UK government blocks rapper Ye from entering Britain to headline festival

LONDON (AP) — The rapper formerly known as Kanye West has been barred from entering the U.K., where he was scheduled to perform at the Wireless Festival in July.

It came after government officials condemned Ye’s history of antisemitic remarks.

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The festival’s organizers confirmed the ban and said the entire three-day festival was being canceled as a result.

Ye’s travel authorization had been blocked on the grounds that the performer’s presence in the U.K. would not be “conducive to the public good,” the BBC said, citing the Home Office.

Ye was booked to perform in front of around 150,000 revelers July 10-12 at the open-air festival in London’s Finsbury Park.

Last year, he released a song called “Heil Hitler” and advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website. The 48-year-old apologized in January with a letter, published as a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”

In a statement Tuesday, Ye, who changed his name in 2021, said he “would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in the U.K. in person, to listen.

“I know words aren’t enough — I’ll have to show change through my actions,” he said. “If you’re open, I’m here.”

Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said the group would be willing to meet with the musician if he pulled out of the festival.

“The Jewish community will want to see a genuine remorse and change before believing that the appropriate place to test this sincerity is on the main stage at the Wireless Festival,” Rosenberg said.

Organizer Festival Republic stood by Ye. In a statement issued Monday, managing director Melvin Benn urged people to offer the performer “forgiveness and hope.”

“We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions,” the statement said.

U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting dismissed the organizers’ statement as “absurd” and said Ye should “absolutely not” perform at Wireless.

Benn acknowledged that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood had the power to revoke Ye’s visa to come to Britain.

“If she does, she does, and then the issue is over,” he told the BBC on Tuesday.

A representative for Ye didn’t reply to a request for comment.