Kanye West is not going to be visiting Australia anytime soon or maybe even ever again. The country's Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, confirmed that the controversial artist will not be allowed on their soil. He did so today per AllHipHop and it all stems from the release of his pro-Nazi song, "HH."
Burke and the officials also pointed to his long history of racist remarks, which he's made plenty of on social media this year. "He’s made a lot of offensive comments that my officials looked at again once he released [that] song," he said to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The ABC asked if this means that Kanye West will not be allowed to perform there. However, according to Burke, the Chicago native didn't even that high of a visa. But even though that's the case, they still don't feel comfortable having him in Australia.
"He’s got family here … It wasn’t a visa for the purpose of concerts. It was a lower-level [visa] and the officials still looked at the law and said if you’re going to have a song and promote that sort of Nazism, we don’t need that in Australia," Burke clarified.
"We have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry," he added.
Kanye West "HH"
Later in May, Ye did what he could to keep the record on streaming platforms after he noticed them blocking it left and right. Instead of it being called "HH," he changed it to "HALLELUJAH," dropping all Nazi related lyrics in the process.
However, his efforts were still not enough to indirectly convince Australia to keep his visa active.
As we said earlier, there's a chance that Kanye may never be able to travel there again. That would be an issue, seeing as his wife, Bianca Censori, is from Melbourne. Additionally, a lot of her family still lives back home.
It is worth pointing out that Mr. Burke didn't confirm a permanent ban. But with the lengthy history of remarks and their strict policy on hate speech, it's going to be really hard for Kanye to change their minds.
