In a decision that marks the latest in a string of performance cancellations for controversial rapper Kanye West (now legally known as Ye), Italian authorities have blocked two scheduled July concerts headlined by West and fellow rapper Travis Scott in the northern city of Reggio Emilia, citing urgent public order and safety concerns.
The announcement came Friday from Prefect Salvatore Angieri, following a formal request from Reggio Emilia’s local Jewish community to scrap West’s planned appearance. Community leader Nicoletta Uzzielli had pushed local officials to scrap the event and replace it with a performance that would center music as a unifying, inclusive force for all people.
West has sparked global outrage over the past three years for a repeated pattern of antisemitic, racist, and openly pro-Nazi rhetoric, a controversy that already led to the UK government barring him from entering the country earlier this year. The two cancelled Reggio Emilia shows, scheduled for July 17 and 18 at the city’s RFC Arena, were set to feature West and Scott alongside a roster of major A-list acts including The Chainsmokers, Rita Ora, and Swedish House Mafia.
In an official statement, the regional prefecture outlined the multiple factors that guided its final call. Among the top considerations were the wave of concert cancellations for West already implemented across other nations, and the very real threat of large-scale counter-demonstrations targeting the event. Officials also noted that the close scheduling of the two back-to-back events, combined with projections of massive crowds gathering at the venue, created additional unmanageable public safety risks.
Travis Scott, the co-headliner of the events, has also faced ongoing intense scrutiny over his role in the 2021 Astroworld Festival tragedy in Houston, Texas, where a crowd surge during Scott’s headline set left 10 attendees dead between the ages of 9 and 27, and injured thousands more when panic spread through the over-capacity crowd pressed against the stage.
The Italian cancellation is just the latest domino to fall in a series of scrapped shows for West this year. Last month, London’s high-profile Wireless Festival was called off entirely after West, the announced headline act, was denied entry to the UK amid widespread public backlash over his inflammatory remarks. West’s pattern of problematic comments dates back to 2022, when he posted on social media that he would go “death con 3 On Jewish people”, and in May 2023 he released a track titled *Heil Hitler* and sold merchandise emblazoned with swastikas.
Following the UK entry ban, cancellations quickly spread across mainland Europe. In mid-April, West announced the Marseille stop on his European tour would be postponed “until further notice”, with French media reporting at the time that Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez was actively moving to ban the scheduled June 11 show. That same month, a planned June 19 concert at Poland’s Silesian Stadium in Chorzów was also cancelled, with venue officials citing unspecified “formal and legal reasons”.
West has made recent attempts to rebuild his standing in mainstream entertainment after stepping back from public view. In January, he published a lengthy apology in *The Wall Street Journal*, claiming “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite” and asserting “I love Jewish people”. He also attributed his past harmful comments to his bipolar disorder diagnosis, writing that he had “lost touch with reality” during the period when the remarks were made.