American rapper Kanye West, also known as Ye, will perform in Russia for the first time – concerts will be held on October 10 and 11 at the Gazprom Arena in St. Petersburg, representatives of the site reported on Telegram. Tickets are already on sale: their prices start from 9,000 rubles (almost $106) and reach 160,000 rubles (about $1,883) for seats in the VIP box. RTVI looked into why the announcement of the concerts had already caused outrage.
West's future concerts in Russia were confirmed on Instagram by his concert manager and music producer Joseph Carré. As noted in the Gazprom Arena report, Andre Trautman, his musical colleague and curator, who “added richness and entertainment to the artist’s work,” will come to St. Petersburg with Ye.
“At the Gazprom Arena, the legend of the hip-hop scene will play the main hits from his rich discography, which has become a real discovery of all world music of the last twenty years and has inspired many other performers whose names everyone knows today,” says the Gazprom Arena statement.
The cheapest tickets costing 9,000 rubles for both concerts have already been sold out. Seats in remote sectors cost up to 27,000 rubles (almost $318), closer to the stage – up to 35,000 ($412). A ticket to the dance floor will cost 25,000 rubles (almost $295). The most expensive category is seats in the VIP box for 160,000 rubles. One box is designed for 12 people, and its total cost, taking into account the service fee, is about 2 million rubles (more than $23,500).
The organizers of the Kanye West concert reserved the right to replace the performer without refunding tickets. This item was found in the event conditions. The owner and CEO of Say Agency, Anna Subcheva, told TASS that this wording was included in the offer “by mistake.” According to her, it is impossible to replace West with another performer at concerts.
In an interview with Blueprint, Subcheva said that negotiations with the rapper’s team lasted about three months. The concert was planned to be held at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium, but West's representatives considered the open area unsuitable due to possible adverse weather conditions. There are no other West concerts planned in Russia this year, Subcheva added.
West's performances are announced as part of the Ye Live Concert Tour 2026, dedicated to the release of the rapper's 12th full-length album, entitled Bully. Since the start of the tour on April 1, the musician has already performed in the USA, the Netherlands, Turkey, Georgia, Albania, Spain and Portugal. Before traveling to Russia, his schedule includes a concert in Chicago (Illinois) on September 4, and after performances in St. Petersburg, the rapper should go to Indonesia.
On August 14, West arrived in Kazakhstan, but the concert planned there had to be postponed due to bad weather, which followed large-scale electricity problems in the city. RTVI previously reported on this.
West's plans to come to Russia have already raised objections. The head of the Federal Project for Security and Anti-Corruption, Vitaly Borodin, said that he was preparing appeals to the “competent authorities” and the Ministry of Culture demanding that concerts be canceled and ticket sales blocked. He pointed to the rapper's “trashy reputation” and the behavior of his wife, who, according to him, “walks around completely naked.” In addition, Borodin reproached West for never speaking out in support of Russia.
“He doesn’t care about us, he is only interested in the fees that the organizers will pull from the pockets of our citizens. That's why we won't leave it like that. Let the values of the West remain in the West,” Borodin wrote on Telegram.
Kanye and his wife Bianca Censori were the biggest troublemakers on the 2025 Grammy Awards red carpet. The Australian model, the rapper's wife, shocked the audience by taking off her fur coat and appearing in front of the cameras in an almost transparent dress. She later repeated the look at a party in a nightclub in Ibiza, Spain.
In the past year, Ye has repeatedly stated online that he considers himself a Nazi, does not trust Jews and believes in “racist stereotypes.” The musician promised to “normalize talking about Hitler the same way we normalized talking about killing” black people, and asked to be called Hitler. West also tried to sell swastika T-shirts on his website, but was blocked by an affiliate marketplace.
On May 8 last year, which US President Donald Trump declared as Victory Day in World War II, West published a video for the song Heil Hitler, where he used a fragment of a speech by the leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler. The composition was supposed to be included in the album Cuck (“Cuckold”), the tracklist of which also included songs with such names as WW3 (“Third World War”), Gas Chambers (“Gas Chambers”) and Diddy Free (“Freedom Diddy”). Earlier, the rapper presented another track from the album – Cousins (“Cousins”), in which he stated that he had sexual relations with his cousin as a child.
The album Cuck, however, was never released.
West subsequently apologized for his comments about Nazism: last November, the 24-time Grammy Award winner first met with a rabbi in New York and apologized on video, and then published an open letter in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). In it, the rapper again spoke about bipolar disorder and linked his behavior to improper treatment. He stated that he was undergoing therapy and taking the necessary medications.
The rapper's concerts in a number of European countries ultimately did not take place due to protests from local residents and politicians who refused to accept the apology.
