Kanye West does not deserve the status quo
Kanye West should not be allowed to resume his career endeavors as normal.
The way I think about how the media and influencers should approach talking about Kanye West (now known as Ye) is similar to how legacy news outlets now handle Donald Trump’s 2024 Presidential candidacy. Media conglomerates believe they are learning from the mistakes of the 2016 election cycle, where the so-called “Trump bump” created a reciprocal relationship of publicity. Networks and publications who do not support him, like CNN and The New York Times, would air out their grievances and every misstep out of spite for the man, which simultaneously boosted all of their public standings. Media corporations and major brands have responded to Ye’s heinous behavior in a similar light throughout the past year; Adidas cut ties with him (although he was recently photographed with the company’s CEO), Creative Arts Agency (CAA) dropped him as a client and he was even exiled from certain banks. Now the artist is subjected to having to request networking assistance through his social media accounts.
Just like Trump, Ye embodies the notion of a multi-hyphenated entrepreneur and this has led to an outsized impact that transcends his original occupation. That being said, being blacklisted en masse will make you return to your roots and hopefully reflect on your actions, which is what some thought Ye would be doing with his new album VULTURES I. This idealization was immediately cut short upon the marketing campaign that revolved around neo-Nazi imagery and the same fascist tonality that was so overt in his war on Jewish people. Okay… but he apologized to Jewish community… in Hebrew? The ignorance to assume that all Jewish people speak Hebrew or have an appreciative association to it homogenizes the ethnoreligion in a manner that promotes the same fascist rhetoric that is reminiscent of its most prominent promulgator in Adolf Hitler.
Ye’s repeated tone-deafness and vitriol to a community that I am a member of challenged me with the equivalent of a final exam on whether I could separate art from the artist. In many cases I can and have been able to; I have such an appreciation for the arts that I am willing to forego my steadfast opinions about controversial subjects in order to, at the very least, engage in an actual dialogue. This is not possible with Ye’s VULTURES I and it is quite simple why: the artist and art become indistinguishable. This is permissible for Trump, who is a politician that employs populist tactics in order to entice support from those who enjoy intertwining what they see as Trump’s strong personality traits with his political record. But even with the former President, we see when words can hurt on a tangible level with the horrific Jan. 6 riots that Trump is now being prosecuted for as an instigator because of his public speech. As a result, aforementioned networks like CNN have tried to deplatform him and while it is another conversation on whether this is a feasible strategy for a man who is likely going to be the Republican candidate for this year’s election, it is surely a valid response to someone like Ye.
Take the following lyrics:
“VULTURES” (feat. Bump J & Lil Durk): “How I’m antisemitic?/I just fucked a Jewish bitch”
“KING”: “‘Crazy, bipolar, antisemite’/And I’m still the king”
“CARNIVAL” (feat. Rich the Kid & Playboi Carti): “Now I’m Ye-Kelly bitch/I’m Bill Cosby bitch/Now I’m Puff Daddy rich/That’s ‘Me Too’ rich”
These do not sound like the words of someone who feels any remorse for the pain they have caused an entire community. Many receive the lexicon and verbiage developed and used by someone like Trump, such as “Make America Great Again” or calling immigrants “vermin” with a careless “sticks-and-stones” attitude, but standing idle is the same as enabling in circumstances like this. Many would have never thought that Jan. 6 was possible in our nation steeped in egalitarianism and reverence for authority, but it was, and many blame the implicit connotation of Trump’s words, not explicit actions, for it. Ye has built his fanbase on the apolitical origins of his music career to the extent that many see him as an idol, as someone to live up to. Artists at this level have fans that turn to “stans” and these devotees can become impressionable regardless of age, maturity, race, partisanship or any other demographic detail that people may use as an excuse against those criticizing the artist. But if you do not find the anarchist parallels in Ye choosing two of the largest Jewish communities in the world in Miami and New York City for the sake of promoting his album that is filled with the aforementioned antagonistic lyrics, then that says a lot about you.
Ye’s fans have become his own social media militia as well, defending his glory by any means necessary. On X (formerly known as Twitter), delving into any recent hip-hop discourse will surely find you witnessing the shamelessness of so-called music purists. These are fans who proclaim their elitism in terms of evaluating art because they can separate the art from the artist, unlike others who are “prejudiced” toward their favorite artist(s). Moreover, if you are to simply question the content, or even the actual quality, of VULTURES I, you yourself are the ignorant one. Ye’s initial hate speech coincided with a spike in antisemitic Tweets on X following Elon Musk’s acquisition, and subsequent diminishing moderation, of the social media platform, so this is no surprise, but is still jarring. It has also spawned the beginning of conspiracy theories about the music industry at-large that is eerily reminiscent of ‘deep state’ governmental control over the daily life of citizens that many MAGA proponents vocalize.
This is all to highlight the dangers of continuing to platform someone like Ye, or platform him without disclaimers about his abhorrent behavior. Rolling Stone somewhat gets at the crux of my argument in their review of VULTURES I when the author states that “Ye’s support for Donald Trump, no matter how icky it makes you feel, isn’t the least bit surprising: Both men are symptoms of the unchecked ego of the American male, the id of the oversharer, and people who whine if they don’t get their way.” But then the writer proceeds to admit their unrelenting admiration for Ye’s musical abilities and how they would “still want to see him perform.” This is the same rubbernecking mentality that propelled someone like Trump– that Rolling Stone has to admonish by default to stay mainstream-friendly –to the presidency in 2016 and will allow Ye to return to pop-culture with a clean slate.
Editor’s Note: VULTURES I is now facing the threat of literally being deplatformed by the parent company of its distributor.