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Kanye West’s newest antics show him at his least informed

By Max Fensterman

This past week, prolific rapper Kanye West blessed fans with a new track after a multi-month hiatus from not only all social media and public appearances, but music as well.

The track, titled “Ye vs. The People” featured rapper T.I., and addressed Kanye’s recent twitter shenanigans, in which he voiced his support for president Donald Trump, to the dismay of much of his fanbase.

Kanye should take note of this recent disappointment, as much of his African American fanbase felt betrayed by the support of the president, who many believe has shown to be racially insensitive. Although it’s not Kanye’s responsibility to support a certain political belief or idea, he needs to realize that as a celebrity, he stands for something and people follow his lead.

Something that Kanye clearly doesn’t have a clear grasp of is the concept of identity. He switches between multifaceted thoughts, and will constantly contradict himself to the media, such as making claims in his songs that he doesn’t actually support.

Soon after the twitter storm that erupted around the posting of a picture of his signed “Make America Great Again” hat, he tried to back up his support of the President by saying that President Obama had failed to make any positive change in Kanye’s hometown of Chicago in the eight years he was president. This is patently untrue, as Obama started the My Brother’s Keeper program in the city during his presidency, which ended up expanding into multiple states. The aim of the program was to keep young, less fortunate teens on track in their lives and away from the violence Chicago has become known for.

With this just being one example of an ill-informed claim from Mr. West, it’s easy to see just how fragile his credibility actually is. The problem arises when Kanye’s young fans begin to start blindly following his beliefs, unable and unwilling to form their own opinions about such topics which Kanye himself is obviously not well versed enough in.

Although it is unjust to try to dictate to Kanye who and what he should support, he definitely needs to put more thought into the things he says, and take a step back to assess the possible impact of his words, which have proved to be more powerful than ever.

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[one_half_last]Kanye West is back with perhaps more controversy and backlash than ever

Kanye West has always been infamous for his outlandish and flagrant personality. In early April, after a lengthy hiatus from the media, Ye returned to Twitter. Within two days the rapper gained a whopping 27.8 million following. Following his return, he announced not one, but two new albums dropping in June — including a collab album with Kid Cudi.

However, tabloids aren’t talking about his music. West took to Twitter to declare his support for Donald Trump — he even posted a photo of him donning his signed ‘Make America Great Again’ hat. To stir it up even more, he declared that black people do not have to be Democrats. To many fans, this was appalling. At this point, I felt sympathy for Kanye in a way. Nowadays, people need to keep in mind that it is okay to have different opinions. I, in no way, shape, or form support everything that Kanye believes in, but he is justified in being able to have his own opinions.

People should not feel obligated to have to separate themselves by their political beliefs. We do not have to label ourselves. We do not need to separate ourselves. Political parties are separating our country. We collectively as a country need to wake up and been more accepting of open thought.

However, in a recent TMZ interview, Kanye seemed sporadic and said that slavery was a choice. This is something I will never defend him on. I will defend Kanye to the day I die on most topics, but this was not okay. People should not overlook this mistake.

Kanye has the right to open thought. He can think how he wants to, and I can support his music and still enjoy him, but that does not mean that I support everything he supports. Just because Kanye supports Donald Trump, it does not mean that he supports everything he supports.

However, there is a catch to all of this. It takes months for a record company to agree to release music, and the lyrics in his song “Ye vs. The People” correlate with his recent tweets. It could be very possible that all of this controversy was planned in advance in order to gain publicity for his two new albums. The Kardashians are infamous for publicity stunts after all.

There still is hope for Kanye to learn from his mistakes. The musical genius may be extremely out-there but some of his ideas and thoughts aren’t really so far fetched. You know what they always say, madness is genius.

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