Whatever was left of Kanye West’s once-great music career is firmly in the rearview mirror. It’s sad to watch the mind behind My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy squander itself on sideshow acts, but the time for mourning a musical genius is over.
These public meltdowns happen like clockwork, timed, some speculate, to get the media spotlight on West whenever he has new work to promote. Two days ago, West announced his new album, Bully, is due for release this summer. It clearly hasn’t gained the traction he wanted. For the past six hours he’s been leading on capslock and posting the usual nonsensical claptrap on X, formerly Twitter.
He’s tried to make Free P-Diddy happen, despite the heinousness of the accusations against his former rival. Given West keeps trying to claim he is a billionaire, I guess it stands to reason he wouldn’t be getting on the #FreeLuigi train. In fact, it’s the terrible nature of the the claims made against Sean Combs that has clearly attracted West in his desperation to seem edgy and perverse.
West still has the power to dominate headlines, but it’s no longer for his talent – beyond using a meltdown as marketing. Setting up the Grammy’s red carpet stunt last Sunday, where his wife Bianca Censori flashed the world’s cameras, was just a stunt to try and sell a £17 Yeezy-branded plastic dress.
Well, he’s very annoyed that people are calling it a stunt – or trying to claim it as a win for feminism. While West initially praised American Vogue’s take, he’s taken to X (formerly Twitter) to clarify that there was little agency involved in Censori’s outfit choice. “I HAVE DOMINION OVER MY WIFE,” he internet yelled. “THIS AINT NO WOKE AS FEMINIST SHIT,” he clarified. “SHE DEFINITELY WOULDNT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO IT WITHOUT MY APPROVAL.” Charming.
Aside from some basic misogyny, West has also fallen back on his favourite edgelord hobbyhorse: praising Hitler and the Nazis. It’s disgusting behaviour designed to provoke outrage. While his antisemitism should be condemned in the strongest terms, depressingly this isn’t even in the top 10 Nazi-style antics in the headlines this week.
The fascists are literally in the White House right now, targeting immigrants and LGBTQ+ people and planning ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The world’s richest man threw a couple of Sieg Heil’s at Donald Trump’s inauguration. West might be annoyed that Elon Musk has stolen his schtick (”Elon stole my nazi swag”), but really he’s probably just concerned no one will even bother to condemn his shock jock rhetoric any more. How much further right can a man go when the far right has gone mainstream?
Some may be quick to point out West’s long-term struggles with mental health. This week he claimed he has been diagnosed with autism, and said he was previously misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder. Extreme racist delusions can be a symptom of a psychotic episode, but I’m not West’s psychologist and we cannot speculate on his current mental state. What we do know is that plenty of people live with a variety of serious mental illnesses, and while it can explain behaviour it does not excuse or absolve it.
We’ve moved on from the need to point at these men misbehaving in shock and outrage. The longer we flap about them doing the digital equivalent of shitting their pants in public for attention, the more distracted we are about human rights being assaulted from all sides. As Judith Butler wrote this week, “while there is every reason to be outraged, we cannot let that outrage flood us and stop our minds. For this is a moment to grasp the fascist passions that fuel this shameless grab for authoritarian powers.”
Whether West’s next album is decent or not is besides the point. I certainly won’t be bothering to listen to it. He can scream into the void while we work together to fight the rising tide of fascism he claims to hold so dear.
