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Dearborn’s mayor issued an open invitation to Macklemore to perform a concert in the majority-Muslim Michigan city on Monday after the rapper was kicked off of Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour for his speech onstage calling for a free Palestine.
“Hey [Macklemore], if they don’t want you performing in their stadiums, you’re always welcome in Dearborn,” said Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud in a post on social media on Monday evening.
Hammoud offered for the city government to sponsor the show. “Come put on a show here. We’ll make it a free concert, sponsored by the City, and help make it one of the best around,” he said.
“We stand with you and for a free Palestine,” Hammoud concluded. Hammoud is one of many pro-Palestine figures and groups who have come to Macklemore’s defense after the rapper was banned from Sheeran’s tour.
“Privately owned sports stadiums should never threaten to ban musicians because they dare to oppose a genocide, and publicly owned stadiums entities cannot engage in such censorship without violating the First Amendment,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in a statement on Monday.
“We call on Mr. Sheeran and the tour promoters to reverse course. They should pursue legal options or reschedule his tour rather than give in to bullying by billionaires who care about free speech as much as they care about slaughtered Palestinian children,” the group said.
“All solidarity with” Macklemore, said Irish hip hop band Kneecap. “Today Israel is killing children, as they do every day.” One of Kneecap’s members was charged with terrorism earlier this year due to the band’s advocacy for Palestine.
Hammoud’s invitation came after Macklemore was dropped from eight of the remaining 10 shows of Sheeran’s U.S. Loop tour after the venues said that they would not allow the show to go on with Macklemore as an opener, according to the tour’s promoter, Messina Touring Group.
The stadiums’ objections were done at the behest of billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, whose holding company, the Kraft Group, also owns Massachusetts’s Gillette Stadium, where the tour is slated to play two dates later this month. Kraft, a major donor to pro-Israel causes, claimed in a statement that the cancellations were done for the supposed comfort of the Jewish audience members.
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“Gillette Stadium has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech,” said Kraft, also accusing Macklemore of antisemitism over a speech he gave at the New Jersey tour shows last week. According to Macklemore, Kraft also reached out to other stadium owners to rally them behind the cancellation.
Sheeran shirked responsibility for the cancellation in a statement posted to Instagram on Tuesday. He said that he attempted to “build a bridge” with the venues and Kraft after he was informed of them pressuring him to drop Macklemore, but that their decision was “final.”
“I am appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The suffering and pain caused on both sides is a human tragedy,” Sheeran said. “I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just becuase I choose not to speak publicy [sic], it doesn’t mean I don’t have them.”
In his speech in New Jersey last week, which he posted on social media, Macklemore said that he wanted to go on the tour with Sheeran because he wanted to spread the word about the suffering in Palestine.
“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 before playing his pro-Palestine protest song, Hind’s Hall.
“To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters: criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you,” the rapper went on. “So I say free Palestine, I say free Lebanon, I say free Cuba, I say free Congo, free Sudan, I say free all people in America living in fear of this terrorist organization, ICE. None of us will be free until we are all free.”
The rapper further said in a statement responding to his removal from the tour that he doesn’t believe he is a victim, and that the “victims are the Palestinian people.” He said that Sheeran told him that he wanted to remain neutral on the genocide, saying, “I don’t take sides.”
“I didn’t need 10 shows from Ed. I needed 2. Two chances to stand in front of 90,000 people and say the words that somehow became too dangerous to say. Free Palestine,” Macklemore said. “But if those words cost me the stage, while turning the conversation back to Palestine, then it was the most successful tour I’ve ever been on.”
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