Consider This from NPR - Why Talking About Ye - the Artist Formerly Known as Kanye West - Is Complicated

Episode Date: March 26, 2022

Even if you're not a fan of celebrity gossip, you've probably heard that there's something going on with the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. He's exhibited increasingly erratic behavior, including relentless online harassment of his ex-wife, reality TV queen Kim Kardashian and her current boyfriend, comedian Pete Davidson. Now he's been banned from performing at the Grammys, and was recently suspended from Instagram for a day. For years Ye's behavior has been puzzling to observe - ranging from announcing plans to run for President, to moving into a windowless basement room inside of a stadium to complete his last album, to high profile feuds with everyone from Jay Z to Jimmy Kimmel. He has admitted that he struggles with bipolar disorder and that instead of medical treatment he uses his art as therapy.Fans, critics and those who write and talk seriously about the arts are just not sure how to talk about the situation.Aisha Harris of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour joins us to unpack some of the complexities. And we speak with mental health advocate Bassey Ikpi who offers a personal perspective on Ye's behavior._________________________In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. You don't have to be obsessed with pop culture to know that something is going on with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West. Spokespeople for Kanye West claim the Grammy Awards have barred him from performing over online posts about his ex, Kim Kardashian, and threats to her current boyfriend, Pete Davidson,

and racial slurs against The Daily Show host Trevor Noah, who is also hosting the Grammys this year. Ye is nominated for five awards, including Album of the Year, but he was banned from performing after weeks of erratic behavior that included relentlessly trolling his former wife and her current beau and releasing a music video for the song Easy that shows a claymation figure with a remarkable resemblance to Davidson being kidnapped and buried alive. God save me from that crash, just so I could beat Pete Davidson's ass. Ye was also suspended from Instagram for a day, and a Change.org petition to remove him from the lineup at next month's Coachella Music Festival has tens of thousands of signatures. He's lashed out against pretty much anybody who criticizes or even comments on his behavior. Daily show host Trevor Noah drew his ire after a monologue where he called out Ye's harassing behavior toward Kim Kardashian, even as he expressed concern for Ye himself,

noting Ye's self-admitted struggle with bipolar disorder. With Kanye, we don't know how to feel. We don't know how to worry. And I think Kanye doesn't seem to understand that. He goes, well, leave me to create my art. Yeah, but Kanye, you told us you have problems. Now, when we worry about that, you say we shouldn't worry because it's not problems or it is problems. Which is it? Trevor Noah is not alone in wondering just how to react to what started

out as celebrity drama, but seems to have turned into something else. Gavin Godfrey is a writer and editor who writes and talks about culture. I think we all can agree and acknowledge that, like, Kanye warrants all the flowers that he's gotten up to this point, but now we're trying to make sense of, like, who he is, what he's doing at this point, because I think it has really confused the hell out of me, certainly. Consider this. As Ye's behavior grows more and more turbulent,

fans, journalists, and cultural critics are left trying to figure out how to talk about what it all means. That's coming up. From NPR, I'm Michelle Martin. It's Saturday, March 26th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.

Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been perplexing and at times repulsing fans for a while for his behavior ranging from seemingly abrupt forays into politics,

embracing former President Trump and then claiming he was going to run for president himself. And he's had plenty of high-profile feuds. Drake, the Grammys, Taylor Swift. I'm really happy for you. I'm going to let you finish. But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time. He has said the latest uproar is all part of an effort to win back his former wife and reunite their family. And so you might say, why talk about this at all? It's personal. Nobody's business. Or they're all performers. It's just part of the show. But the huge cultural footprint of pretty much everybody

involved is impossible to ignore. So that invites questions. What does it mean that this is all playing out in the open, on social media, in artistic works, and apparently in real life? Oh, yeah. I mean, where do you even begin? That's Aisha Harris of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. We spoke with her to unpack some of the complex issues that have come up for people who write seriously about music and art, who really can't just ignore what goes on with artists of this stature. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are two of the most influential people of the last 20 years. And so they both pose this very interesting conundrum that in some ways overlap and in other ways don't. Kanye, obviously, he's an artist who has been acclaimed for most of his career, has gotten all the accolades, won Grammys, people love him,

he's been declared a genius by any number of prominent critics. And then when you have this sort of decline, both in his public persona and also in, some would argue, his music, there's this weird conundrum that they're facing in terms of like, how do we separate the art from the artist? It's like that age-old question, right? And then with Kim, it's like she is someone who has been criticized. She's not really someone who we consider to have a sort of talent of any sort, unless like being a business person or a salesperson is considered a talent. And so she does not have a lot of, she hasn't always had a lot of public goodwill in terms of the way she's appropriated other cultures, the fact that she's had a very,

some would say negative impact on beauty standards over the last 15, 20 years. And so it's hard to feel bad for her, or some would say it would be hard to feel bad for her when this is all happening. And so those are the sort of like problems and issues that are arising when we talk about both of these people. And critics and cultural observers are trying to figure and sort all of

this out. That is something that Trevor Noah spoke to, those kind of ambivalent feelings that many people may have about ambivalent, large feelings, I'll just put it this way, either positively or negatively about both of these folks or all three of them. But let me just play a little bit of what he said. Trevor Noah, of course, is the host of The Daily But let me just play a little bit of what he said. Trevino, of course, is the host of The Daily Show. This is what he had to say. This is a nearly 10 minute monologue the other night on his show. I'll just play a little bit. Two things can be true. Kim likes publicity. Kim is also being harassed. Those things can be happening at the same time. Because I'll be honest with you, what I see from this situation, I see a woman who wants to live her life without being harassed by an ex-boyfriend or an ex-husband or an ex-anything.

One of the most powerful, one of the richest women in the world, unable to get her ex to stop texting her, to stop chasing after her, to stop harassing her. Just think about that for a moment. Think about how powerful Kim Kardashian is. And she can't get that to happen. So two points that he made here. One, in any other context other than Hollywood, people would see this as harassment. And he also made the point that people can look at this and take clues about what is considered acceptable. What do you think? Well, I definitely think that it's true that we can see this pattern of what's happening to Kim Kardashian happens to women all the time. I do think that the

problem is, is that even outside of Hollywood, we as a society, and especially like law enforcement, don't know how to really grapple with this, even when the people involved are not famous. I just think of all the women who are afraid to come forward, are afraid to leave, and who don't have their fears addressed or acknowledged properly, often until it's too late, until it ends violently or ends maliciously and horribly. And so I think that it's so tough to watch this happen because it is true what he said. If she does not feel safe, and it's very clear that she does not feel safe, and because we've seen this sort of play out, we've seen text messages and messages from her to Kanye about how she doesn't want this all playing out in public.

So she clearly, even though she's a public figure, she does have limits and everyone has limits and boundaries. And so seeing this play out in that way is just really disturbing to see. And I hope that we can sort of take the lesson that this is not just an isolated case. This is something that happens to women every day. And yes, it's important to pay attention to this happening to Kim Kardashian, but it's also something that needs to trickle down into reality and into the real world for the rest of the women who don't have those resources and don't have that power. So the argument, just looking at this one, another vantage point, the argument that Ye's supporters have made, like you saw this in comments posted to that disturbing video we

mentioned earlier for that single easy, is that this is art, and therefore it's all performance art. It's art, it's performance art, and therefore it's off limits to critique on other than artistic terms. Now this is something that, here's Trevor Noah again from that monologue. He spoke about this. I do understand that art can be therapy. I honestly do understand that, right? But I also understand that therapy can be therapy. Do you know what I mean? And what's weird about the situation is Kanye West has told us that he struggles with his mental health. So I get it. You want to have arts as therapy. But here's what's weird that Kanye doesn't understand is like, what we're seeing is it makes you uncomfortable, man, because with Kanye, we don't know how to feel. We don't know how to worry.

You know, he said a lot there. So engaging both the question of Kanye has disclosed and others close to him have disclosed that he does have mental health issues. But other people have mental health issues and don't harass people, right? Don't harass people. Don't, you know, issue disturbing statements. So, gosh, really, I just have to throw it back to you and say, what do you think? Because I'm kind of wondering, as Trevor Noah is wondering, does the audience have some role in this? And if so, what is it? Yeah, I mean, the thing about it is that Kanye, from the beginning of his career, has made himself part of the art. He is front and center within his art. He's not like a performance artist who you only know who he is based on his voice. You don't know his personality.

Like, that's not him. So he has made himself part of the art. And if you listen to the lyrics in Easy, a lot of those lyrics are actually reflecting things that he said on social media and in interviews. He mentions, you know, no more counseling. I don't negotiate with therapists. God, yeah. Want to let God in. But tonight, I guess I'll let my pride win. And so when that's happening and it's all coming together in the art, you can't just say you know, separating the art from the artist, I think, is a passe question to ask at this point. Because the difference between now and, you know, 20 years ago is that we wouldn't even know probably any of this was happening because we didn't have social media like this. Celebrities and artists were not front and center. The most we heard about them

was what they were willing to tell, and newspapers and publications. That was it. And we are now privy to all of this, things that we should not be privy to. So what do we do with that? I think what we need to do is we need to honestly let it be. I think the problem is that's never going to happen. I think that people are too invested. And the issue with someone like Kanye or Nicki Minaj, who's another celebrity who I think of who sort of like feeds off of the attention of their stands and they're very overzealous fans, they feed off of whatever they are telling them. And if they think that, you know, if they think people still love them despite the things that they are doing, they're going to keep doing those things. And so I do think we as an audience do have some culpability. And obviously, of course, the people within their immediate surroundings have some culpability as well. But you can only help someone who wants to help themselves. And as of right now, Kanye does not seem like he wants to help himself. And it's such a mess. That was Aisha Harris of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour.

She's currently at work on a book of essays entitled Wannabe, Figuring Out a Life Through Pop Culture. Coming up, one idea about how to think about and talk about Ye's behavior in a productive way. There's been a lot of talk about the messy situation between Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian. A lot of questions about what it's all about. We spoke with someone who understands the artist's struggles firsthand. I'm Vasi Ikbi, author of I'm Telling the Truth, But I'm Lying, and I live with bipolar 2 disorder.

Basi Iqbi says that she sees what's unfolding through a lens of personal experience and that there's something that everyone should keep in mind. I think that the most important thing always is to be very clear that this is mental illnesses speaking. Ickby says although it may seem like there's more acceptance and openness about certain types of mental illness, there is still a lot of misunderstanding and stigma. Kanye West is arguably the most famous person with a mental illness ever. Certainly the most famous person with bipolar disorder. And what we're doing is the things that usually happen privately, we're watching them play out publicly.

And what it does is it underscores and emphasizes the fact that in all our conversations and all the public talking we've done over the years about mental illness, it's still very clear that A, people don't understand what it is, B, don't understand what it does, and C, aren't really as positive about it as they might have said in any of the situations. Ickpy says there is a better way to talk about what's going on with Ye. I do believe that part of the issue is that nobody is really contextualizing what is happening. It's important that for every headline and every conversation that we have, we have to also define what bipolar disorder is.

And that's something that's missing because you cannot divorce his behavior from a mental illness that affects behavior. You just can't do that. She says keeping the perspective on mental health creates a more productive discussion. I don't think that there's any way for us to save a Kanye. I wish there was a way for us to get to Kanye. There isn't. But there is a way for us to get to the millions of other people who either have been diagnosed or need to be diagnosed. That was Bessie Ickpe.

She is a mental health advocate and the author of I'm Telling the Truth, But I'm Lying, a collection of essays. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Michelle Martin.