On the recent episode of The Ebro Laura Rosenberg Show, Ebro Darden and Peter Rosenberg spoke about the artist formerly known as Kanye West’s recent success touring stadiums despite his recent history of antisemitism, which he has since apologized for.
At around the 57-minute mark of the episode, which can be seen above, the three radio hosts discussed Macklemore stating that major U.S. arenas turned him down for would-be dates on his Free Palestine tour.
“Listen, we know these buildings are very tight… Unless it’s Kanye, in which case he did 80,000 [seats] all weekend in Texas,” said Rosenberg, referring to Ye’s record-breaking show at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
Before that, Ye also hosted a show at Reliant Stadium in Houston, and he’s set to host a show at Glendale’s State Farm Stadium later this month. “Everybody was hitting me talking about how record-breaking it was,” added Ebro. “And I was like, ‘Guys, I’ve been involved in concerts before, I know how to make the stage set up so you can get more people in the building and make it look like you got more numbers.’”
Rosenberg suggested that people are eager to see Ye because it has “the extra sauce of the perceived comeback thing, too.”
“They thought they could stop him, but he’s back,” said Rosenberg. “People love a comeback story. Like, he was down bad, guys. He was down to his last billion! … He was selling clothes on his own; now he’s back. He had his fashion show, and so this storyline is adding extra.”
Ebro suggested that people were “victims of marketing,” and even they were in some ways because they were “excited” for his most recent album, Bully. “I just believe that you need to do things besides say, ‘I’m making my comeback,’” Rosenberg said, to which Ebro joked, “He met with a Rabbi.” Ebro replied, “That wasn’t real; I don’t know who that guy was.”
He also jokingly compared the situation to Morgan Wallen, who was caught on video yelling the N-word in 2021, and how people would not have taken his comeback seriously if he did something similar with the Black community. “Look, Kanye’s got a great catalog; he puts a lot into production value,” said Ebro. “You know, what’s not to love?”
Watch the full episode of the podcast above.
