A Georgian state-owned company is bringing controversial US rapper Kanye West (YE) to Tbilisi, with a live concert scheduled for 12 June. In recent years, the artist has faced major consequences for his antisemitic and pro-Nazi remarks — something the government critics also emphasised while speaking with OC Media.
Information about West’s concert, which had been the subject of rumors in recent days, was confirmed on Wednesday by the project Starring Georgia, which organises it. The event will take place at the capital’s Dinamo Arena, while ticket sales have not yet begun.
Starring Georgia is fully state-owned, with its shares managed by the Ministry of Culture. The ministry promoted the event on its social media, describing West as ‘one of the most important and influential figures in 21st-century music’.
‘With the support of the government of Georgia and the Ministry of Culture, Starring Georgia continues to move toward its main goal. In 2026, Georgia takes center stage in the global music orbit’, the ministry wrote.
Since 2022, the American rapper has been at the center of controversy after repeatedly making antisemitic statements and promoting content associated with Nazi ideology, including references to conspiracy theories about Jewish control, engaging in Holocaust denial, and praising Nazi Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler.
Although he issued an apology in 2023, as recently as 2025 he continued to generate further controversy, including by releasing a song titled ‘Heil Hitler’ and launching a clothing line featuring swastika imagery.
As a result of his actions, the artist has faced a number of consequences, including the termination of partnerships with several major companies, restrictions or suspensions across social media platforms, and the cancellation of events or entry bans in a number of countries, including the UK, Poland, and Australia.
In January 2026, the artist issued another apology, denying that he is a Nazi or antisemitic. He stated that he loves Jewish people and attributed his previous behavior to bipolar disorder, which he said was exacerbated by a brain injury sustained in a car accident in 2002 and insufficient treatment following that incident.
In brief comments to OC Media, some civil society representatives criticised West’s planned event.
Eka Chitanava, Director of the Tolerance and Diversity Institute (TDI), said that such a move by a state-owned company was ‘neither unexpected nor surprising’. She assessed the public discourse of the ruling Georgian Dream party ‘propagandists’ — including in the context of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine — as ‘saturated with antisemitic rhetoric’.
Chitanava pointed to conspiracy narratives about ‘deep state’ and the ‘global war party’ — two nebulous terms that regularly feature in Georgian Dream’s conspiracy theory-tinged rhetoric.
According to the party, these shadowy forces have infiltrated political circles in the West, including by dragging Ukraine into war with Russia, and are trying to do the same in Georgia. Some figures affiliated with the party also promote claims that ‘oligarchic families’ are behind the processes they describe.
‘[In these families] Jews are directly implied and named’, Chitanava added.
Commenting on the issue, Keti Chikviladze, co-founder of the Tbilisi-based Progressive Judaism Centre, expressed confidence that the organising company is ‘not aware’ of West’s controversial background.
However, she emphasised that ‘even if they knew, it still would not have been a deterrent for them to bring him, [rather than] showing respect for the Jewish community and refraining from doing so’.
‘I am not surprised by anything from Georgian Dream’, she added.
Chikviladze noted that she plans to express her protest against the scheduled event on social media and also to stand outside Dinamo Arena on the day of the concert with a protest banner.
‘I don’t know who will join me, but I will definitely do it myself’, she said.OC Media contacted Starring Georgia for comment, but no response was provided for the time of publication.
