On Monday morning, the rapper Macklemore posted a lengthy Instagram statement alleging that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and other NFL owners pitched a hissy-fit to get him dropped from the United States leg of Ed Sheeran's tour. Kraft, who has never shown much interest in music, allegedly called Ed Sheeran to tell him who was allowed to open his shows.
According to Macklemore, "Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues." Macklemore was set to play Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is owned Kraft and his family, on September 25 and 26. Now, Sheeran will play there without him.
Macklemore opened for Sheeran on September 4 and 5 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. During his set, he played his 2024 protest anthem "Hind's Hall" and said, "Free Palestine. I want to say those words so the people of Gaza all the way to the West Bank know that we have not forgotten them." Macklemore has been consistent and vocal in his political leanings for years. On stage, he also called ICE a "terrorist organization" and said, "Free Palestine, free Cuba, Congo, Sudan and Iran."
Immediately, the Israeli American Council, who do not have anything to do with music, called for Macklemore to be banned from the rest of the tour and opened a petition for people to sign that does not reveal how many signatures it has. The singer P!nk also got involved, posting a 1300 word Instagram statement after reposting an anti-Macklemore meme.
Messina Touring Group gave a statement to Rolling Stone saying:
"As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s US Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming US tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans. After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates."
The choice of the word "venues" is interesting here. Venues, specifically NFL stadiums where Sheeran plays, do not have the sentience required to decide who plays in them. But their owners allegedly do. According to The Guardian, "the venues that allegedly objected to Macklemore’s return include stadiums outside Boston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Dallas and Tampa." That's every NFL stadium left on Sheeran's tour except for Philadelphia. The owners of those teams are Robert Kraft, Arthur Blank, the daughters of Jim Irsay, Jerry Jones, and the Glazer family. This is not a consistent standard policy for NFL owners. Kanye West, who has a long history of antisemitic statements, played in Tampa earlier this year and is scheduled to play in Dallas in November.
"What I said at MetLife I have been saying on stages around the world for almost three years. So why is it an issue now?" Macklemore wrote. The reason, it seems, is that Kraft decided to make it one.
Kraft made all of his money by marrying into a family that owned a packaging dynasty. The reward he apparently gets for this is the ability to control everything and everyone as he pleases. When you have an estimated net worth of $15.2 billion dollars, you often get your way. Any court case can fully disappear. You can deflate a bunch of footballs (cheat) and get a slap on the wrist. The short list of things your money can't control includes whether your team loses to the Seattle Seahawks or the fact that people will forever mistake your wife for your granddaughter.
Macklemore, for his part, insists that he is not a victim here. "The victims are the Palestinian people. The men, women, and children who have been killed, starved, displaced and forced to live through unimaginable violence," he wrote on Instagram. "People are being killed today, and people will be killed tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don't lose sight of that."
