Ye banned from Australia for antisemitic song: Reports
The rapper, formerly known as Kanye West, had his visa revoked over the song, which celebrates the German chancellor who oversaw the killing of millions of Jews, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed to the Associated Press and BBC. Ye's wife, Bianca Censori, was born in Australia.
"He's been coming to Australia for a long time. He's got family here," Burke told the Australian Broadcasting Company. "He's made a lot of offensive comments that my officials looked at again once he released the (antisemitic song), and he no longer has a valid visa in Australia.
"We have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry," he added.
USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Burke and Ye for comment.
The song, which has been banned on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, was widely regarded as antisemitic at its release. The composition, a drum-heavy march overlayed with his own professions of Nazism, samples a 1935 Adolf Hitler speech.
The track was just the latest in a string of antisemitic incidents surrounding Ye. The rapper has been accused of a pattern of bigotry against Jews as far back as 2018. Former employees allege he often used antisemitic language in the workplace, espoused conspiracy theories and praised Hitler, and Adidas dropped Ye from his Yeezy partnership with the brand after an antisemitic tirade in 2022.
In recent years, Ye's antisemitic rhetoric has spilled over into the public square, with the rapper baking anti-Jewish sentiment into his music and unleashing hateful tirades on social media. His views appear to flip-flop violently, sometimes strongly anti-Jewish, other times reneging on past antisemitic statements.
That pattern may concern Burke in particular, as Australia has suffered a series of recent attacks motivated by antisemitism. Since late 2024, a synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed, several Jewish businesses were torched and a Jewish daycare was set on fire. These, along with other attacks, were concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne, the cities that house the lion's share of the country's Jewish population.
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