Two weeks ago Macklemore said “Free Palestine” on stage at MetLife Stadium. Two weeks later he was off Ed Sheeran’s tour.
The biggest stadium in America. Footage from Gaza on the screens behind him. Eighty thousand people. He said it more than once.
That’s the story everyone half heard. Now the actual story.
Ed hired Macklemore to open his Loop Tour, and an opening act has one job, making eighty thousand people feel things before the main event. Macklemore made “Hind’s Hall” in 2024, an entire protest song about Gaza. He has been loud about Palestine for years. Hiring Macklemore and being shocked he talks about Palestine is hiring a magician and being shocked he brought a rabbit. Ma’am, you booked the rabbit.
He even told the crowd why he took the tour. To stand in stadiums and say those two words. Then he said them. Then he performed the rabbit. The song.
People got mad. An Israeli-American group started a petition. Petitions. The hobby of our time.
A stadium tour isn’t music being played. It’s real estate with a soundtrack. The buildings are owned by men, a lot of them NFL owners, and NFL owners do not warm up crowds. They warm up phones. According to Macklemore, Ed called him. Ed. Robert Kraft, the billionaire who owns the Patriots and Gillette Stadium, said Macklemore was not performing in his building, then allegedly rallied the other building men into an ultimatum. Drop the rapper or lose the buildings.
You can’t do a stadium tour in a parking lot. Joni Mitchell warned us about parking lots.
September 14, the promoter announced Macklemore was off the American dates. The rabbit was gone. The statement said keeping him could have caused cancellations affecting hundreds of thousands of fans. The gentlest translation ever written of a phone call from a man who owns a football team.
Macklemore posted the whole thing on Instagram. The phone call. All of it. Macklemore said criticizing a government shouldn’t end a career, then announced he’s donating everything he earned from the tour. The feelings guy gave the money away.
Everyone picked a team. Team Macklemore or Team Kraft. Both teams are screaming about the rapper. Nobody is talking about the phone, the one call that took a rapper off the biggest stages in America.
I am only interested in the phone.
Is free speech possible when there is always a landlord?
