In a statement, the OCCRP, the international nonprofit network made up of media outlets and investigative centers, reacted to the Albanian government’s 4 million euro funding of rapper Kanye West’s concert held on July 11.
OCCRP says the decision to fund the concert has sparked strong criticism, while protests against the government have continued for weeks.
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According to OCCRP, critics see the funding as a “bread and circuses” strategy aimed at diverting attention from anti-corruption protests.
“Critics say Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government is turning a publicly funded concert by Ye (formerly Kanye West) on Saturday into a political spectacle that could help overshadow weeks of anti-government protests in Tirana.”
The full statement from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project:
Prime Minister Edi Rama has been criticized for allocating $4.9 million from state reserves to fund the controversial rapper’s performance in Tirana—a move critics call a “bread and circuses” plot to drown out weeks of fierce anti-corruption protests linked to a resort connected to Jared Kushner.
Critics say Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government is turning a publicly funded concert by Ye (formerly Kanye West) on Saturday into a political spectacle that could help overshadow weeks of anti-government protests in Tirana.
The government approved 400 million lek, about $4.9 million, to help finance Ye’s July 11 concert. The money will come from the state reserve fund and will be transferred to the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sports for what the government describes as a cultural-tourism event aimed at promoting Albania’s international image.
But Albanian writer and public commentator Fatos Lubonja told OCCRP partner Shteg.org that the decision fits what he described as a “bread and circuses” model of governance: spending public money on entertainment while the country faces deeper problems.
“Perhaps he is also doing this to counter this protest, to organize a big show so that people will say: ‘Look how many people gathered there,’” Lubonja told Shteg.org.
Lubonja questioned why the state would give millions of dollars to a private company for a commercial artist who, in his view, does not contribute to the country’s cultural development. He called the funding a scandal and compared it with other public spending decisions under Rama that critics have portrayed as opaque or politically motivated.
The government has defended the intervention as an investment in tourism. In an explanatory memorandum reviewed by Shteg.org and OCCRP, officials argued that the concert should not be treated merely as a private event, because it is expected to attract foreign visitors and benefit hotels, transport companies, restaurants and other service providers.
The memorandum identifies Redcloud as the company that asked the ministry on July 3 for urgent financial support, warning that the event was at risk because of additional costs and that normal legislative procedures could not be completed before the concert date. It also states that around 70% of tickets sold had been purchased by foreign nationals.
Rama has also publicly defended the spending. The prime minister explained that the payment was necessary to avoid embarrassing Albania in front of nearly 25,000 foreign visitors who had already bought tickets and claimed that the event could generate at least 100 million euros in revenue through tourism and accommodation bookings.
Journalist Elsa Demo also described the concert funding as part of a longer-term political pattern that treats culture as spectacle. She told Shteg.org that such events can function as political tools, encouraging admiration for those in power while steering people away from civic engagement.
Economist Zef Preçi challenged both the legal basis and the urgency of the decision, noting that the concert had been publicly announced more than two months earlier. Even if the state wanted to support a private event, he argued, the money should have been allocated through a competitive and transparent procedure rather than through an emergency legal instrument.
The controversy comes as Tirana has seen daily protests for more than a month. The demonstrations began in opposition to a luxury coastal tourism project linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, and later expanded into broader protests over protected areas, coastal development and alleged government corruption. OCCRP previously reported that Albanian anti-corruption prosecutors froze assets linked to the tourism project as public protests intensified, and later revealed that court documents from a drug trafficking investigation overlapped with the tourism land investigation. Rama denies the corruption allegations.
The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sports and Redcloud did not respond to Shteg.org’s questions about the reasons for the funding or how the public money would be spent.
West remains a controversial figure internationally. He has been barred from performing in several European countries this summer after comments praising Adolf Hitler and content featuring Nazi imagery.
