Kanye's comeback

0:01Coachella Weekend is around the corner in Indio, California, but I want to talk to you about Wireless in the UK. It's another three-day music festival, but lately they've been doing the same headliner on each of the three nights. Last year it was Drake on Night 1, Drake on Night 2, and Drake on Night 3. This year, Wireless decided to take the same approach, but instead of Drake headlining all three nights, they booked the most controversial musician on the planet, a guy who used to go by the name of Kanye West. And everyone got mad. From sponsors like Pepsi and PayPal to eventually the UK's own Prime Minister, Keir Starmer.

0:42On Tuesday, Ye was banned from entering the UK and Wireless had to pull the plug on the entire festival. But the rapper has recently come out and apologized for all the terrible things he's said and done. So, yay or nay on Today Explained?

1:04Explained. Yay, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has for a very long time believed he's God's gift to earth. And that might even be an understatement. I am a god, so hurry up with my damn massage. In a French-ass restaurant, hurry up with my damn croissant. Either found him insufferable or felt like you could excuse his outsized personality because his music made you feel like you could fly. But then Ye spent years doing everything in his power to alienate his audience. We asked Chris Murphy from Vanity Fair to come help us understand that era in light of the rapper's recent efforts to apologize for all of it.

1:43He was always provocative. And some would say that he was provocative for good at the beginning. You know, he said. George Bush doesn't care about black people. In regards to Hurricane Katrina. I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. If you see a white family, it says they're looking for food. He stormed the stage when Taylor Swift won a VMA over Beyonce and said, No, Taylor, I'm really happy for you. I'm going to let you finish. But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time. You know, he always was provocative. But when things started to turn and get really scary and really bad was sort of in like the late teens, early 2020s is when he started to engage in legitimately anti-Semitic rhetoric and whatnot.

2:29And that's also around the time that he starts saying. When you hear about slavery for 400 years, for 400 years, that sounds like a choice. And this is all while his music is inarguably decreasing in quality and relevance. Yes, quality and relevance. And I think that's really important. He was kind of the defining artist of the teens, you would say. He was sort of the defining millennial artist. And as he starts to lose his grip and other people start rising, you've got Drake. You used to call me on my Cell phone. You've got Kendrick. My left stroke just went viral. You've got other artists who are starting to enter the conversation and hold the attention of other people.

3:13He starts to kind of act out in really alarming ways in terms of, you know, provocative statements, boundary pushing. Trump and Kanye at Trump Tower. Kanye West caught in an on-camera confrontation with a photographer at LAX. As you probably could have guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020 to run for president. Also, his marriage is sort of falling apart with Kim Kardashian. He's like crying on the phone to me. And he just like wouldn't say what's wrong. And I'm like, tell me what's wrong. I'm just like, don't know what to do. When I divorced him, you have to know it came down to just one thing, his personality.

3:53And then at some point crosses the line into actual outright anti-Semitism. I think it's important to this conversation that we just establish how vile and hateful the things he was saying and doing were. So could you give us an idea? Yeah, there's a lot. So I apologize if I forget anything, but there are a lot of things that he said and did that were really vile and unacceptable. And I think it sort of really began in 2022. He's at Paris Fashion Week and he wears a White Lives Matter shirt. The photos have gone viral, with Kanye adding fuel to the fire, claiming the Black Lives Matter movement is a scam.

4:33The answer to why I wrote White Lives Matter on a shirt is because they do. And then it gets outright anti-Semitic months later when he posts swastikas on social media. Ye is now suspended from Twitter. West's account suspended Thursday night after he posted a now-deleted image of a swastika inside a Star of David. He publishes texts with certain people that he says the media is controlled by Jewish people and spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He also tweets that he would go Death Con 3 on Jewish people. For the second time this year, rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, has been suspended from Twitter.

5:11CEO Elon Musk announced the suspension, writing, quote, I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement of violence. He then gives an interview wearing a Klan hood, a KKK hood. You know, the funny thing is I really wanted to wear it yesterday, but I thought they would, like, put me in a hospital, put my outfit. So it's not only anti-Semitic, there's also anti-Blackness rolled into there as well. He does an interview with Alex Jones podcast, you know, the infamous Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist. He praises Hitler, says Hitler's a good marketer. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.

5:50He does all of these things. I think sort of the pinnacle of his public anti-Semitism is he releases a song called Heil Hitler and then also sells swastika t-shirts in February of 2025. And that song, it gets him banned from Australia. It's not played on radio, airwaves and whatnot, but it still gets a cult following in the manosphere. You've got Nick Fuentes, Clavic Giller, and Andrew Tate, these big figures in the manosphere, and at least in Nick Fuentes' case, an avowed anti-Semite, playing the song in Miami Beach and listening it before hitting the clubs. So that's sort of a quick rundown of some of the stuff that he did.

6:37But yeah, it got really, really bad and really dark. I guess it gets to a point where the only surprising thing left Kanye West can do is a total 180. And he does that this year. Yeah, yes, he does. Or he attempts to. He releases in January of 2026. He releases a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal apologizing for his past remarks, his anti-Semitism specifically. I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions. I'm not a Nazi or an anti-Semite. I love Jewish people. And anti-Blackness. The Black community is unquestionably the foundation of who I am. And I'm sorry I let you down. I love us.

7:22And saying that it stems from a car accident that he had in 2002, which led to him being diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. 25 years ago, I was in a car accident that broke my jaw and caused injury to the right frontal lobe of my brain. It wasn't properly diagnosed until 2023. The medical oversight caused serious damage to my mental health and led to my bipolar type 1 diagnosis. It is interesting that, you know, he went, let's say, 20 years of his career. The car crash was in 2002, and his first sort of public really terrible remarks were in 2022. to 20 years without that happening. I don't really understand that necessarily.

8:06The scariest thing about this disorder is how persuasive it is when he tells you, you don't need help. It makes you blind, but convinced you have insight. You feel powerful, certain, unstoppable. I lost touch with reality. Things got worse the longer I ignored the problem. I said and did things I deeply regret. And then he gives an exclusive interview to Vanity Fair to reporter Anna Peel explaining why he's apologizing and the weight of his remorse for his actions. All, it should be said, leading up to the release of his latest album, Bully. This was in the weeks leading up to new music. And this was not his first apology.

8:46He had apologized, you know, about a year prior as well for his remarks. But this was sort of his biggest, grandest attempt at atoning for his sins. You mentioned that, of course, these apologies come on the heels of an album release. Is this just about money for Kanye? Do we know? Has all of his anti-Semitism and anti-blackness and divorce cost him more than he can afford? I mean, that's a complicated question because in his conversation with Anna Peel, he does note that he's still one of the most streamed artists globally. So there are still people who are listening to him this whole entire time amidst the, if you want to say, cancellation of Kanye.

9:32But as you very shrugly noted, when he does apologize or when he does, you know, get the wherewithal to try and apologize for his anti-Semitic and anti-Black remarks, they tend to presage an album release or an opportunity where he wants his music and his work to be well-received by the public. So it's a little bit hard to take his apology seriously because, one, so far they've really just been words. He's met with some rabbis who have said that he's doing the work, but it's sort of hard to see exactly what accountability he's taken in regards to proving that his anti-Semitism and his anti-Blackness were outbursts that were not who he really is.

10:14And they tend to be around some sort of album release or project where he has the opportunity to profit. Does it work? Does he profit? Bully, I will say, didn't seem to really make waves, at least in the music space. Pitchfork gave it a 3.4. Hoopy de scoop, which is really low even for Pitchfork. But in regards to profitability, he had two concerts at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, and he made$33 million in just two concerts selling out the stadium. So in some cases, yeah, it's a tricky thing where while he is definitely losing relevance in the public domain and the public space in some regards, he's still profiting and he's still making money off of his music and off of his brand.

11:06Chris, help us understand this moment for Kanye West. He's selling out shows in Los Angeles and breaking records. He's getting banned in the UK and a whole festival is being canceled as a result. But at the same time, he's still got shows scheduled all around the world. India, Turkey, Spain, the Netherlands. He's at once like the most reviled figure in music and still wildly popular. Yeah, I mean, that's the curious case of Kanye West right now and the conundrum that he has absolutely put himself in.

11:41He absolutely still has global appeal with a certain market. He just headlined one of the highest grossing nights in music history. So people are listening. But if you look at the people who are listening, you'll find that a lot of them run in the same circles as the Andrew Tates and the Nick Fuenteses and the Claviculars and are tied to the manosphere. And now that Kanye has positioned himself as this anti-establishment, kind of fuck you to culture guy, there's always going to be a market for someone who is anti what everyone else is supposed to be doing or anti what the masses are doing. and he's found a home in this manosphere culture.

12:23So I think, yeah, we have to look at what his fan base looks like now to understand why he is so popular still.

12:37Chris Murphy writes about culture for Vanity Fair. Con we ever forgive Kanye when we're back on Today Explained.

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15:45Today explained. Craig Jenkins, vulture not vultures. Kanye wants us to forgive him right now. Should we? I mean, you know, it's not up to me personally. That's how I feel. Like, but I think that if he is genuinely making steps toward making things right, then he's a very useful person to have because he's someone who has been this lightning rod for the far right and could lead some of his fans out of there. But we haven't heard enough of that chat happening to really be gung-ho about the guy back in the public sphere, which is why there are all these differing outcomes for where he shows up places.

16:29He's leaving too much on the table. Is the album reflective? Is he getting into whatever torturous moment he's in on the album? It is extremely shaped by that. And it sounds like a storm is clearing, but he doesn't really want to get into it. When I thought I was reviewing the album, I described it as an amazing grace that doesn't want to get too much into the once being lost for excitement about being found. There's not specificity about what his vibes were or even what they are now. such, you know, so much is there is like, man, things were really weird back there last year and now they no longer are.

17:08And I'm so glad. Like he'd be like, yeah, like church ladies prayed for me. Or what was the other line? Back to life like an EpiPen. And it's like, yeah, about what friend? It just does not come up because, you know, you know what all happened and he doesn't necessarily want to get into the specificity of it because just to list it out is like reopens the wound for people. Yeah, because it's really reprehensible stuff. And for a long time and not that long ago. If he wants the commercial sponsorship aspect of music back and he wants the festival headliner thing back, like you have to address what the last three to you could argue 10 years were in some form and express that like look like i'm i'm not gonna do all that stuff again in order to regain the trust of not just like people who are offended but like the trust that you won't mess up people's money doing it again like which is a big animating factor in this clearly like country to country and that is what his ultimate goal is here to get back on the on the festival stages where the big money is.

18:25I mean, he says he wants to win people back through performing his music. And what I hear is I would like to be at the festivals and this is a problem. You know, like it's just all everything is wrapped up in everything with him. So it's like the fact that he gets something out of being sorry challenges for people whether or not he actually is. it's funny you know thinking about this being one of the most important musicians of the 20 teens late aughts he was important because you never really knew what he was going to do and he was always going to advance the genre and now when i see clips of these concerts he played at sofi stadium in los angeles that i don't seek out but they they come to me in the feeds It's always the clips of like vintage Kanye.

19:22College dropout era Kanye. The real tragedy there seems to be like he's almost comfortable becoming a nostalgia artist. This guy who consider himself like the most important artist of his generation is ready to just play the hits. I miss the old Kanye. He has discovered the circumstance that makes him want to embrace the old Kanye that he renounced 10 years ago, which is that, like, actually, that's the stuff that people feel really good about and uncomplicated about. And he's been complicating it for them for the last 10 years, 13 years, you might argue. 15, 16, you could argue. I hate the new Kanye.

20:02There's always something that happens that splinters off a bit of the fame base. Because I remember being heavy and people not really getting dark, twisted fantasy. Not really getting the Yeezus album. And then after Pablo, like... I think I think too much. But, you know, there's still a grip of 100 ,000 million, something odd on the earth who, like, foot the bill and will still fill up stadiums for that. Because, you know, that music still feels good. Even if the new album is not done and the vocals are gibberish, like, he's not going to perform that much of it. Like, you're only getting, like, five songs from that.

20:40from the new album, one could reckon. And this is the mindset that we used to have about bands like Metallica in the 90s and stuff. When you go see them live, like, they're still playing For Whom the Bell Tolls. They're still going back into the catalog and taking you to that place before they turned into something confusing. Like, it's... That spring is eternal for fandom. But this is not Metallica, right? It is so different. And something we talked about with Chris in the earlier half of the show is that he said so much and did so much to turn so many people off that like in this moment, it felt like the most surprising thing he could do was an apology, was to do a 180 and say, you know, I take it all back.

21:33Especially because this white supremacy and Nazism has become so normalized in our culture. And I would argue that he was one of the agents along which that happened. And I would like to hear the guy talk about the fact that people saw utility in him as this theater of the absurd. of this as this like let's like upstage all of the right-wing guys and show how this cool clout king can like you know really say what the truth is and the truth is always whatever their like agenda is but yeah like like get into that stuff like make your old hater squad angry if you really mean that you're turned over a new leaf and they're happy with everything they're fine with how things are going i think that his comeback actually vindicates a lot of what he did so it's no shade i really am happy for him and i congratulate him on all of his success but doesn't that tell you about how the whole world works that when he offended the jews it was impossible for him to do anything i just don't understand how you could possibly expect like the people you've insulted to really bite on on your redemptive campaign if the people who you were just like clicked up with don't mind that this is happening or actually chill with the record or excited to see you back in the public like this is a separate thing for me from whether i think he means it it's like his execution of this initiative to win people back is not trying hard enough and this is someone who has always defied the logic about him with a real hard try.

23:13Like that brings people together. Like where's anything about what he stands on now? You know? It sounds like you're pining for that guy to come back. I don't miss him. And I don't even need the music or what he used to represent. I have, there's so many places to get that from. So you don't need him? You know, I would like for him to turn things around and really talk about what happened to hip hop over the last 10 years that he was bringing around like all the creepies. because like this created a climate where the president can go on rap podcasts and visit streamers and stuff and i don't hear anything about that and it really fries me so like yeah like i'm just watching how this thing shakes out intrigued as to whether like the try hard will show up in it ever okay i started this conversation by asking you should we forgive kanye west and your answer was pretty much not yet other countries though have found another solution There's two so far.

24:10Australia, the United Kingdom have decided to ban Kanye West. So let me let me close by asking you this. Should we ban Kanye West? No. I'm not even—okay, objectively, the wording of the UK ban, I don't like. I don't like the idea that you can declare someone as a negative, you know, net negative existing in the country. Like, that's weird. But I also see how you could put that idea in their heads over a period of years and not really do enough to, you know, disabuse everyone of the notion that you might spout out horrors across the world. Like, Ye could be a very valuable anti - or post-extremist voice cleaning up the spaces that he introduced all of the Republican grift and all of the, like, Nazi transgression into.

25:00And I don't see it yet. And so, like, I feel very, we'll reassess things when I even see it. We have seen signs that he would like to leave that stuff alone. And we have seen him get through a show without, you know, breaking anything. And you just, that can't be all that we, that this tour proves to us. Or you're going to keep running into the wall of, well, does he mean it or not? because nobody can really tally whatever the accountability is that he's promised. But we can tally everything else that he's doing.

25:41Read Craig Jenkins at Vulture. I certainly do. Patrick Boyd mixed our show today. Gabriel Donatov fact-checked. Jolie Myers edited. Heidi Mawagdi and Dustin DeSoto produced. Zach Mack wished he could have produced. I'm Sean Ramos from What Would Today Explained Have Been About If We Didn't Do Yay Today? I guess we'll never know.