The highly anticipated Slovakia festival, slated to welcome Kanye West next week, has been abruptly canceled amidst a furor sparked by the US rapper's controversial song released in May, which extolled Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Prior to the cancellation of the July 20th concert, Bratislava's Rubicon hip-hop festival was poised to be West's sole confirmed live performance in Europe this year. Despite amassing 24 Grammy awards throughout his illustrious career, the rapper's erratic behavior and increasingly antisemitic, hate-laden tirades have garnered him infamy.
West, who legally adopted the moniker Ye, unleashed the song "Heil Hitler" on May 8th, marking the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II. The track concludes with a snippet of Hitler's 1935 speech in its original German, culminating in the Nazi leader urging his supporters to "stand up for me like I have stood up for you." The song was promptly banned in Germany under hate speech laws due to its extremist symbolism and removed from most mainstream streaming platforms, yet it continued to spread and garner support on Elon Musk's X platform.
Upon announcing West's appearance at Rubicon, thousands of people signed a petition against the concert, denouncing it as "an affront to historic memory, a celebration of wartime violence, and a dishonor to all victims of the Nazi regime." During World War II, over 70,000 Slovak Jews were sent to concentration camps, handed over to German authorities, and ultimately murdered.
West, a vocal advocate for US President Donald Trump, is "repeatedly and openly embracing symbols and ideologies associated with the darkest chapter of modern global history," according to the petition's organizers.
In an Instagram statement late Wednesday, Rubicon organizers cited "media pressure and the withdrawal of several artists and partners" as the reasons behind the event's cancellation. "This was not an easy decision," they emphasized, without explicitly linking the rapper's planned appearance to the cancellations.
Billed as the premier hip-hop hangout in Central Europe, the Rubicon festival was scheduled to run from July 18th to 20th, with US rappers Offset and Sheck Wes sharing top billing alongside West. Earlier this month, it was revealed that Australia had revoked West's visa over the "Heil Hitler" song, in which he rhymes about his custody battle with his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. Notably, West's current wife, Bianca Censori, hails from Australia.
