Kanye goes by many names. Mr. West, Yeezy/Yeezus, and recently just Ye. But however you refer to him, one fact is true: he has been on the front pages of every media outlet for the last few weeks. To fill you in as to why he is causing all this confusion, we have to start where this began. Kanye, over the course of his history as a hip hop artist, has said a lot of things that could be considered completely unacceptable. Nothing is off the table when it comes to his unfiltered rants. His past actions include blaming George Floyd’s death on a Fentanyl overdose, saying, “They hit him with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that.” This was during the height of the George Floyd incident when the entire country was still mourning his unfortunate murder. Another instance of Kanye saying things he shouldn't would be when he said that the forced enslavement of Black and African individuals was a choice on TMZ. These are just two instances where his ignorance has caused major issues and hurt many people. Unfortunately, it does not stop there. Recently, he has been removed from Instagram and Twitter for making antisemetic remarks. Kanye said “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.” And this was all while he was receiving ongoing backlash from appearing at Paris Fashion Week wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt that he himself had designed. Statements and actions like these have raised many questions about the state of Kanye's mental health. In past interviews, he has admitted that he takes medications for bipolar disorder. When he is off the medications, that is when we get the unhindered, raw garbage that he puts all over the internet. As a result of the recent “Death Con 3” issue, he has officially been struck from Forbes list of billionaires, has lost over one billion dollars, and lost brand deals with Adidas, GAP, Balenciaga, Foot Locker and many more.
Now the rational thing to do in a situation like this would be to apologize profusely and try and see what type of image he can rebuild. Unfortunately, he decided in another interview to give (in my opinion) quite possibly the worst “I’m sorry” speech the internet has ever seen. This apology included him saying that “God asked us to be judgmental because if you are a doctor, right, it’s your judgment that saves grandma, and God puts that in there,” and, “As a Jewish person, I’m sorry for the way that I made you feel, and I’m sorry to the entire population of a race that I feel is actually my brothers. Because I classify and feel that I’m also connected with Christ in the way that my people came from Africa.”
So where does Kanye or ‘YE’ go from here? As of now, he has attempted to find a home for his famous shoes—a brand dubbed Yeezus—at Skechers, only to be turned down because the owners of the company are Jewish. Things are not looking up for Kanye, but there is one thing that is going Kanye's way. As a result of Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter over the past weeks, Elon has made a lot of changes, some of which include firing the top three executives within moments of being there. Most importantly to this story, one of Musk’s actions as new head of Twitter was to unban Kanye's twitter account. So now we can all look forward to hearing and seeing what other debauchery Ye will let fly out his mouth and onto the internet.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.