Stevie G: Liking the art while disliking the artist
Kanye, in simpler, less controversial times.
Kanye West, arguably the most important music artist of the century so far, has offended more people than ever lately, but does this deem his music untouchable? His newer music has steadily been on the decline for many years, and despite his ability to drop the odd classic in recent times, he has been very dodgy on the actual mic for a long, long time. His talent, his ear, and his musical ability remains, though quality control has long gone out the window, and much of his music in 2025 seems throwaway and rushed.
Does this make it easier for us to “cancel” him? If so, does this make us seem a bit hypocritical too? If Kanye was dropping his mid to late 2000s material right now, would we disregard him so easily?
In my opinion, yes. There is no defending some of the stuff he has come out with lately. I have no doubt that Kanye is deliberately looking for attention and trying to stir it up, but without going into too much detail, much of the stuff he comes out with these days is indefensible.
His influence looms large still, but the best way to get our attention would be returning with a classic. I won’t rule it out, but the signs are that he has fallen off for good music wise.
Kanye was always controversial, but in much of his previous controversie,s he was at least making good points.
He was probably right that Beyoncé should have been honoured before Taylor Swift at the VMAs, but he expressed himself badly and was very disrespectful to the younger singer.
I feel that things changed forever for Kanye once his mother died, and he has been increasingly a loose canon since, but he sometimes makes good points even still. His treatises on racism and other topics would make a lot more sense if he wasn’t aligning himself with some of the world’s most evil people, but Kanye has always been full of contradictions. I still play some of his music and can appreciate it, but I understand why many don’t.
You could say something similar about Chris Brown, whose career never really suffered as much, but the crimes committed by R Kelly and the allegations against Diddy are much worse.
Many who escaped full punishment for alleged crimes have faced similar inspection regarding their music and legacy. Michael Jackson is a good example. But all of the artists I’ve mentioned so far have something else in common too. Is the music industry less tolerant about black artists than white ones? The likes of David Bowie flirted with nazi imagery too a la Kanye, and like many music artists he allegedly had sexual relations with minors, but the music industry seems to be able to park these issues much easier than with black artists. Is this a contradiction? Most probably yes.
It’s all down to personal choice really. I reckon if I purged my record collection on moral grounds I would have to get rid of a lot of records. Do we do similar things with other art, such as TV and films? I watched a Quentin Tarantino movie brought to us by Harvey Weinstein recently, and despite finding both of those two people dislikable for multiple personal reasons, I enjoyed the movie. It seems harder with art, but we are met with constant choices now regarding what we eat and what we wear and what we listen to. I’ve not got the answers, but I do feel it’s possible to enjoy the art while disliking or disagreeing with the artist.
