Ye’s planned concerts in St Petersburg have been thrown into uncertainty after the stadium that was supposed to host the rapper said no agreement had been signed, despite organisers insisting the shows had not been cancelled.
You book a 70,000-seat stadium. The tickets sell out in hours. You are ready to make history as the first major Western artist to play in Russia since the war started. Then the venue posts on social media that the gig is off because the paperwork is missing.
That is the messy situation Kanye West, now known as Ye, found himself in this week.
St. Petersburg’s Gazprom Arena announced that his two sold-out shows scheduled for October 10 and 11 will not happen. The stadium claimed no rental agreement had been signed with the Moscow-based promoters, Say Agency.
But the promoters say they were caught completely off guard. Say Agency posted on Telegram that they found out about the cancellation from the media. They claimed the stadium had actually sent them the contract and the deadline to sign it had not even expired yet.
“We learned about it at the same time as you did, through the media,” the agency wrote, adding that they were trying to contact the venue to fix the issue.
The sudden reversal has left fans frustrated. “This was the shortest concert of my life,” one fan wrote online. Another blamed the government for “putting obstacles in your way.”
While the stadium blamed a missing signature, the booking was already stirring up heavy political backlash. Ye has spent the last few years trying to rebuild his reputation after a string of antisemitic rants, declaring himself a Nazi, and losing massive corporate deals. He issued a public apology in January, blaming a severe manic episode.
But bringing him to Russia during an active war drew the ire of hardline Russian nationalists. Conservative lawmaker Vitaly Milonov publicly complained about the booking, suggesting the rapper should ditch his normal setlist and perform traditional Russian songs instead.
“Maybe after this he’ll stop his disgusting antics and become a normal person,” Milonov said.
There is no official proof that the Russian government stepped in to kill the shows, but the stadium suddenly got very cold feet. Just last week, Gazprom Arena was happily promoting the shows, calling Ye “the most influential musical artist of our time.”
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Say Agency is still defending their decision to bring him to the country. “Not everything Kanye West said should be forgotten,” they wrote. “It’s easy to judge based on a single statement. It’s more difficult to listen to a person who has been changing the industry for decades.”
The promoters are still insisting the concert is not officially cancelled while they try to sort out the mess. But when a stadium publicly washes its hands of you, getting back on that stage is going to take a lot more than just a signed contract.
