Controversial rapper Kanye West, also known as Ye, will hold a concert in Prague in July, Zuzana Rambova, director of the Chuchle Arena racecourse hosting the event, has said.
The US rapper has been condemned for glorifying Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and for anti-Semitic and hate-filled comments, which he has blamed on having bipolar disorder.
"He will perform on July 25," Rambova told AFP without giving further details.
Czech media said the concert was organised by the HUGO Production company, which is owned by a 20-year-old Slovak, Hugo Varga, according to the Czech Company Register.
West, who has legally changed his name to the shorthand Ye, is planning a European comeback tour in June and July.
But his plans have stumbled on opposition as the British government said it would not allow him into the country for three concerts at the Wireless Festival in Finsbury Park, London in July.
The mayor of Marseille in France has said the rapper was "not welcome" for a June concert there, while Dutch Asylum and Migration Minister Bart van den Brink said he would not bar West from the Netherlands where he is due to perform in early June.
In January this year, West took out a full-page advert in The Wall Street Journal to declare "I am not a Nazi or an antisemite" and "I love Jewish people".
He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into "a four-month-long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behaviour that destroyed my life".
West was due to perform at the Rubicon rap festival in Bratislava in neighbouring Slovakia last year.
But the organisers cancelled the event after he had released a song called Heil Hitler on 8 May 2025, the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Thousands of people petitioned against the Slovak gig of the 48-year-old rapper, who has won 24 Grammy Awards over the course of his career.
Source: AFP
