US rapper Kanye West only visited Moscow for a day, but local ultraconservatives already called for a ban on his entry into Russia.
Reports first surfaced on Sunday, June 30, that the musician arrived in Moscow for a personal visit to attend the birthday party of Gosha Rubchinskiy, the chief designer of West’s Yeezy streetwear brand. However, Russian media said he had already departed the country on the evening of July 1, citing an image of West’s boarding pass for a transfer in Istanbul it had obtained.
Local event organizers dispelled rumors that West planned to host a concert in Moscow.
After his departure, Russian news outlet Meduza reported that Sorok Sorokov, an Orthodox fundamentalist group, had already filed a complaint against the rapper to Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service (FSB) for discrediting the Russian army and promoting drug use.
The group’s founder said that in one of West’s songs, “a Russian woman appears in the image of a drug-addicted prostitute with perverted inclinations” and called for an entry ban on West.
The song in question is called VULTURES, released in 2023, where one of the lyrics said “She want me to put some of this coke in her butt, ugh. She Russian, I beat up the p***y for Ukraine.”
West has also been known for making controversial, and at times, anti-semitic remarks in the past.
While most Western artists have stopped visiting Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it has also attracted numerous controversial US figures, including ultraconservative talk host Tucker Carlson and former US marine and convicted pedophile Scott Ritter.
The US State Department currently advises against all travel to Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine.