By Diana Gellci Ph.D.
Tirana Times, July 16, 2026 – Beyond entertainment, spectacles produce powerful symbolism. Indeed, symbolic effects often outweigh political, economic, and even coercive ones. Symbolism remains one of the most potent forms of power.
When Kanye West arrived in Tirana, he brought with him something that cannot easily be purchased: his symbolic capital. That capital had been built over decades through music, fame, controversy, cultural influence, and an unparalleled ability to command global attention. People did not attend the concert merely to hear his songs—they could do that anywhere. They attended to be present at a spectacle bearing the imprint of a global cultural icon.
At the last minute, the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama decided to finance the concert with approximately four million euros. But what exactly was the government paying for? Was it paying to prevent the concert from collapsing, as it claimed? Was it protecting Albania’s national honor, as Rama argued? Was it covering unsold tickets?
Or was it purchasing its own “ticket” into the symbolic universe of the spectacle?
At first glance, the answer appears straightforward: governments finance concerts all the time. Yet a closer analysis suggests something else. Governments do not simply finance stages, lighting, or logistics. They also invest in the symbolic meanings that spectacles generate.
From this perspective, the last-minute financing can be read as an attempt to become part of the event’s symbolic universe. Not to possess the artist, certainly, but to associate his spectacle with the image of political power. The concert remained Kanye West’s, yet part of the symbolic capital it generated could begin to reflect upon its political sponsor.
Equally symbolic was the gift Kanye West received from the Prime Minister: The Albanian Files. Whether the book is read as an architectural work, a political document, or a subject of public controversy is ultimately beside the point. What matters here is the act of giving it.
Anthropology has long recognized that gifts are never entirely neutral. They create relationships, communicate values, and generate meaning. The deliberate choice of a particular book as a gift for a globally influential artist is itself an act of symbolic communication.
If financing the concert can be interpreted as an attempt to enter the symbolism of the spectacle, then the gift can likewise be understood as part of the same strategy: an effort to connect the artist—even if only momentarily—to the narrative political power seeks to project about itself. At that moment, the book ceases to be merely a book. It becomes part of the political ritual surrounding the spectacle.
From this perspective, it matters little whether Kanye West ever reads it. What matters is that the book became part of the stage. And once an object enters the stage of the spectacle, it ceases to be merely an object—it becomes a symbol.
Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would describe this as an attempt to appropriate symbolic capital. Guy Debord, by contrast, would likely see it as a textbook example of how spectacle produces and organizes social meaning. Together, they remind us that politics unfolds not only through laws, institutions, or elections, but also through images, emotions, and symbolism.
The real question, therefore, is not whether the concert was successful or whether the state was justified in funding it.
The deeper question is this:
Did the Albanian government—and Prime Minister Edi Rama in particular—attempt to appropriate the symbolic power of Kanye West’s spectacle?
When a government invests millions in an event built upon the prestige of a global artist, is it pursuing economic benefits alone, or is it also seeking to partake in the prestige that artist embodies? And why would such symbolic prestige become especially valuable to a government—or to a prime minister—on the forty-third day of an unprecedented protest movement such as Albania’s Flamingo Protest?
In contemporary politics, power constantly seeks to shape events. Yet one of its most sophisticated strategies is to shape the narratives and symbols through which those events are understood. From this perspective, sponsoring Kanye West’s spectacle can be interpreted as an attempt to symbolically associate it with the office of Albania’s Prime Minister. A private concert was presented in the government’s public discourse as an event of international significance, realized with state support and under Edi Rama’s personal stewardship. One possible reading of this strategy is that it sought to construct a narrative in which the spectacle itself would function as a symbolic counterweight to the protest.
Perhaps that is what four million euros ultimately purchased: not simply a concert, but the opportunity to enter the symbolic narrative that the spectacle itself had already created.
If symbolic capital can be acquired through the sponsorship of a spectacle, where does patriotism end, where does culture end, and where does propaganda begin?
