Subscribe
Notify of
guest

17 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Robbie K
Robbie K
3 months ago

His audience are of course aligned with his disgusting values and are therefore inclined to celebrate him as oppose to cancel him – being rejected by the ‘elites in media’ only serves to boost his popularity as an apparent rebel as we have witnessed with other social media degenerates.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
3 months ago
Reply to  Robbie K

What values? A big part of his audience is made up of white teenagers and young adults who often have only faint values of their own, outside of whatever might have clustered together and taken hold from their parents, peers, teachers, and the internet? I don’t think it’s plausible that most of his listeners share his brand of hedonism nor his expressed views about women and Jews in particular.
I personally think he has some real talent but not much of it can break through his colossal ego, which often breaks into grandiose delusions. He is so volatile and disruptive that even DJT is wary of Kanye’s endorsement, maybe thinking: now some of that rant was a bit much.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
3 months ago
Reply to  Robbie K

Maybe they just like his music and can ignore his personal views?
A criticism often correctly aimed at the woke is that they can’t seperate an artists work from their personal views after all, perhaps it’s a trait not confined just to them

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
3 months ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Good point. I doubt many who agreed with his antisemitic rants were waiting for his new album to “drop”. But some people who are rather tame or conventional themselves like controversial lyrics that can deliver a vicarious thrill.

David L
David L
3 months ago
Reply to  AJ Mac

Now that overt, shameless anti semitism is once again fashionable with the left. I imagine Kanye West has gained lots of new fans.
However Kayne doesn’t mean it, and holds no malice towards Jews. Unlike the left and its islamfacist allies.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
3 months ago

Kanye has always thrived off controversy. He famously got his first break from crashing his car then had a couple of years of notoriety from making two classic albums then it became all the “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” and “I am a god” or “greatest artist alive” stuff to the utter madness we see now.
He has had to evolve as the political sphere and online world have become increasingly crazy and he has had to do more to grab attention.
Just claiming to be the greatest artist alive and relying on all the ensuing online and press arguments to do all you publicity for you just doesn’t cut it when we had in President Trump someone whose entire lexicon is built on such hyperbole.
It kind of makes you wonder what future artists and politicians are going to have to do and say to stick out above the fray.

David Ackland
David Ackland
3 months ago

I would imagine because I don’t know, that if West’s fan base are mostly teenagers, white or not, that those who pay money for this stuff are the parents. So how can he or anyone be cancelled if those that can cancel him are hostage to the whims of their little darlings.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
3 months ago
Reply to  David Ackland

Kanye West has been around for 20 years, why would most of those buying his albums be teenagers?
Also why wouldn’t teenagers have their own money to spend how they see fit? Didn’t you buy any music as a teenager?

Anthony Taylor
Anthony Taylor
3 months ago

Really, this drug-addled man is just a musical tribute-act version of Trump. The more he outrages the majority of thinking people with his unhinged nonsense, the more his most devoted supporters will see him as their saviour from all the others who demean and disrespect them.
I think he is just another symptom of the degradation of societal mores, by people dedicated to the normalizing of an Idiocracy – and it’s coming to fruition before our eyes.

Brian K
Brian K
3 months ago
Reply to  Anthony Taylor

I’m pretty certain that the majority of “thinking people” aren’t thinking about Kanye, and the people “dedicated to the normalizing of an Idiocracy” are not his, nor Trump’s “devoted supporters”.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
3 months ago
Reply to  Anthony Taylor

Kayne is bipolar and his crazy behavior is when he is manic. He was treated for awhile, but like other sufferers, he missed the manic high. Bipolar people often do outrageous things when they are manic and are deeply distressed by their behavior. I feel sorry for the guy and hope he can be convinced to seek help. That said, rap music is awful.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
3 months ago

Round Midnight and Kinda Blue to ‘I Fucked a Jewish b***h’ in three generations. Oh dear.

0 0
0 0
3 months ago

He’s a musician, and not just a musician, a rapper. Those type of people often tend to be trashy personality types who self-destruct and live desolate lives it who can hardly be thought to be examples of moral virtue. Kanye is definitely one of those types. I don’t take people like him seriously whenever they try to seem serious and thoughtful, it’s either a shallow publicity stunt or pretension. Just another celebrity with his head up his ass.

AJ Mac
AJ Mac
3 months ago
Reply to  0 0

Yes, it is a tendency. But also a stereotype and one that gets romanticized too often. In my opinion, it’s a more valid generalization to say that creative anomalies tend to be both inspired and troubled, “carried away” or “haunted” by inner forces over which they have only partial control. (Then again, so are many people who aren’t notably talented).
But for every lonely Beethoven we can find a comparatively joyous Bach, father of twenty children, whose enduring fame seemed highly unlikely during his own lifetime. And anyone who’s listens to much of Old Ludwig Van knows that there is great, even transcendent joy amid the sturm und drang.
Your generalization does seem closer to accurate when it comes rappers, and I don’t place Kanye West alongside those German giants, nor with Louis Armstrong or Jimi Hendrix.
Still, hip-hop standouts like Jay Z, KRS-One*, and Mos Def (born Dante Smith, now called Yasiin Bey), don’t fit your mold. I admit it’s easier to come up with a list of well-known rappers who do.
*A little light research shows he doesn’t support my claim very well. I wouldn’t call him “desolate” or “trashy” but he’s made some insane and indefensible public comments. I’d like to replace him, for rhetorical purposes, with Missy Elliot.

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
3 months ago

He’s another fearsome American radical who has it in for the Jewish community.

Chipoko
Chipoko
3 months ago

Disgusting lyrics. Disgusting ‘music’. Disgusting individual.

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
3 months ago

The new downvote feature is heavily used for this article.