The Importance of Being Macklemore and The Free Palestine Tour

<p>Following the controversy that saw Macklemore removed from the remaining US dates of Ed Sheeran’s <em>Loop Tour</em>, Stephen White looks beyond the headlines to ask what the story reveals about power, money and freedom in the modern music industry.</p><p>Promoters, venues, billionaire owners and corporate interests can control the spaces where music happens, raising a bigger question about what happens when an artist’s politics collide with the commercial machinery behind the stage.</p><p>Then Macklemore announced FREE PALESTINE, a new series of concerts beginning in Dublin before moving to Paris and London, with proceeds going to organisations providing humanitarian, medical and other support to Palestinians.</p><p>The Importance of Being Macklemore is an essay about music, power, capitalism, political expression and the strange relationship between artists and the people who control the rooms they perform in.</p>