Macklemore Announces Free Palestine Tour: ‘Being Apolitical During a Genocide Doesn’t Work Anymore’
Billboard ·
The move comes after he was dropped from Ed Sheeran's trek.
Macklemore is still hitting the road this despite being dropped from Ed Sheeran ‘s tour, announcing Thursday (Sept. 24) that he’s launching his own Free Palestine trek to raise funds for the countless people suffering in Gaza.
The rapper shared the news on Instagram, posting a poster for the Free Palestine Tour and revealing that it will take place across Dublin, Paris and London on three days in late October. For now, the billing simply reads, “Macklemore and Friends.”
“Because of how quickly all of this has come together, a lot of the conversations, schedules and details are still being worked out,” he wrote in his caption. “But this is a moment of momentum, and there is work to be done.”
Macklemore also discussed why he felt motivated to put the tour together. “If these last couple of weeks have shown us anything, it’s that something has shifted over the last three years,” the hip-hop star shared. “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.”
“It’s 2026,” he continued. “Being apolitical during a genocide doesn’t work anymore. People are asking artists to show up, educate themselves and be in community. To use the stage for more than entertainment. To push back when the call for a Free Palestine is met with attempts to silence it.”
Though Macklemore didn’t name Sheeran in the post, it’s clear he was referencing the British pop star. Earlier in the month, the U.S. promoter for Sheeran’s Loop Tour removed Macklemore as one of the trek’s openers following backlash to the rapper’s “Free Palestine” demonstrations on the MetLife Stadium stage in New Jersey, citing conversations with owners of other stadiums on the tour’s route, who allegedly threatened to cancel dates unless Macklemore was dropped.
Sheeran later confirmed in a statement that he’d been in communication with other stadium owners — namely Robert Kraft, whose Kraft Group owns Gillette Stadium — in the hopes of “building bridges” and finding alternate solutions, but according to the four-time Grammy winner, “the venue’s and promoter’s decision was final.”
He also explained why he’s always chosen not to use his “professional platform for politics,” wanting instead to offer an apolitical “place of safety and sanctuary, to maintain diplomacy and keep conversations open, not closed.”
This in particular drew pushback from fans and activists, leading Sheeran to speak more on the topic at his first Loop show after Macklemore was dropped. (No one opened for Sheeran that night, as all of the other supporting acts had also pulled out in solidarity with Macklemore and Palestinian people prior to the show.)
“This is a humanitarian issue, and I cannot hide how I feel about it anymore,” Sheeran said on stage at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Sept. 19. “What happened in Israel and at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7 was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain. What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable, and disproportionate.”
Both Sheeran and Kraft have also each pledged $2 million in donations to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Before that, Macklemore donated the $1 million he made from his Loop Tour contract to Palestinian aid, and now he’s keeping the momentum going.
“What happened to me is bigger than one artist or one stage,” Macklemore added in his tour announcement. “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 … Artists who understand that our platforms mean very little if we’re only willing to use them when it’s safe.”
Tickets to the Free Palestine Tour will go on presale at 10 a.m. local time on Monday (Sept. 28) via registration on Macklemore’s website .
See Macklemore’s announcement below.