US rapper Kanye West, whose concerts have been banned in several European venues over controversial antisemitic remarks, will appear in Istanbul on May 30, organisers said.
The 48-year-old, also known as “Ye”, has sparked widespread anger over remarks glorifying Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and for antisemitic rants, which he has blamed on having bipolar disorder.
US rapper Travis Scott is also expected to play at Saturday’s event at Istanbul’s Ataturk Olympic stadium, organiser Erdem Karahan of ILS Vision told Anadolu state news agency on Tuesday.
Around 120,000 fans are expected to attend the festival-style event, with the city laying on 100 free buses to get people home, CNN Turk reported.
West’s extreme statements and actions — last year he released a song called “Heil Hitler” with swastika t-shirts advertised on his website — caused a backlash against his planned European tour.
In April, the British government banned him from entering the country to headline a festival, forcing organisers to cancel the event.
A week later, he postponed a concert in Marseille following reports France’s interior minister was seeking to block the performance.
A Polish stadium cancelled a West concert scheduled for June 19, with the culture minister saying Poland wanted to bar him over his “promotion of Nazism”.
Later, Swiss football club FC Basel told AFP they had turned down an approach about hosting a West concert.
In January, West took out an advert in the Wall Street Journal to defend himself, saying: “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite” and “I love Jewish people”.
He attributed his behaviour to a “manic episode” brought on by bipolar disorder.
He is to perform in the Netherlands on June 6 and 8, in the Albanian capital Tirana on July 11, and in Prague on July 25.
