be asking. Alas, it got bigger when the Israeli American Council launched a petition calling for Macklemore to be removed from the rest of Sheeran’s tour. Today, in response to the controversy around his statements, Macklemore announced that Sheeran decided to pull him from the rest of his tour out of fear of more reprisals for his political views. Even in his cancellation, Macklemore has kept eyes on Palestine. “More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza alone,” he wrote on Instagram after it was announced he was pulled from the tour. “People are being killed today, and people will be killed tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don’t lose sight of that.” You know what else Macklemore gave us? A solid reason to hate Ed Sheeran’s apolitical ass. Macklemore has claimed that Sheeran got a call from Kraft, who owns the Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, home to the rotten, rotten New England Patriots. Macklemore claims that Kraft told Sheeran that they wouldn’t be permitted to play at his stadium later this month so long as he was the opener. He allegedly rallied other stadium owners to hold the same line. “[Sheeran] told me that the words ‘Free Palestine’ and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with,” Macklemore wrote. “But he couldn’t get past his public facing, ‘I don’t take sides.’” Do you think I want to think about Macklemore? Do you think I want to know how to spell it? I don’t. I haven’t thought about him this much since he posted his own text to Kendrick Lamar after he inexplicably won a Grammy over him in 2014. All his music sounds like something Lonely Island would have released during Woke 1. I’m really not happy about any of this. But there are times in life where you have to make the difficult decision to do what’s right, even when you don’t like it. In this case, that choice is stanning the fuck out of Macklemore. In fact, everyone across political alignments now has to stand behind Macklemore. Where are all of society’s loudest, most annoying free speech warriors now? Shouldn’t Elon Musk be offering to host Macklemore at the X offices for a 24-hour mandatory live performance that’s also piped into every Tesla vehicle presently on the road? Where’s Fox News offering him a nightly segment about his uncomfortable pillow company? “I am not a victim,” Macklemore wrote in his Instagram statement. But…isn’t he? He’s a straight white guy named Ben with Irish heritage and a Bachelor’s degree from a state school. The Free Press told us no one was struggling more than guys like that, and here one is! Someone give him a tin foil blanket and a hot cup of soup! Now, because apparently Kraft is not interested in protecting free speech in our United States, any reasonable person who believes in the safety and dignity of Palestinians and/or believes in free speech for artists regardless of where they perform has to take up arms for Macklemore, the guy who rapped about thinking he was gay because he was tidy?? That sucks. God, the way that sucks so much. Between Pink’s self-centredness, Sheeran’s pitiable public face, and the apparent frailty of all the other stadium owners, it’s impossible not to root for Macklemore, one of the few consistent voices on Palestine within mainstream celebrity. Say what you will about his music, but in speaking out against Israel as well as his friend Sheeran and someone as powerful as Kraft, his career and livelihood are at real risk. It’s a stance few are willing to take, especially as it impacts his bottom line. Macklemore has been vocal about Palestinian safety for years, but not radically so: he doesn’t espouse hate speech or violent ideas, and his belief that Israel is committing genocide isn’t an anti-Semitic idea. The Israeli-American Council argued that a stadium isn’t the place for political conjecture, but musicians have used their stages for political protest since the beginning of live performance. Consider this a worrying reminder that even a wealthy and connected white guy is risking his career by making the same mostly-anodyne political statements as Ms. Rachel. There are plenty of people to blame for Macklemore’s renewed relevancy, but no one more than Kraft. It doesn’t seem like his moral code extends to, say, the upcoming Patriots game against the Green Bay Packers in November. Josh Jacobs will possibly be playing then, even after pleading no contest to abusing his girlfriend. In the meantime, what choice do we have other than to turn on some Macklemore in defiant protest, and then put it on mute. Despite all this, I still don’t want to hear a single word of “Thrift Shop.” Music Palestine