I remember when it started. Kanye West appeared on TMZ live years ago with a Black rightwing political commentator. He said that he liked that she was a “free thinker”. This commentator in particular had boisterous critiques of the Democratic party. She argued that the party uses Black people for political gain. Kanye seemed moved by the boring and accurate claim. But the tragedy is that he accepted her conclusion: that Black people should embrace openly racist Republicans instead.
I had not thought of their budding friendship until last week. The pair reappeared at Paris Fashion Week wearing contrasting long-sleeve “White Lives Matter” shirts. Backlash ensued, to which Kanye responded with defense, jest, appreciation, online bullying against fashion editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, and now, antisemitism.
But maybe the TMZ moment was not when it started. Kanye’s political changes happen in ticks on made-up timelines that friends argue over until their faces frown and voices go hoarse. I’ve heard it all. Hurricane Katrina and George Bush hate Black people. He changed after his momma died. Remember when he said slavery was a choice? Why did he support Trump? He’s a Gemini! It’s his bipolar, he can’t help it. Now why he marry that girl? I’ve only witnessed white people suggest it started when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for MTV best music video award and re-award it to Beyoncé for the Single Ladies video (to which surrounding Black people become suspiciously quiet in the conversation).
What makes Ye’s antics and devolving viewpoints so appalling is not simply that he has them, nor that he shares them loudly. Instead, it is that he collapses pieces of real information all around us while lacking discernment about how to use the truth he conjures.
Like President Trump, Ye professes attraction to people who tell it like it is and appeals to people precisely because he does not filter himself. Sometimes there’s a magical alignment with the truth: did Beyoncé have the greatest music video of all times? Probably. Did he need to share that during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech? No. Well, probably, I don’t know, this is not a good example. His condemnation of President Bush in the wake of Black people drowning in preventable floods is a better one.
Most of the time, Ye’s magic is muddied with earnest yet misguided projections of the state of Black people. I once filled with pride playing Murder to Excellence and nodded along that “Black-on-Black crime” was plaguing our neighborhoods. Kanye understood the premise. But he lost the plot with the conclusion that suggests violence is solvable through the goodwill of ghetto residents and by increasing Black spending power. Is it true that community-based violence is a problem? Yes. But we eventually learn that ghettos and community-based violence are creatures of racial capitalism that must be eradicated.
On Never Let Me Down, Kayne invokes his mother’s lunch counter sit-in demonstration and urges Black people to be ready for leadership because racism is alive and hidden, though he’s doubtful it will happen because of community violence and the desire for material wealth. The same sentiments emerge on All Falls Down, where Ye’s story tells how Black people spend money to offset insecurities about their status, while poking fun at himself for performing the same behaviors.
What Kanye offered in his early music were bits and pieces of commentary that anyone can catch at Black barbecues, barbershops and beauty salons. Conservative, perhaps, but through a sincere or performative desire for analysis, Black nationalism or self-improvement. But he kept going. He went from discussing the indignities that low-wage retail workers face (insults, exploitation, racism, tokenism) and celebrating the subtle ways that workers get back (taking long breaks, thefts, fighting management) on Spaceship, to claiming that all of the Porsches in his garage are proof of God’s favor upon him.
The Venn diagram overlap between Ye’s lyrics and conservative talking points only grew larger with the years. And alongside the debates over his health, spectacles and tragedies, we must take into consideration that he became a billionaire.
Ye acquired more wealth and went further right. He forfeited the nuance in the complex lives we live and lusted for the status of rich white men. In his recent Tucker Carlson interview, the billionaire rapper affirmed President Donald Trump because “his name is on buildings”. Now, Trump is no stranger to hip-hop. From Nas to my hometown star Nelly, rappers have caricatured Trump as a face of wealth. But for Ye, Trump’s combination of wealth and self-aggrandizement was power within reach. Kanye even ran for president. As poet Saul Williams explains, “Rappers have been praising Trump for over a decade and ignoring real heroes. Americans have been excited about those who make money without thinking about the exploitation that may be involved with that money for ages.”
The problem is, Kanye behaves as if the only real and brave truth tellers today are conservatives with money. He acts as if the rich right wing holds a monopoly on criticisms of the Democratic party or liberal activists. This ignores a host of progressives and radicals – people like Cornel West, Nick Estes, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Mariame Kaba, Aja Monet, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, and too many artists and grassroots organizers to name who criticise the liberal establishment more fiercely than the right and with commitments to end oppression. In fact, entire progressive and radical traditions exist where people of all races offer vigorous critiques of the status quo with surgical precision. We need fewer “free thinkers” and more critical thinkers who ask about these traditions and find their places within them.
The question for me is whether billionaire Kanye can ever really know about these robust traditions. Not because he doesn’t already know or will never learn about them, but because to know them is to also learn their critiques of gross wealth accumulation, Black capitalism, desire for imperial leadership, and so much more of what Kanye currently represents. Supporting free thinkers with weak conservative analysis does not threaten his status, land, antisemitic views or bank account.
But for what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
Derecka Purnell is a Guardian US columnist. She is also a social movement lawyer and writer based in Washington, DC. She is the author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom
