No Way, Kanye! West Reykjavík Rejects Rapper Statue

The City Of Reykjavík will not be erecting a statue of American rapper Kanye West, rejecting a suggestion it received as part of a public consultation exercise.

The city’s My Neighbourhood project, which concluded last January, invited residents to suggest ideas to improve their district. Some 1,321 ideas were submitted city-wide, one of which was to erect a statue of West in the grounds of a local swimming pool.  Over 700 residents of the Vesturbær neighbourhood expressed an interest in the project.

However the consultation was not binding on the city. The idea has been rejected as having no artistic value, RÚV reports, observing that West has no discernible connection either to Vesturbær or to Iceland.

The proposal appears to be rooted purely in a play on words, based around the neighbourhood name reflecting its location in the western part of the city.

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