Kanye West certainly divides opinions, doesn’t he? Some folk see him as a talented musician and others see him rather in the same way as the late David Crosby: “He can’t write, sing, or play at all. He is an egomaniac, he is dumb as a post, he creates nothing, helps no one. (He’s) an idiot and a poser … has no talent at all”. One thing that he is strikingly good at is being a total prick.
Take his latest brilliant idea: selling T shirts. And not any old T shirts, not merch in the traditional sense anyway, but T shirts with a swastika on them. You couldn’t make it up.
It is hard to believe that even someone as dumb as West, or Ye, as he apparently wants to be called, doesn’t understand what he is doing here so I take it on face value. The man supports fascism.
“I love Hitler” and “I’m a Nazi” are things he has literally said, along with making some grotesque antisemitic comments along the way, like these. And obviously, he’s a holocaust denier. The holocaust never happened, according to West, which must come as quite a shock to the families and friends of the six million people who died in it and the many millions who have visited Auschwitz over the years. Fascist conspiracy theorists are probably not the best people to befriend.
The swastika T shirt, selling at ‘only’ $20, does strike me as an unusual item of merchandise. When I visit the merch table at a show, which is always, I might pick up some music or some apparel, but to date I have not come across anything that might be described as fascist by nature. Maybe I just go to the wrong shows these days?
In truth, Ye hates everyone and everything, particularly anything that’s ‘woke’. “I have dominion over my wife,” he explains. “This ain’t no woke as feminist shit.” And he’s very angry at the actual Bond villain, Elon Musk, who “stole my Nazi Swag at the Inauguration.” I’ll stay woke, thank you very much, and supportive of the woke feminist shit rather than be alongside a self-styled Nazi.
I’m in agreement with Croz, personally, believing as I do that Ye is a supremely untalented musician who has risen to the top of his profession despite his lack of talent rather than because of it. See also Donald Trump. But he doesn’t quite see it that way. “I am above any other celebrity that’s ever existed. I look down on them and they look up to me,” he wrote. Hmm. That’s quite some claim. Let me just take a rain check.
Flogging Nazi regalia is just another small step towards the oblivion Ye seems to crave. Granted that he probably fits in well with Trump and Musk’s world of MAGA, except for the jew hatred, obvs, but hopefully this is not a wise career move and we can be spared more of his crap in the future.
