American rapper Macklemore has announced a concert tour titled "Free Palestine", days after being removed as an opening act on Ed Sheeran's stadium tour following pro-Palestinian remarks he made onstage. "So, as you all know, my schedule freed up a bit," Macklemore said wryly upon announcing the new tour on Thursday. Proceeds from the concerts will be donated to organisations supporting Palestinians, including Gaza Soup Kitchen, Jewish Voice for Peace, and UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees. The rapper — born Benjamin Hammond Haggerty — has also pledged to donate one million dollars of his own money, drawn from fees he received for his participation in the Sheeran tour.
The controversy began in early September when Macklemore, performing as an opening act at a Sheeran concert in New Jersey, told the stadium crowd: "A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so that I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very, very dear to my heart: Free Palestine." He also performed a song dedicated to pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University. He was subsequently dropped from the tour on 14 September. Macklemore alleged that Robert Kraft, an 85-year-old businessman and owner of one of the stadiums on the tour route, had pressured other venue owners to exclude him. Kraft, who is known for his longstanding support of pro-Israel organisations, accused Macklemore of hate speech and antisemitic rhetoric — a characterisation Macklemore rejected. Sheeran, for his part, stated that the decision was made by his concert promoter, Messina Touring Group, rather than by himself personally. The fallout was significant: other support acts withdrew from the Sheeran tour in solidarity, ticket prices fell, and Sheeran addressed the controversy directly at a Philadelphia show, calling the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks "horrific" while also describing the situation in Gaza as "unjustifiable and disproportionate".
Macklemore's new tour will open in Dublin on 26 October, followed by Paris on 29 October and London on 30 October, with US dates to be announced. The rapper acknowledged that some details were still being finalised given how quickly the tour had come together. In a statement, he said he had spent the preceding week reaching out to artists who had used their platforms in solidarity with Palestinians. "What happened to me is bigger than one artist or one stage," he wrote on Instagram. "When the billionaire class can decide which voices are allowed on stage and which ones are too dangerous to hear, everyone should be paying attention."
The episode has reignited debate about the limits of artistic expression in commercially controlled venues, and about the role of wealthy private stakeholders in shaping public discourse. Macklemore, who is 43 and first rose to international prominence as part of the duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis — winning four Grammy Awards in 2014, including best new artist and best rap album — has long used his platform to address social issues. His 2012 song "Same Love" advocated for LGBTQ+ rights and marriage equality. Since the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza, he has increasingly incorporated Palestinian flags, protest songs such as "Hind's Hall," and pro-Palestinian slogans into his performances. "We are in 2026," he wrote. "Staying apolitical in the face of a genocide no longer works."