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Macklemore is launching a “Free Palestine Tour” after being dropped from Ed Sheeran’s tour, saying: “So, as you all know, my schedule freed up a bit.”
The rapper will be joined by “friends,” who will be announced at a later date, at three concerts in Dublin on October 26, Paris on October 29, and London on October 30. All proceeds from the shows will go to organizations supporting Palestinians.
“If these last couple of weeks have shown us anything, it’s that something has shifted over the last three years,” Macklemore said in the announcement. “There has been a collective awakening around Palestinian liberation, the power of billionaires that try to censor that call, and what we expect from artists right now.”
The “Thrift Shop” rapper continued: “What happened to me is bigger than one artist or one stage. 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.”
Earlier this month, Macklemore announced he had been fired from the British singer-songwriter’s Loop tour over his pro-Palestine comments at a gig earlier in the tour. Macklemore claimed that Robert Kraft — the CEO of Kraft Group who owns Gillette Stadium — personally called Sheeran to say he would not be allowed to perform at the venue.
Sheeran later responded by stating he would not be drawn into a public debate about the Gaza war and that it was “the promoter’s decision” to remove Macklemore.
The fallout continued when Sheeran’s other opening acts withdrew, while protesters gathered outside his first concert without Macklemore last week.
Now, Macklemore says he got to work immediately after his firing and reached out to artists in support of the Palestinian people who would want to join him on tour.
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“Because of how quickly all of this has come together, a lot of the conversations, schedules and details are still being worked out. But this is a moment of momentum, and there is work to be done,” he said Thursday.
Tickets go on presale September 28 at 10 a.m. local time, and on sale September 30 at the same time.
The tour announcement comes as Macklemore is also set to perform a solo show October 22 at Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks amphitheater.
While the show was originally announced in March, demand for tickets has surged following the controversy. Only resale tickets — now starting at $220 for general admission — remain available for purchase on Ticketmaster. Rolling Stone reported that the show has only sold out since Macklemore was dropped from Sheeran’s tour.
That price is significantly higher than the $68 tickets available for Sheeran’s solo show in Philadelphia in the wake of the controversy. Some fans who were unhappy with how the situation was handled tried to resell their tickets to Sheeran’s concert, with prices falling sharply as the show approached.
Sheeran opened his Lincoln Financial Field concert by addressing the criticism he’s received, saying, “I’ve had to take and make difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t want to disappoint fans.”
He went on to clarify his own stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, saying, “What happened in Israel, and at the music festival on October 7th was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain. What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.”
Before announcing the tour, Macklemore has largely been silent on social media since his firing, aside from an Instagram post in which he announced he will be donating $1 million from his earnings on Sheeran’s tour to “six organizations working directly to support the Palestine people.”
Macklemore then invited Kraft to match his donation.
Kraft acknowledged that Sheeran asked him to match his own $2 million donation. It has not yet been confirmed whether Kraft went ahead with the donation but he said in a statement that the pair planned to “work together to build bridges.”