Share this @internewscast.com
US rapper Kanye West has had his Australian visa cancelled over a controversial song referencing Adolf Hitler in which the singer claims to be a Nazi.
Immigration officials made the decision to deny the controversial musician access to the country after listening to his track Heil Hitler, which was released earlier in the year.
West is married to Melbourne woman Bianca Censori.
“He’s been coming to Australia for a long time … he’s got family here and he’s made a lot of offensive comments,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told ABC TV on Wednesday.
“My officials re-examined the situation after the release of the Heil Hitler track and determined that his visa in Australia is no longer valid.”
West’s axed visa had not entitled him to perform in the country but was at a “lower level”, Burke added.
“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’,” he said.
The song included the phrase: “So I became a Nazi … I’m the villain”.
The chorus “Ni**a, heil Hitler” is chanted by a group of men standing in formation.
Ye, the name Kanye West now goes by, often includes themes of feeling misunderstood and his legal battles over custody with his ex-wife Kim Kardashian in his music.
The winner of 24 Grammys was dropped by his talent agency earlier in the year after he posted a stream of anti-Semitic comments on social media and put T-shirts bearing swastika up for sale in his online shop.
Shopify, the company that provided the online platform for West’s fashion brand Yeezy, previously took the store offline.
West also made a controversial appearance with Censori at the Grammy Awards earlier in the year, when she appeared virtually naked in a sheer mini-dress after removing her fur coat.