Macklemore is facing mounting calls to be removed from Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour after delivering a pro-Palestinian message during his opening set at MetLife Stadium.
The 43-year-old rapper used the huge platform in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Friday night (04.09.26) to speak directly to the crowd about the conflict before performing his protest track Hind’s Hall.
Introducing the song, Macklemore told fans: “A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine. I said, ‘Free Palestine!’ I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them.”
He continued by explaining why the message felt personal to him as a father. “
Macklemore went on: "I have an 11-year-old daughter, her name is Sloan, she’s here tonight. And if any of you guys are parents, then you know that that love that you have for your kids cannot be put into words, right? I want to see her grow up, I want to see her go to school, to fall in love, to figure out meaning, purpose, joy, her existence on this planet. I want it to be the most beautiful possible. And I think that every single human being that walks this earth deserves that exact same feeling.”
He added: “To know safety and peace before they know the sound of violence, to know the sound of laughter on a playground before planes and bombs, for parents to be able to say bye to their kids in the morning and not have to wonder if this is going to be the last time they kiss their child goodbye.”
Macklemore said he refused to let fear silence him: “And if I let that fear I felt on the plane yesterday stop me from speaking my heart in order to keep my own comfort and the audience’s comfort, that is the day I no longer continue to be on stage.”
He then broadened his message beyond Gaza: “So, I say, ‘Free Palestine!’ I say, free America, free Cuba to the Congo to Sudan to Iran, and all the people in America who have to live in fear because of this terrorist organisation ICE.”
His comments prompted immediate backlash from the Israeli-American Council (IAC), which has launched a petition calling for Sheeran’s team to remove Macklemore from the tour. The organisation wrote: “This was an Ed Sheeran concert – not a political rally, not a protest, and not an activist event.”
The group went on: “The issue is not whether Macklemore has the right to hold political views. The question is where the line should be drawn when an opening act uses a global concert platform to advance a one-sided political agenda.”
The petition also demands clarity from tour organisers: “Tour leadership must clarify whether Macklemore’s political speech, visual content, and performance of Hind’s Hall were approved in advance, and establish clear boundaries for the use of the tour stage to promote political messaging.”
It concludes: “Freedom of expression does not mean freedom from responsibility. Your show. Your stage. Your responsibility. Keep Ed Sheeran’s LOOP Tour about music – not political propaganda.”
Macklemore released Hind’s Hall two years ago, in support of pro-Palestinian student protests, naming the track after Columbia University demonstrators who temporarily renamed Hamilton Hall in honour of five-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed in Gaza.
