{"id":517367,"date":"2026-04-07T09:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/517367\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T09:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:44:08","slug":"kanye-west-offers-to-meet-uks-jewish-community-after-wireless-backlash-kanye-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/517367\/","title":{"rendered":"Kanye West offers to meet UK\u2019s Jewish community after Wireless backlash | Kanye West"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rapper formerly known as Kanye West has broken his silence and offered to \u201cmeet and listen\u201d to members of the UK\u2019s Jewish community after a fierce backlash over his booking at London\u2019s Wireless festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

West, who is legally known as Ye, has been criticised for making antisemitic remarks<\/a>, including voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler. Last year he released a song called Heil Hitler a few months after advertising a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website.<\/p>\n

His planned appearance has been condemned by MPs and Jewish organisations<\/a>, who have urged the government to ban him from the country. The health secretary, Wes Streeting, said the rapper should not be headlining the festival.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Ye released a statement addressing the furore, in which he offered to meet the UK\u2019s Jewish community. In January, Ye took out a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal apologising for his antisemitic behaviour and attributing his inflammatory actions to his bipolar-1 disorder.<\/p>\n

The statement said: \u201cI\u2019ve been following the conversation around Wireless and want to address it directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy only goal is to come to London<\/a> and present a show of change, bringing unity, peace and love through my music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in the UK in person, to listen. I know words aren\u2019t enough \u2013 I\u2019ll have to show change through my actions. If you\u2019re open, I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phil Rosenberg, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the largest and Jewish communal organisation in the UK, said the body was \u201cwilling\u201d to meet Ye, but only if he agreed not to play the festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven while claiming remorse today, his latest album includes a track first released last year with the abhorrent title Gas Chamber,\u201d Rosenberg said. \u201cThe Jewish community will want to see a genuine remorse and change before believing that the appropriate place to test this sincerity is on the main stage at the Wireless festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs such, we are willing to meet Kanye West<\/a> as part of his journey of healing, but only after he agrees not to play the Wireless festival this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kanye West has offered \u2018to meet with members of the Jewish community in the UK in person, to listen\u2019. Photograph: Scott Dudelson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, Keir Starmer said it was \u201cdeeply concerning\u201d that Ye had been booked to perform \u201cdespite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of nazism\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Monday evening, Melvin Benn, the managing director of Festival Republic, which promotes Wireless, said Ye was \u201cintended to come in and perform\u201d, adding that they were \u201cnot giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI am a deeply committed anti-fascist and have been all my adult life. I lived on a kibbutz for many months in the 1970s that was attacked on 7 October [2023], am pro-Jew and the Jewish state, while being equally committed to a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Ye has said in the past about Jews and Hitler is as abhorrent to me as it is to the Jewish community, the prime minister and others that have commented and \u2013 taking him at his word \u2013 to Ye now also.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benn called for Ye to be given a second chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving had a person in my life for the last 15 years who suffers from mental illness, I have witnessed many episodes of despicable behaviour that I have had to forgive and move on from. If I wasn\u2019t before, I have become a person of forgiveness and hope in all aspects of my life, including work.<\/p>\n

\u201cForgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue in this ever-increasing divisive world and I would ask people to reflect on their instant comments of disgust at the likelihood of him performing (as was mine) and offer some forgiveness and hope to him as I have decided to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pepsi and Diageo withdrew their sponsorship of the festival after Ye was announced as the headline act, and no brands appeared as visible sponsors on Wireless\u2019s official website on Monday evening.<\/p>\n

However, on Tuesday, speaking to BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme, Benn claimed Pepsi had signed off on Ye as the headliner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey signed off and approved it,\u201d Benn said. \u201cThey\u2019re our headline sponsor, we asked them to sign off on it and they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benn admitted the festival could have approached the Jewish community earlier and that not doing so until recently might \u201cprove to be a mistake\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday morning, Streeting did not accept the argument.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Kanye West uses bipolar disorder to justify his actions, I think that is equally appalling, by the way,\u201d he said. \u201cI would ask people to consider, does using bipolar disorder as an excuse to write and release a song called Heil Hitler and plaster it across T-shirts, does bipolar disorder really justify that? Or is it an excuse to justify rotten behaviour?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rapper formerly known as Kanye West has broken his silence and offered to \u201cmeet and listen\u201d to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-517367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}