By B. COOPER
A wave of protests erupted after rapper Macklemore was dropped from British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran’s North American concert series over on-stage comments he had made in support of Palestine at the New Jersey MetLife stadium. The ejection of Macklemore sparked solidarity protests from other artists; tour openers Finneas, Aaron Rowe, and Lukas Graham, and the Irish backing band Beoga left the tour in protest.
Street demonstrations in solidarity with Macklemore and with Palestine took place in Philadelphia before Sheeran’s Sept. 19 show. Another protest is planned in Boston prior to the Sept. 26 concert.
After a week of controversy, Sheeran was compelled to address the issue in a statement made before the Philadelphia audience. The statement contained an apology of sorts for his earlier criticisms of Macklemore and for ejecting him from the tour.
“I’ve had to take and make difficult decisions and I am making mistakes, and I am so, so sorry,” Sheeran said, adding that he’s never wanted to disappoint fans or be an “activist musician.” But, he said, he has been thrust into the middle of “important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet.”
He explained, “When my friends dropped out of this show, I was thinking, how am I going to keep the show the same, and how am I going to get musicians to stand on stage with me in a week where no one wants to stand on stage with me.”
Sheeran also expressed criticism of Israel’s murderous bombing of Gaza: “What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.”
Yet his short speech remained an example of stage-managed centrism, decrying “both sides” in the conflict in Palestine while remaining non-specific about Israel’s decades of systemic ethnic cleansing, going back well before Oct. 7.
Nevertheless, the whole debacle represents a victory for Palestinian liberation in the cultural sphere. It shows that in spite of the powerful pressure of a capitalist class in the U.S. that has supported Zionism and its genocidal activity, and the system of commercial incentive that demands compliance, many artists have been influenced by the mass movement that has struggled against Zionism and U.S. imperialism for the past three years and before. And artists often act like a sensor indicating downstream changes in society about what may or may not be acceptable to say and struggle for.
The institutional pressure of the capitalists
The decision to drop Macklemore for his pro-Palestinian comments was not Ed Sheeran’s alone, who remarked that he had been pressured by venue owners to drop Macklemore for his act of solidarity. As reported in Al Jazeera, The Wall Street Journal, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, Sheeran was told by several owners of sports stadiums and teams that retaining Macklemore on the program could cause them to cancel his concert, with Robert Kraft playing a central role in these threats.
Kraft is the owner of the New England Patriots and of Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, where the Ed Sheeran tour is scheduled for Sept. 25 and 26. Kraft also gives millions of dollars to Zionist causes and has been praised by Netanyahu—accused of war crimes and mass starvation by the International Criminal Court—as “a friend of Israel.”
He has pro-Zionist politics, having been a prominent critic of protests in solidarity with the Palestinians, and pulled funding from Columbia University after the student encampments there (Donald Trump subsequently used the federal government to deny funding for Columbia).
Kraft characterized Macklemore’s remarks at MetLife stadium (“Free Palestine, Free Lebanon, Free Cuba”) as “hate speech”—employing the typical Zionist strategy of silencing pro-Palestinian voices by equating any criticism of the State of Israel with antisemitism.
Robert Kraft shows us that “cancel culture” is a thing for capitalists and big property owners! By controlling access to the venue, these super-wealthy moguls have an outsized power to silence or at the very least limit speech that is inconvenient. This same process occurs with advertising, brand deals, news reporting and a million other intangible resources that the market makes available to compliant voices.
Kraft, of course, did not act alone but also convinced other wealthy people who run stadiums to also cancel Macklemore. In this we see an example of how the ruling class has shared interests. In the case of the United States, the capitalist class is tied by a thousand threads to U.S. imperialism and hence are strategically aligned with Israel, the client state of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East.
For artists, this puts them in a bind. Going against the grain of capitalist (and imperialist) interests has career consequences. Macklemore himself wrote on Instagram “Taking a side can cost you. Money, brand deals, sponsorships, festivals, private shows, relationships and access. I’ve lost all of those things.” He sums up perfectly how a creator can suffer dramatically for speaking out. In the same vein, Sheeran felt those same pressures from venue owners and caved.
However, Macklemore, to his great credit, is continuing to fight back. He has now announced a “Free Palestine” concert tour, which will feature him rapping along with other musicians to raise funds for humanitarian causes in Palestine.
In regard to the controversy and protests coming out of the cancelations with Sheeran, Macklemore posted on Instagram: “If these last couple of weeks have shown us anything, it’s that something has shifted over the last three years. 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. 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.
“What happened to me is bigger than one artist or one stage. 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.”
The mass action of the working class
Considering the above, how is it that not only Macklemore, but all other artists in Sheeran’s tour left in protest? How, indeed, can we understand that Ed Sheeran himself felt obliged to apologize for his error, an apology that no doubt upset the efforts of Kraft?
In other words, how did a tactical victory for the Zionist movement in the U.S. turn almost immediately into a tactical defeat? The only way to fully understand these phenomena is to remember that the mass struggle for Palestine has been ongoing for years, internationally, and has affected the political consciousness of a great many people.
Israel itself is most responsible for this turn-about, being the perpetrator of a genocide in Gaza, illegal settlements in the West Bank, and ruthless invasions of Lebanon, Syria, etc. The whole world is watching and sees Israel for what it is (a racist colonizer), and has also witnessed the Palestinian people resisting the ongoing Nakba (catastrophe).
In response, millions worldwide have gone into the streets in protest. In Italy, general strikes were performed by dockworkers to end their country’s aid to Israel. In the U.S. the student movement played an important role in normalizing resistance to genocide with bold direct actions. By protesting and going on strike, working people materially and ideologically combat the institutional power of the capitalists and their government.
Palestine is not yet free. But we can have confidence that it will be, along with Lebanon, Cuba, and other beleaguered peoples oppressed by U.S. imperialism. The global working class has not yet demonstrated that it can take over society and dethrone capitalism, but with persistent organizing, we can have equal faith that it will do so in the long run.
End all Aid to Israel!
Free Palestine, Free Lebanon!
End the Imperialist War on Iran!
End the Blockade! Oil and Aid to Cuba!
Defend Free Speech and the Right to Protest!
Photo: Palestine solidarity protesters gather outside Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, where Ed Sheeran was performing on Sept. 19. (Elizabeth Robertson / Philadelphia Inquirer)
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