Musician turns Ed Sheeran–Macklemore tour drama into satirical online game

Macklemore announced he had been pulled from the remaining US dates of Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour on September 14, after venues objected to his on-stage, pro-Palestinian comments.

Sheeran stated that the decision came from the tour promoter. Afterwards, his four supporting acts (Finneas, Aaron Rowe, Beoga and Lukas Graham) withdrew from the tour in solidarity with Macklemore.

As the fallout spread online, musician Jonathan Mann built a free satirical browser game, Super Macklemore 64, in which a character of the rapper dodges a giant Ed Sheeran along with several smaller-sized Robert Kraft figures while gathering other musicians to fight back.

Irish band Kneecap is also included as a character in the game.

Mann is also known for breaking the world record for “Most consecutive days writing a song” in March 2023, having written a song every day for 5,186 consecutive days.

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Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mann said the game (released on September 17) was meant to reflect the "absurdity" of the situation, as well as his own reflections on what Palestinians are experiencing.

"It is beyond comprehension how absurd it is, and sometimes for me the only way to process that is to make something that is equally absurd," he shared.

The game includes a link to donate to Gaza Soup Kitchen.

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With Macklemore off the tour and his supporting acts gone, Sheeran took the stage in Philadelphia on September 19, opening the show with a statement addressing the situation, in which he broke into tears.

Appearing to have read from a teleprompter, the singer said: "I've had to take and make difficult decisions, and I am making mistakes, and I'm so, so sorry," calling events in Gaza "catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate".

There was no mention of Macklemore or any other artists that pulled out from his tour in the speech.

As mentioned in CNN, that night, Sheeran performed with a new group of musicians who had learned his set in three days.

Amira Waworuntu is Mixmag Asia’s Managing Editor, follow her on Instagram.

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