Ye’s Poland Show Canceled After Culture Minister Condemns Rapper: ‘We Cannot Pretend This Is Just Entertainment’

Ye’s (formerly Kanye West) upcoming concert in Chorzów, Poland, has been canceled. A rep for Silesian Stadium, where West was set to perform on June 19, told Wyborcza in a story published Friday (April 17) that “the concert will not take place.”

“We will inform the organizer ​in a few hours,” the rep added in a statement. “Our lawyers are preparing a ​letter ⁠regarding this matter.”

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Reuters also reported on the show’s cancellation, citing stadium director Adam Strzyzewski’s statement posted to the venue’s Facebook page, which read: “We would like to inform you that the Ye (Kanye West) concert planned for 19 June 2026 ​at the… Slaski stadium will not take place due to ​formal and legal reasons.”

Billboard has reached out to West’s rep for comment

The decision to pull the plug on West’s concert in Chorzów comes shortly after Ye postponed his June show in France amid backlash from the country’s interior minister and the U.K. government’s ruling to deny Yeezy a travel visa, which led to the cancellation of London’s Wireless Fest, where he was set to headline, due to Ye’s past antisemitic remarks and hate speech.

Poland’s culture minister, Marta Cienkowska, spoke out against Ye potentially having a show in the country on social media on Thursday (April 16), calling the decision “unacceptable.”

“The decision to organize a Kanye West concert in Poland is unacceptable,” she wrote in a message posted to X on Thursday (April 16). “We are talking about an artist who has publicly made antisemitic views, downplayed crimes and profited from selling swastika T-shirts. These are not ‘controversies’. This is a deliberate crossing of boundaries and the normalization of hatred.”

Cienkowska continued: “In a country scarred by the history of the Holocaust, we cannot pretend this is just entertainment. Artistic freedom does not mean giving a free pass to everything. Culture cannot be a space for those who use it to spread contempt.”

West has yet to release a statement regarding the show cancellation in Poland. According to the Yeezy website, he’s still slated to perform in New Delhi, Istanbul, the Netherlands, Italy, Madrid and Portugal later this year.

The polarizing Chicago native is still dealing with the fallout from his actions, which included selling a swastika T-shirt and releasing a song titled “Heil Hitler” in 2025.

Ye issued an apology in The Wall Street Journal in January, which saw him address the Jewish and Black communities he had hurt in the past, and West also met with a rabbi in November 2025.

Ye released his Bully album on March 28, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. He returned to the stage in the U.S. with a pair of SoFi Stadium shows on April 1 and April 3.

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