Istanbul, Turkey – Turkey on Tuesday expressed alarm over a weekend gig by Kanye West in Istanbul attended by nearly 120,000 fans, saying it included elements that offended its spiritual sensitivities.
In a post on X, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief advisor Oktay Saral said the show featured “rhetoric and symbols that run counter to our faith and civilizational values.”
“The fact that tens of thousands of people enthusiastically chanted ‘I am a God’ is a serious matter that demands close examination,” he said of Saturday night’s performance.
I Am a God is a Kanye West song from 2013.
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The show was more than just “a mere music event,” Saral said, pointing to the involvement of 82-year-old French designer Michele Lamy, an eccentric with heavily kohled eyes, tattoos, gothic style, and ink-stained fingers, suggesting she was “associated with occultism and dark symbols.”
Even more worrying was the involvement of a “conservative segment of society… [in] this cultural siege,” he said, urging the tourism ministry “to exercise far greater caution regarding such events that concern the spiritual and cultural sensitivities of our nation.”
The rapper has, in recent years, sparked widespread anger over remarks glorifying Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and for antisemitic rants, which he has blamed on having bipolar disorder.
Last year, he released a song called Heil Hitler, with swastika T-shirts advertised on his website, sparking a backlash that has affected his planned European tour this year.
