Erdoğan adviser slams Kanye West’s İstanbul concert, says it put youth under ‘cultural siege’
A senior adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has claimed that a Kanye West concert in İstanbul on Saturday put young people under “cultural siege,” saying the event promoted symbols and messages he described as contrary to Turkey’s religious and cultural values.
Oktay Saral, a chief adviser to the president, said in a written statement on X that the concert, attended by 118,000 people, should not be treated as an ordinary music event.
Saral said young people who paid to attend the show had been made part of a spectacle built around statements and symbols that he said were incompatible with Turkey’s “faith and civilizational values.”
The US rapper, who now goes by Ye, performed Saturday night at İstanbul’s Atatürk Olympic Stadium in his first appearance in Turkey and first performance in Europe since 2014. The concert drew fans from Turkey as well as Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Russia, Poland and the Middle East.
Saral called on Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry to show more caution over events touching on what he called the nation’s spiritual and cultural sensitivities.
He also claimed that tens of thousands of people had repeated the lyrics of Ye’s song “I Am a God” during the concert, calling it a scene that required scrutiny. Some social media users challenged the claim, saying the song had not been performed in İstanbul. A setlist page for the May 30 concert also did not list the song among the tracks performed.
Saral’s statement focused not only on Ye but also on Michèle Lamy, a French cultural and fashion figure, entrepreneur, performance artist and film producer. Saral described Lamy as a figure associated with “occultism and dark symbols” and said her presence around the event showed that the matter went beyond music and entertainment.
“What is even more thought-provoking is that the conservative segment of Turkey has also become part of this cultural siege,” Saral said.
He said young people were being subjected to “alienation” under stage lights and called it “grave” that no one had objected.
Saral urged young people to reject the influence of what he called the global culture industry and embrace their own civilizational values.
The criticism drew attention on social media after users pointed out that Saral’s nephew, Ünal Saral, had also attended the concert.
The İstanbul performance came as Ye has faced cancellations and bans in Europe over statements praising Adolf Hitler and the release of content using Nazi imagery.
In April the United Kingdom denied Ye entry on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good, forcing the cancellation of a planned appearance at London’s Wireless Festival. Later that month he postponed a show in Marseille after reports that the French government had sought to block it, and a concert in Poland was also canceled.
Ye has also faced international criticism over the release of “Heil Hitler,” a song promoting Nazism.
In January he took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal renouncing his past admiration for Hitler and apologizing for his behavior, which he attributed to an undiagnosed brain injury and untreated bipolar disorder.
