Florida Venue Faces Backlash as Sen. Rick Scott Targets Upcoming Ye Performances

A promotional image advertises Ye’s scheduled June 26, 2026, concert at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., has urged the Tampa Sports Authority to review scheduled concerts by the artist formerly known as Kanye West, arguing that a taxpayer-supported venue should not give him a platform after years of antisemitic remarks.

A public stadium in Tampa has become the next test of how far Ye’s catalog can still carry him after years of antisemitic remarks turned his tour into a fight over speech, public money and institutional responsibility.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is pressing the Tampa Sports Authority to reconsider two scheduled Ye concerts at Raymond James Stadium, arguing that a taxpayer-supported venue should not help stage performances by the artist formerly known as Kanye West.

Ye is scheduled to perform June 26 and 28 at the Tampa stadium. Raymond James Stadium’s official events page still listed both shows Friday, with each scheduled to begin at 8 p.m.

In a letter sent Thursday to the Tampa Sports Authority’s board of directors, Scott called Ye a “vocal antisemite” and urged the authority to carefully review the decision to host him.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., urges the Tampa Sports Authority Board of Directors to review scheduled Ye concerts at Raymond James Stadium in a June 4, 2026, letter. Scott argued that taxpayer-supported facilities should not give a stage to the artist formerly known as Kanye West after years of antisemitic remarks and controversy over swastika merchandise. (Office of U.S. Sen. Rick Scott)

“Kanye West’s consistent antisemitic attacks are an affront to the values of the people of the Hillsborough community,” Scott wrote.

Scott cited Ye’s past praise of Nazis, his claim that he was one and a 2025 Super Bowl ad that directed viewers to merchandise featuring swastikas. He argued that a stadium supported by public dollars should not be used to give the artist a platform.

“No taxpayer dollars should be used to give a vocal antisemite a stage in Florida,” Scott wrote. “What we spend public money on reflects our values, and using dollars from hardworking families to platform a hateful person pushing evil ideologies is not a Florida value.”

The Tampa Sports Authority manages Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and one of Florida’s highest-profile public sports and entertainment venues. In its response, the authority did not indicate the concerts were in immediate jeopardy.

“We recognize the concerns and viewpoints being expressed about the upcoming events at Raymond James Stadium,” the authority said in a statement. “As a public agency, we follow the principles of free speech in operating our venue, although we do not condone remarks or actions from any artists that are offensive and divisive.”

That response places the Tampa shows in a different position from a private venue’s booking decision. Scott is framing the issue around public money and community values. The authority is pointing to the free-speech principles that come with operating a public venue. The result is a collision between a legacy rap star’s market power and the civic responsibilities attached to the building where he is scheduled to perform.

For audiences who watched West alter the trajectory of 2000s hip-hop, the Tampa dispute carries its own dissonance. The producer and rapper who once challenged the American political establishment on behalf of people left out of its priorities is now drawing government pressure over antisemitic remarks, Nazi praise and merchandise tied to swastika imagery.

That tension is part of why the story travels beyond a local concert fight. Ye’s early albums, including “The College Dropout,” “Late Registration” and “Graduation,” helped expand mainstream rap’s emotional and sonic language. Now, the same catalog that made him a defining artist of the 2000s is moving through a public reckoning over what institutions are willing to host after the artist has made himself commercially powerful and publicly toxic.

The pressure in Florida follows similar challenges overseas. Ye was recently barred from entering the United Kingdom over his remarks, while scheduled performances in Italy and Poland were scrapped. A Dutch court this week allowed two concerts in the Netherlands to proceed, rejecting an effort by a Jewish organization to block them on public order grounds.

In Europe, governments, courts and Jewish organizations have been forced to weigh Ye’s history of antisemitic statements against public order, censorship laws and venue decisions. In Tampa, the argument has moved to a publicly owned American stadium, where Scott’s demand and the authority’s response have turned two scheduled concerts into a broader test of speech, money and consequence.

For now, the shows remain listed. So does the pressure to stop them.

Michael Jackson’s 'Chicago' Gives Him Hot 100 Entries in Six Decades

Cover art for Michael Jackson’s “Chicago,” a track from the 2014 posthumous album “Xscape.” The song debuted at No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Jackson new chart entries in six decades and showing how streaming and short-form video can turn a deep cut into a new chart moment years later. (MJJ Productions/Epic Records)

Michael Jackson’s “Chicago” was not built like a comeback single.

It was not one of the untouchable 1980s records that never really left radio. It was not featured in the new biopic. It was not even a hit when it first surfaced in 2014 on the posthumous album “Xscape.”

That is what makes its new Billboard moment more interesting.

“Chicago” debuted at No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated June 6, making Jackson the first artist with new Hot 100 entries in six different decades, from the 1970s through the 2020s. The song also becomes his 52nd solo entry on the chart.

The numbers tell part of the story. “Chicago” drew 10.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams during the May 22-28 tracking week, a 30% jump from the previous week, according to Luminate data cited by Billboard and People. Under Billboard rules, older songs can enter the Hot 100 if they rank in the top 50 and show meaningful growth.

The rest of the story belongs to the way catalog now moves.

The “Xscape” version of “Chicago,” written by Cory Rooney, was produced by Timbaland and Jerome “J-Roc” Harmon. The song has found a new audience through streaming and TikTok at the same time Jackson’s catalog is benefiting from renewed attention around the film “Michael.” But the song’s rise is not a simple movie bump, as is not featured in the film.

That matters. The track’s path is less about a soundtrack push than a deep cut becoming newly legible to listeners who did not meet Jackson through radio, MTV, Motown specials or the first life of “Thriller.” They met the song through the modern discovery machine: fragments, algorithms, playlists, short videos and catalog curiosity.

Jackson’s best-known records have also moved in the same chart cycle. On the latest Hot 100, “Billie Jean” sits at No. 19, “Human Nature” at No. 31 and “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” at No. 43. Earlier this spring, six Jackson songs charted simultaneously, a reminder that the current surge is broader than one viral track.

Still, “Chicago” is the record that changes the chart history. It joins “Love Never Felt So Good,” featuring Justin Timberlake, and “Slave to the Rhythm” as Hot 100 entries from “Xscape.” But unlike “Love Never Felt So Good,” which was presented as a major posthumous single, “Chicago” has taken the long way around.

That long route is the point. Catalog used to move in predictable waves: anniversaries, reissues, documentaries, death, scandal, commercials and tribute performances. Those forces still matter. But in the streaming era, a song can wait in the middle of an album for 12 years and become new again because enough people finally hear the same few seconds at the same time.

For Jackson, whose career was built on controlling spectacle, the achievement lands differently. This is not the “Thriller” video changing MTV, the Motown 25 moonwalk resetting television or a blockbuster album forcing the industry to recalculate pop ambition. It is quieter, stranger and more modern: a non-single from the estate era entering chart history through the habits of listeners born long after his imperial run.

That does not make the record bigger than the classics. It makes the catalog harder to contain.

“Chicago” is not the reason Michael Jackson matters. It is proof that the machinery around his music keeps changing, and the music keeps finding its way back into the room.

Lauryn Hill to Receive Living Legend Icon Award at BET Awards

BET will honor Ms. Lauryn Hill with its Living Legend Icon Award this month.

The network announced Thursday that Hill will receive the award during the 2026 BET Awards. The show is scheduled to air June 28 from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, with Druski as host.

BET said the award honors artists who “mastered their craft and never let go of the culture.” The line could drift into award-show excess. For Hill, it lands close to the record.

Hill first became a generational voice with the Fugees, whose 1996 album “The Score” moved across hip-hop, soul, reggae and pop without sounding designed for any one lane. Two years later, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” made her a solo force on terms almost no other artist could have demanded at the time.

Released in 1998, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” blended rap, soul, gospel, reggae, live instrumentation and diaristic writing into a record that felt both intimate and public. It explored love, faith, motherhood, self-worth and Black womanhood. The album sold more than 10 million copies and became a model for artists who wanted reach without softening their point of view.

Connie Orlando, BET’s executive vice president of specials, music programming and music strategy, said Hill “never chased the moment; she has shaped it.”

“Her artistry redefined what was possible in our music and gave a generation permission to be fearless, spiritual, and free,” Orlando said in a statement.

The honor follows a rare televised appearance from Hill. In February, she returned to the Grammy stage for an In Memoriam tribute honoring D’Angelo and Roberta Flack, opening with “Nothing Even Matters” before moving through a broader tribute to two artists whose work helped shape the vocabulary of soul and R&B.

Hill has often been discussed through absence — the long wait for another studio album, the uneven touring history, the distance between public demand and the artist’s own terms. But the BET honor is a reminder that her legacy has never depended strictly on output.

It is defined by what that output changed.

“The Score” remains one of the defining albums of the 1990s. “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” remains a landmark in modern Black music. Nearly three decades later, Hill’s influence is still heard in artists moving between rap and melody, confession and critique, spirituality and edge.

That makes the Living Legend Icon Award less a coronation than a formal acknowledgment of what the music already settled.