Scandal rap that cannot be viewed in isolation from the disgusting outbursts of its creator.
Since his last regularly released album DONDA in August 2021, Kanye West has appeared in a “White Lives Matter” shirt, stated that he was being persecuted by a “Jewish underground media mafia” and denied the Holocaust. Even for the provocative scandal fanatic, these statements represent a new, sad low point that cannot be relativized, trivialized or even excused either by his supposed genius or by reference to his psyche.
Just as the separation between artist and work cannot be absolute, it must be rejected from the outset as cheap apologetics. In the case of Kanye West, however, it doesn’t lead very far, as the fusion of work and artist has now progressed to such an extent that separation is no longer possible. His artistic work is directly related to his conspiracy theories, hate triads and provocations, which make him the artistic figure that he embodies today. The music is at best secondary.
The calculated scandals are much more important. And West’s pop star demeanor, which isn’t very innovative but effective. With his now released new collab album with Californian rapper Ty Dolla $ign VULTURES 1, the media and fans eagerly discussed the album cover, the tracklist and the release date for weeks, hunting for every morsel that West threw to the raging mob. Speaking of the album cover: It doesn’t show, as West initially suggested, a Caspar David Friedrich painting forced into the cover aesthetic of a Norwegian neo-Nazi band, but rather the black-clad rapper with his almost naked wife. So is West rowing back after all? Was he actually serious when he apologized to the Jewish community in Hebrew around Christmas? Is he purified?
Not at all. The previously published lyrics “How I’m anti-Semitic/ I just fucked a Jewish bitch” can also be heard on the album. And on the last song, “King,” West practically brags: “Crazy, bipolar, anti-Semitic / And I’m still the king.” But of course this record doesn’t just mock Jews. On “Carnival,” for example, West mocks the victims of sexual violence by equating himself with the perpetrators: “Anybody pissed off / gotta make ’em drink the urine / Now I’m Ye-Kelly, bitch / now, I’ m Bill Cosby, bitch / Now, I’m Puff Daddy rich / that’s #MeToo me rich.”
It’s good that artists like Ozzy Osbourne and Nicki Minaj didn’t want to have anything to do with this farce, but it’s not so good that numerous other artists, like Travis Scott or Playboi Carti, probably had no moral concerns and contributed feature parts. What Ty Dolla $ign did, his involvement here also remains speculation, but he doesn’t mention a supporting role on the album anyway. The fact that West’s wife is shown on the cover instead of him is emblematic of this.
Because scandal and hatred are so fundamentally anchored in Kanye West’s music, it makes no sense to emphasize individual moments from VULTURES 1, such as the once again successful sample selection or the dense atmosphere, and praise them apart from their context. They cannot be isolated and viewed as individuals, but only exist as part of something larger. VULTURES 1 is not heard and understood in its individual moments, but as a whole – and therefore needs to be criticized as such.
And this criticism is easy. In times when anti-Semitism is more in vogue than it has been for decades, art is needed that addresses this disgusting grievance. If Kanye West were still primarily an artist, he would know. But as a perpetual provocateur, life is not only better, but above all easier.