Well what do we do to you now?
The artist, formerly known as Kanye West, is one of music’s most ferociously talented artists and one of the few working today, named by The New York Times as himself. His cultural predominance is not limited to music. For the past decade, he’s been a prominent fashion influencer, turning his monochromatic sweatshirts and his Yeezys into Hypebeast’s default uniforms everywhere. You are very good at what he does. And he takes it very hard to call himself a fan these days.
was Last week’s anti-Semitism and racism uproarculminated You are denounced by the Anti-Defamation League. was Harsh Tucker Carlson interviewand the Curious outtakes from the Tucker Carlson interview. and before that: Violent threats to Pete Davidson, Kim Kardashian’s creepy possessiveness when she divorced him.time he said slavery was a choice. of Trump’s. of “White Lives Matter” shirtYes, it’s a “White Lives Matter” shirt.
Ever since the Me Too movement exploded in 2017, the big question that has haunted pop culture has been, “The artist you liked did something terrible. So what?” He fully embraces many terrifying ideologies, and he uses his platform to promote them.
How can Ye’s increasingly troubling public behavior be reconciled with his formidable artistic legacy? What is the responsibility of those who work with him and share the benefits of his talent? And what is our responsibility as a public to a talented artist who is actively using his huge platform to coax an impressionable young audience into hateful conspiracy theories? is it?
Problem of Can or should the art be separated from the artist? Old and prickly. Over the past few years we have cosby show I can’t take much comfort from Bill Cosby’s rape conviction.self-immolation narcissism Louis Louis CK feels less destructive after admitting to masturbating in front of reluctant women.Sometimes we choose to withhold money and support from the artist in question, even when the work of art still feels vital and fulfilling despite the artist’s misdeeds — commend Annie Hallbut chose not to watch it and sent royalties to Woody Allen.
Your affairs make these seas murky. Unlike CK and Cosby, Ye has not been accused of any physical offense. His misdeeds are less personal and more abstract. Using his vast platform and influence to spread hate speech and racist conspiracy theories, irresponsibly and ignorantly dabble in politics, publicly harass his ex-wife, is blackmailing her boyfriend.Sigh that Kanye is Kanye, dismiss everything, pull Obama out and make him jackass Keep playing “Gold Digger” on a loop.
Ye also tend to profit from what we might call the genius loophole. Geniuses act erratically. That’s why fans tend to willingly take the opposite view when he plays, considering the price of doing business when dealing with a genius. The fact that few other stars act like him (imagine Beyoncé posting hate speech on Instagram!) is not a sign that he’s perfect, but just how extraordinary he is. This is further evidence of its existence. It’s possible to be a genius without behaving so badly that people like me are assigned to write pieces thinking about the bad things you’ve done.
Yeh’s mental health is also clearly deteriorating, which can make him uncomfortable talking about his erratic behavior. but it says “cheap and boringEvery time he does something controversial, he says he’s not on drugs. Public reckoning over Britney Spears’ ridicule During her downward spiral in 2007, there was a vague sense that it was perhaps unfair to blame a public figure in the midst of psychiatric affliction.
But that attitude is offensive to all those who have bipolar disorder or other mental illnesses and haven’t been throwing out anti-Semitic rants for a long time (to be clear, that’s what most people do). Being bipolar can make a person paranoid and prone to conspiratorial thinking, but it doesn’t make a person a bigot. When talking about his recent outburst , it is possible, and indeed preferable, to separate his prejudices from his mental health problems.
What if we tried to separate Ye’s art from his misdeeds? What if we set aside Ye and his prejudices and said he was going to focus purely on the music he gave the world? , a stance many of his fans have already taken at ease.You have been openly outrageous for so long that many are accustomed to hating You are a man and all attention is on you, the musician, or you, the fashion icon. Condemning Ye’s hate speech and still choosing to appreciate his music might feel less different than saying he was wrong Breaking into the VMA stage But you know you’re still going to buy his next album.
It is also the stance of the two major literary schools of the twentieth century that a schism can exist between the artist and his art. The New Critics of the 1930s stand outside history in order for works of art to be scientifically evaluated. Postmodernists in the 1960s argued that: the author diedLeaf fans who follow either of these schools of thought believe that “Runaway” is a gift from Leaf to culture, and that he no longer dictates or influences how they see it. You may decide that you can’t even do it.
Judging by Leaf’s constant ubiquity, this is the path that quite a few of his fans are choosing to follow. Ye is still played in clubs, by the world’s biggest DJs, on the radio and in gyms.
However, for other listeners, this may be a case where it becomes difficult to distinguish between art and artist Because Yeh has always put his own oversized arrogant and honed persona at the center of his music. The egoism shown in the brutal one-sided feud with Kim,I am god, hurry up with my damn croissant’ But when Ye tried to make music around Trump’s endorsement, the result was ‘you against the people” was a dull, meandering song slogan filled with empty half-hearted arguments about how Ye is turning just wearing a MAGA hat into a symbol of empathy. “It’s malformed, thoughtless and unfinished. It’s a contrarian stance to take at the worst possible time.” Tom Breihan wrote in Stereogum“West is just wrapping in a circle.”
Many critical schools teach us that thinking about an artist is part of interpreting a work of art, whether it is good art or not. Most notably, the New Historists, who came to prominence in the 1990s, argued that all works of art are embedded in the time and place in which they were created. So, in this case, it could mean deciding that understanding “runaway” meant understanding Ye and all his prejudices too.
This is a personal decision. No one else can decide how you feel about art that is important to you and the person who made it. These questions are subjective.
However, there are two problems with this whole mess, which I think is fairly simple. One is that Ye actively uses his platform to spread hateful and dangerous propaganda to his millions of fans. Before Instagram restricted his account for the weekend, It had 18.1 million followers, and reached 31.4 million on Twitter before his account went into “read-only” mode. Ye’s support, which could power that platform, is, in that context, irresponsible at best.
Second Money matters. When you play Ye’s music, you’re sending him royalties. So one of his very easy steps is to think about how much of his money he wants to give to Ye. His collaborators seem to be already thinking along those lines.
Ye’s relationship with his musical peers is chronically strained, sometimes for political reasons, but not always.in the meantime He seems to have reconciled with mentor Jay-Z When Protégé Drake After a long public estrangement, singer John Legend, who was signed and produced by Ye, said: You broke up with Legend after he didn’t endorse his presidential run(Disclosure: Legend is a board member of Vox Media.) “Strangely enough, all these ‘free and independent thinkers’ always end up with the same old anti-blackism and anti-Semitism.” Legend tweets After Ye’s anti-Semitic Twitter rant this month. Questlove, rival and collaborator in 2018 Wearing a T-shirt that says “Kanye doesn’t care about black people.”
But most of Ye’s fortune comes from the Yeezy clothing brand he co-founded with Adidas. Forbes estimates it’s worth $1.5 billionAdidas has stood by Ye and their highly lucrative partnership through past controversies, but the “White Lives Matter” shirt seems to have gone too far. A few days after letting it go, Adidas announced that it Consider doing business with YeBank JPMorgan Chase also recently ended his business relationshipit was revealed on Wednesday.
You may be a musical genius. His relationship with music is up to you. He’s definitely a bigot, and this month, thanks to his clout, his bigotry has been as inevitable as his music. , what to do with bigots. The answer is clear.