Kanye ‘Ye’ West releases Nazi music: how do you report on that?

It is a classic journalism dilemma: a terrorist lets a bomb go off at a busy station. Many dead, drama, of course that is news. But what happens if you didn’t write about it? The purpose of an attack is especially the fear it causes and crawls into a society – the terror. If you ignore it, the fear cannot grow and it may not happen anymore.

It is also a bit with hip -hop artist and producer Kanye ‘Ye’ West (47). He liked to compared himself with Jesus, received direct messages from God on his laptop, was rabiaat anti-abortion (« genocide on black people »), and supported both Donald Trump and the fornication and human trafficking accused P. Diddy. West wore shirts of Nazi metal band Burzum and one with ‘White Lives Matter’ on it, later he sold his own shirts with a swastika. Adolf Hitler: Totally OK. The Holocaust: not happened. Slavery: a choice of the black population itself. And that we have such a collective aversion to Nazis, he argued, only « through the Jewish media. » « We’ve got to stop dissing the nazis all of the time.  »

This week West ensured that there is a Wikipedia page entitled ‘Heil Hitler (Song). ‘ Indeed, his newest song has the name of the pronunciation that belongs to the Hitler salute. The song is about how his life is made impossible by everyone, except by himself. The fact that he is now the Nazi, the villain, the Adolf Hitler of the story, and that is because others make that of him, is the Portee.

Bizarre combination

The song was quickly removed from platforms such as SoundCloud, YouTube and Spotify. Only on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), ‘HH’ can still be seen and listened to, with a video in which a group of black men in black suits the macabre hook ‘n *** a Heil Hitler!« Scenes. Those three words also form the alternative title of the song chosen by West – a bizarre combination. On Spotify, an instrumental variant appeared on Wednesday, ‘The Heil Symphony’, with a little concealed reference to a swastika like Hoes.

You can ignore a rapper more easily than a terrorist attack. When NRC Never would write about him again, there is probably no subscriber who calls why we don’t do anything about that nice Mr. West. But ignoring is distorted.

This is of course mainly because West is a pop cultural phenomenon, which has released music that, according to some, has reclaimed hip hop. With the combination of bassy productions, personal texts and then progressive statements about same-sex marriage and homophobia in general, he became the face of the enlightened post-gangsta rap period. So a hero for many. The way in which he has slipped to the drain of the extreme right is therefore at least remarkable, certainly because everyone has seen it happen. At the worst, West’s behavior of recent years is an accident that you can’t turn away from, and we are the viewers file.

Mental problems

Fans, sponsors And other relationships have largely dropped YE, that is an economic story. His behavior would be explained by mental problems (Kim Kardashian, his ex, once stated that he has a bipolar disorder – uncontrolled megalomaniac behavior is a symptom; he himself explained that earlier, but came early this year With the explanation That he would not be bipolar but autistic), the death of his mother or the divorce with Kardashian and the fight for their children. Problematic behavior caused by a mental disorder or mourning can also be an important story.

There is something else: anti -Semitism, racism, national socialism and hatred in general deserves a reply. Otherwise you let the freely exist, and uncommon fungus always gets worse. If the West still denies the Holocaust with his still millions of followers, it must be opposed. But the balance between fighting and fueling is very difficult. You quickly fall into sensationalism, or you repeat unnecessarily hurtful comments from someone who perhaps did that out of spiritual need. If YE is looking for attention, it should not be awarded to him on principle. And if he is a slow accident, I don’t really want to look at it.

Musically there is little positive to report. The anti -Semitism of ‘Heil Hitler’ is too disgusting to listen to seriously, and earlier we concluded in NRC That « the musical mold that he once forged himself is in need of replacement.

Maybe it will be fine, he gets the help he seems to need and he distances himself from his painful, insulting and dangerous expressions. Until that time, his verbal and musical attacks do not seem to stop, and continues to weigh journalism: watching the accident, or trying to drive on?

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