American rapper Kanye West, whose concerts have been banned in several European venues over controversial antisemitic remarks, will appear in Istanbul on May 30, organizers said.
The 48-year-old West, also known as “Ye,” has sparked widespread anger over remarks glorifying Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and for antisemitic rants that he has blamed on having bipolar disorder.
US rapper Travis Scott is also expected to play at Saturday’s event at İstanbul’s Atatürk Olympic stadium, organizer Erdem Karahan of ILS Vision told the state-run Anadolu news agency on Tuesday.
Some 120,000 fans are expected to attend the festival-style event, with the city providing 100 free buses to get people home, CNN Türk 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 organizers 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 Agence France-Presse they had turned down an approach about hosting a West concert.
In January, West took out an advertisement 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 behavior 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 of Tirana on July 11 and in Prague on July 25.
© Agence France-Presse