Macklemore is accusing some of the most famous arenas in the United States of shutting the door on his planned benefit concerts for Palestine. In an Instagram post shared Friday, the rapper said nine venues in New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle turned him away after first indicating they had open dates.
The venues he named are Madison Square Garden in New York City, the Prudential Center in New Jersey, the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, UBS Arena on Long Island, the Intuit Dome, the Kia Forum and Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, the Chase Center in San Francisco and Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.
"By mid-September, we received available dates at these arenas through the end of the year," he wrote. "But once they found out these were my benefit shows for Palestine, those dates were suddenly off the table. The doors were closed. The conversations were all different, but the result was the same. The shows were not going to be allowed to happen in these venues."
The rapper said the experience was without precedent in his career. "In over 20 years of touring, I've never experienced anything like this," he wrote, adding that he would "rather lose every opportunity in this industry than spend another day protecting people who value their business relationships with Israel more than they value Palestinian human life."
Macklemore also framed the situation as a free speech issue. "We live in a country that prides itself on freedom of speech. Yet we've reached a point where a handful of billionaires can decide which causes are acceptable, which voices are welcome and which human lives are worth defending," he wrote. "Today it's Palestine. What will it be tomorrow?"
He closed his message with a defiant note: "They may own the arenas. But they do not own the people who fill them. And they never will. FREE PALESTINE!"
The dispute follows another touring controversy for the rapper. In September, Macklemore was fired from Ed Sheeran's "Loop" tour over pro-Palestinian comments he made during his opening set at MetLife Stadium. All of the tour's other opening acts, along with Sheeran's own backing band, subsequently quit the tour in solidarity with Macklemore and Palestine.
Macklemore recently wrapped a run of European dates, performing in Dublin, Paris and London at the end of October. Variety has reached out to the nine arenas he named for comment.
