A mounting public outcry in Slovakia seeks to remove Kanye West—legally known as Ye—from the upcoming Rubicon Festival in Bratislava, following a series of antisemitic incidents linked to the rapper. More than 3,500 people, including representatives from Peace for Ukraine and Cities for Democracy, have signed a petition urging Bratislava’s mayor to revoke Ye’s invitation scheduled for July.
Signatories argue that Ye’s presence at the festival would be “an insult to historic memory,” especially in Central Europe. They point to the rapper’s sale of swastika-themed T-shirts and the early May release of a song titled “Heil Hitler”, which drew inauthentic Nazi-era rhetoric—later banned in Germany and removed from major streaming platforms. Such actions, they warn, could embolden extremist ideologies at an event taking place in a region haunted by the memory of the Holocaust.
The petition explicitly calls Ye “one of the world’s most famous antisemites” and cautions that allowing him to headline could attract extremist attendees, infringing upon democratic values and memories of wartime atrocities. During WWII, over 70,000 Slovak Jews were deported and murdered, heightening the sensitivity around public portrayals of Nazi symbolism in Slovakia.
Festival organizers had positioned Ye’s appearance as a draw: “hip-hop visionary, cultural icon and controversial genius.” The controversy comes amid the rapper’s plans to release his 12th album, Bully, and his recent appearance at the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial—both raising Ye’s public profile despite the hate speech and sponsorship fallout he incurred earlier this year.
