Macklemore/Ed Sheeran & the cost of speaking up

Oh man, this escalated. 

In case you missed it, Macklemore got removed from Ed Sheeran’s tour. 

Then every other opening act… quit. 

Finneas. Lukas Graham. Aaron Rowe. Yo, even Beoga – Sheeran’s backing band – pulled out too. 

All of them. Gone! 

They walked away after Macklemore was removed following his pro-Palestine speeches. 

Sheeran says the decision to remove Macklemore wasn’t his. According to him, the tour’s promoter and multiple venues were unwilling to continue with Macklemore on the bill. Billionaire Robert Kraft, whose company owns Gillette Stadium, was among the venue owners pushing back. 

Sheeran also explained why he wasn’t willing to cancel the tour in response: thousands of fans had made plans, and an entire ecosystem of crew members, musicians and workers depended on those shows happening. 

Oof. 

It’s a messy situation, man. 

And maybe that’s why I can’t stop thinking about it. 

Well… first, I’m of Palestinian descent, so obviously this one hits closer to home for me. 

But the question it raises goes far beyond Palestine: what is the role of an artist when the world outside the art demands an answer from them? 

Are we supposed to speak? Are we OBLIGATED to? And if we do speak, what should we actually be willing to risk? 

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with this. 

I don’t make my heritage the center of my artistic identity. That’s intentional. 

Music has always felt like one of the few places where I can transcend what I sometimes think of as the “terrestrial” stuff… nationality, politics, borders, arguments, all the things human beings use to separate ourselves from one another. 

When I’m making music, I’m usually trying to get somewhere underneath all of that. Something more human. 

So I’ve never believed that being an artist automatically makes you a political commentator. 

Being good at writing songs doesn’t make you an expert on foreign policy. Having 500,000 followers doesn’t suddenly qualify you to explain a war. 

And sometimes I think we’ve created a strange expectation that every artist must immediately publish a position on every major event happening in the world. 

Silence becomes a statement. Posting becomes a test. 

And if you don’t say the correct thing quickly enough, people start asking why. 

I’m not sure that’s healthy. But I also DON’T think the opposite is true. 

I don’t think artists should NEVER speak. Because artists are citizens too. 

We’re people. We have families, histories, communities, values. 

And sometimes something matters enough that remaining silent feels more uncomfortable than whatever speaking might cost you. 

That’s where this Macklemore story gets interesting. 

It’s easy to stand for something when standing for it doesn’t require much from you. 

Posting is one thing. Reposting someone else’s statement is one thing. 

But losing a tour? Yeah, that’s different. 

Walking away from a major support slot? DIFFERENT. 

Potentially upsetting fans, promoters, venues, brands or business partners? Now we’re talking about CONVICTION. 

And to be clear, that doesn’t automatically make every costly statement correct. 

Sacrifice isn’t proof that you’re right. But it DOES tell us something about whether the belief is actually yours. 

Because eventually values encounter incentives. And that’s when you find out which one wins. 

There’s another side of this story that I think is worth acknowledging. 

Ed Sheeran… continued the tour. 

His explanation was essentially that there were thousands of people who had bought tickets and made travel plans, along with crew members, musicians and other workers whose livelihoods depended on those shows. 

I’ve always harped on this: that’s part of being an artist once the thing becomes big enough. 

You’re no longer making decisions only for yourself. You’re running an ecosystem. Your convictions have consequences. 

So do your protests. So does your silence. 

That’s what makes questions like this much harder than social media tends to make them look. 

There isn’t always a clean choice between courage and cowardice.Sometimes there are competing responsibilities. 

So where does that leave the rest of us? 

I don’t think artists are obligated to comment on everything. Actually, I think trying to comment on everything eventually makes your voice mean less. 

But I DO think there’s a useful question artists can ask themselves: 

What are the few things I care about enough that I’m willing to accept a consequence for saying something? 

Not what’s trending. Not what your audience expects you to say. Not what your manager thinks will perform well. 

What actually matters to YOU? 

Because maybe the role of an artist isn’t to have an opinion about everything. Maybe it’s to know when something crosses the threshold where staying quiet would feel dishonest. 

And if you decide to speak, understand the trade you’re making. You might lose followers. You might lose opportunities. You might lose money. You might be misunderstood. 

You might also deepen the relationship with the people who understand exactly why you said it. 

But there should probably be something on the other side of the scale besides engagement. 

So… the Zag? 

You don’t need to stand for everything. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. But figure out what you DO stand for before the moment comes when standing for it costs you something. Because that’s a terrible time to discover your values, lol. 

The artists whose voices carry the most weight aren’t necessarily the ones who speak the most. 

They’re the ones where, when they finally do speak, you know they MEAN it.