Can I Ever Separate Kanye from Ye?
And do I want to?
I used to think that if an artist was problematic, you just simply stopped participating in their art. Without much effort, I don’t watch Woody Allen movies or Bill Cosby specials. I don’t listen to Michael Jackson or R. Kelly. But, the truth is, I wasn’t really doing those things to begin with. Sure, I had in the past, but it was easy to leave them behind. It’s easy to push art aside when you never had a deep relationship with it to begin with. It’s easy to be valiant when you don’t have to do anything differently.
But, babe, I really loved Kanye West. And I finally have to face that separating the art from the artist is actually really fucking hard.
I loved Kanye since I first saw the video for All Falls Down in 2004 when I was in 8th grade. I immediately asked my parents if I could buy The College Dropout, and they told me I could buy the edited version from Walmart. Regardless, I played it every day. I loved the music. I loved how clever he was. I loved the lyrics. I even loved the skits and the nearly 13 minute spoken word outro track. It was the first album I ever loved that had staying power. Year after year, I’d revisit it, and it felt like it got better every time. When I was 18, I went to Lollapalooza alone and waited all day at one of the stages to watch Kanye. While I was waiting, I got accidentally peed on by someone standing behind me but it was worth it to me to see Kanye in Chicago (!!!!).
I would go on to be entranced with Late Registration and Graduation. Like a lot of Kanye fans, I don’t talk about 808s and Heartbreaks, but when My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy came out when I was 20, I fell in love all over again. Because he was a producer first, Kanye knew how to make a collaborator shine. MBDTF is pure evidence of that. From Bon Iver to Rihanna, to Chris Rock, Kanye ensured that if they were featured on a song, that it’d be one of their best tracks ever made. Don’t even get me started on his work with Jay-Z and Watch the Throne (Spoiler: I also loved it!).
Honestly, it was always hard to be a Kanye fan. Even when the worst thing he was doing was interrupting Taylor Swift at a time where none of my friends even liked Taylor Swift (lol wow how the times change), I’d get these “you still like him?” types of questions. Yes, I still liked him. He could be an idiot who sucked at communicating, but he meant well. That pretty much described all men in my life at the time, so why would I like Kanye any less?
I also don’t believe in hating people just because it’s popular a la Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton etc. To hate someone without examination is ignorant, and it was very basic to hate Kanye if you didn’t listen to his music. He was loud. He was disruptive. Even President Obama thought he was a jackass. But, I felt that if people could just listen to his music, they’d understand. They’d see his perspectives and musicality and they’d appreciate him. I even had a Facebook bio (sign of the times) that read “Karaoke slayer/Kanye defender”—a statement many of my friends will not let me forget. But, by college, I wasn’t alone. For every friend that didn’t like Kanye, two more did. Kanye has sold more than 160 million records. I was far from the only one listening to him.
Politically, Kanye has always been outspoken, but up until 2016ish, his statements all aligned with a liberal point of view. His lyrics often highlighted racism in America, police brutality, and mourned a general lack of concern for those who weren’t part of the elite. He even spoke out against homophobia in rap as early as 2005. Also In 2005, he famously said George Bush didn’t like black people in reference to how Bush handled delivering help and aid to those affected by Hurricane Katrina. He donated money to the Democratic National Committee, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. He might have blundered when it came to expressing his political opinions in public, but in his music, he was polished and precise.
But, as we all know, there has been a shift. In 2015, Kanye announced he was going to run for president in 2020, which sounded honestly like another one of his braggadocios, yet ultimately hollow statements. Something he’d say in a song rather than actually follow through on. Though he wouldn’t start officially going by Ye for a few more years, this was the start of the “Ye” era as I see it. Kanye’s choice to go by Ye now is a plea to people to forget who he used to be.
In 2016, Kanye told a crowd at one of his concerts if he would have voted (?!?!) that he would have voted for Trump. He also started talking more about how racism “wasn’t real,” which echoed something he had said in 2013 about how racism was a “silly concept.” Everything unraveled from there. From Kanye visiting Trump at the White House, to him saying slavery was a choice, to him saying that the Jewish media would “take us and milk us till we die.” Although, just days ago, Kanye watched 21 Jump Street and wrote on his Instagram that watching Jonah Hill in the movie made him “like Jewish people again.” TL;DR - he’s not someone you can depend on to have good opinions on humankind. And for the past few years, save one last ditch comment about Jonah Hill, he has done nothing but put forth rhetoric that hurts people, giving likeminded people permission to do the same.
For me personally, the betrayal is the worst part. As someone who spent their teens and 20s standing up for Kanye to people who simply didn’t listen to his music, it’s a huge punch in the gut to have him actually be an evil person on his worst days, and incredibly unwell on his good days. It’s like I asked everyone to “listen up! Kanye has something to say!” then he said all of…this. It’s embarrassing. But also, I didn’t know. And how could I? He used to stand for everything that wasn’t racist elite. Now he’s become it. It’s a waste of time figuring out what’s to blame because at the end of the day, there isn’t a good excuse for his actions.
Kanye’s lyric “I miss the old Kanye” on the track "I Love Kanye off The Life of Pablo haunts me all the time. This, in my opinion, is the first album that he released when he really started to drift. I do miss the old Kanye. I’ve done so much mental gymnastics about how I could possibly play old Kanye and still feel good about it. “If I play my CD, it’s fine, because I’m not financially supporting him.” “If I play anything before 2016, it’s okay because he didn’t say anything inflammatory before then.” “I don’t have to think about who he is now.” But that’s the same type of ignorance that I hated coming up against when I was trying to defend Kanye. It’d be hypocritical to play that card now that it’s convenient for me.
Even when I do play it, and there’s a rush of nostalgia and appreciation, followed by guilt and unease. It’s like listening to a voicemail from the bad boyfriend you stuck by for years, only to have all of your friends be right about him. Between the defending, the outbursts, the antics, and now this, Kanye has already worn me out enough through the years. It’s so much to go through to justify something that I simply can’t justify. It’s easier just to not play it and be sad, rather than play it and be sadder. Maybe the only thing Ye and I agree on is that the Old Kanye is dead.
References:
Vanity Fair - An Incomplete History of Kanye West’s Political Views
Billboard - A Timeline of Kanye West Getting Political
Non-Problematic Stuff I’m V Into This Week
PODCASTS
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend: Michelle Zauner
If you haven’t heard Michelle Zauner’s band Japanese Breakfast or read her incredible book on the loss of her mother, Crying in H Mart, at least listen to this podcast ep. Conan is one of my favorite people, and hearing the two of them talk is this amazing union of old comedy nerd and young comedy nerd. Michelle also talks earnestly about how difficult it is to make it, especially in the midst of her mom getting sick, which really hit home for me. I also can’t get over how cute it is that Conan’s daughter took him to Coachella with her.
On that note:
SONGS
This is an absolutely gut-wrenching song on loss. I have never felt more sick to my stomach or seen in one moment. Michelle Zauner’s songwriting is something else.
Hell is finding someone to love, and I can’t have you.
Hell is finding someone to love and I can’t see you again.
Love a lil Joan Jett throwback with a bit of a new wave sound.
Boy’s a liar Pt. 2 - PinkPantheress, Ice Spice
TikTok truly is great for discovering new music. This one is a bop. Thank you to the young influencers of our day for shaping all my playlists.
i stan SDS