“It raises difficult questions about where the industry draws the line between business, entertainment, and accountability,” says one Israeli industry insider

Nothing could illustrate the absurdity of 2026 quite like an upcoming concert by Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, in a former Soviet republic being produced by Live Nation Israel.

On June 12, the rapper will perform at Dinamo Arena in Tbilisi, Georgia, billed as the latest A-list booking by Starring Georgia, an initiative partially funded by the Georgian government, whose stated goal is “to bring to Georgia the most in-demand contemporary artists … who have never performed in our country before.” The effort appears to be working, as the 70,000 tickets put up for Ye’s headlining date sold out within a day.

In fact, staffers and contractors handling the show’s production are already on the ground in the Georgian city in advance of the show, according to social media posts shared by Live Nation Israel head Guy Beser. Sources say LN Israel has effectively rebranded as Live Nation Central Asia, which in 2025 brought the likes of Justin Timberlake to Azerbaijan and Guns N’ Roses to Georgia. A local producer — in this instance contracted by Starring Georgia — typically handles all issues related to the venue, including staging, sound, security, marketing, and PR. (Beser, Live Nation, and a representative for Ye did not respond to requests for comment.)

So how did Ye, whose antisemitic comments and praising of Nazism led to concert cancellations in at least four European countries — he infamously declared he was “going death con 3 on Jewish people” on social media, in addition to releasing a song called “Heil Hitler” and wearing a swastika openly — end up working with an Israeli crew?

To get to the source of this unlikely partnership, you have to rewind to the concert industry in Israel before Oct. 7, 2023. In the years leading up to the terrorist attack on southern Israel — during which Hamas killed or took hostage more than 1,000 people (many attending the Nova music festival near the Gaza border) — the Israeli music market was growing thanks to a booming economy, a period of relative calm in the region, and the possibility that better relationships with neighboring countries would help establish a regional touring market. Major music companies — labels and publishers — were starting to set up Tel Aviv offices to promote Western repertoire and sign local talent, while acts like OneRepublic, Lady Gaga, and Jennifer Lopez had performed to tens of thousands in Israel. (Bruno Mars was scheduled to headline a concert in Tel Aviv on the night of Oct. 7.)

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Since then, hardly any international acts have performed in Israel, as the country has grappled with a multi-front war and a near-constant barrage of rockets. Even before the latest U.S. and Israeli military escalation in Iran, several prominent Western artists (like Lorde and Massive Attack, the latter of whom canceled a 2024 concert in Georgia, citing “the government’s attack on basic human rights”) were geo-blocking their music in Israel in protest of the country’s war in Gaza. All of which made for a sad reality for Israeli music fans, and the company in which Live Nation invested with the hope of “firmly establish[ing] Israel as a ‘must-play’ market on any world tour,” as stated in a 2017 announcement.

Live Nation Israel was formed in 2017 (along with Ticketmaster Israel) when the concert giant took majority ownership in Israeli concert-production company Bluestone Entertainment, a joint venture between Guy Oseary, Madonna’s longtime manager, Beser, veteran Israeli promoter Shay Mor Yosef, and others. Bluestone, which launched in 2014, was responsible for hosting Tel Aviv concerts by such artists as Bon Jovi, Backstreet Boys, Enrique Iglesias, Major Lazer, and OneRepublic.

Ye’s Tbilisi performance would have preceded a called-off concert in Chorzow, Poland, that was scheduled for June 19. That country saw the highest death toll of Jews during World War II, a fact Poland Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska noted in her comments on social media regarding the planned Ye gig. “In a country scarred by the history of the Holocaust, we cannot pretend that this is just entertainment,” she wrote. “Artistic freedom does not mean giving a free pass to everything. Culture cannot be a space for those who exploit it to spread hatred.… We are talking about an artist who has publicly expressed antisemitic views, downplayed crimes, and profited from selling swastika T-shirts. These are not ‘controversies.’ This is a deliberate crossing of boundaries and the normalization of hatred.”

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That an Israeli company would work with an artist who’s been disparaging of the Jewish people is confounding. After all, London’s massive Wireless Festival, where Ye was scheduled to headline over three nights in July, called off its 2026 edition entirely once the artist’s visa was revoked. “We are clear that the past comments and actions of this artist are offensive and wrong, and not reflective of London’s values,” a spokesperson for London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Rolling Stone last month. One has to wonder if the Israeli staffers at Live Nation Central Asia had any such moral qualms, or if it’s simply a matter of business.

It appears the concert giant made the quiet, if economically sensible, decision to move the Israel team to nearby territories, dubbed Central Asia. Operating out of Tbilisi made sense as well. A three-hour flight from Tel Aviv, Georgia is a popular tourist destination for Israelis, and has reportedly seen a steady increase in Israeli visitors since the Oct. 7 attack. Its Jewish roots are also deep, dating back hundreds of years.

As a former republic of the Soviet Union, Georgians fought against the German army during World War II — sharing a common enemy in the Nazis — at a high human cost on the battlefield. Jewish citizens, however, faced persecution both before and after the war, as Soviet authorities clamped down on Jewish life in the form of arrests, arson, or other violent antisemitic incidents, which continued into the 1960s. It declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Today, it’s estimated the native Jewish population in Georgia numbers between 500 to 1,000 residents.

West has been making overtures to the Jewish community in recent months. In January, he took responsibility for his past behavior — which included wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe while spewing inflammatory rhetoric — with a full-page Wall Street Journal ad. “I owe a huge apology once again for everything that I said that hurt the Jewish and Black communities in particular,” he wrote. “All of it went too far.” Skeptics referred to the ad as marketing, paving the way for his Bully album, which released in March and debuted at Number Two on the Billboard 200.

“It’s very disturbing,” one prominent Israeli music executive tells Rolling Stone. “Everything Kanye has said and done against the Jewish community is unforgettable, and for many people, deeply hurtful. At the same time, it raises difficult questions about where the industry draws the line between business, entertainment, and accountability.”

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To that end, a report by Israeli news outlet N12 published last week suggested a future concert by Ye in Israel was in the works, with the rapper allegedly fielding multiple offers. That’s unlikely, two industry insiders say, seeing as the artist has essentially been locked out of some of the world’s biggest touring markets: the U.K., France, and potentially other countries with strong anti-hate speech laws. But not impossible?

Despite his controversial behavior, Ye sold out a pair of Los Angeles stadium shows with first-rate production that featured a dome-shaped stage evoking the Earth. Additional tour dates include upcoming stops in India, Turkey, the Netherlands, Italy, Albania, Portugal, and Spain.