The Trouble with KanYe (2023) Movie Script

1
No cameras, no cameras. No, no, he's
saying yeah. Oh, he's saying yeah?
Yeah, he said, "I love it."
This way!
Come on. Do you want to talk
about anything, Kanye?
You've lost a lot of endorsements,
people are dropping you,
you're getting vilified. You know,
there's a whole world out there
that's condemning you
for what you said.
Off of one tweet, they can take
the most influential black person
in the world
and run him to the ground.
I mean, anti-Semitic statements
are never good for anybody, right?
It's kind of like being anti-black.
Do you regret your statements?
Are you worried you ruined
your legacy, Kanye?
Ye, formally known as Kanye West,
has been at the forefront
of popular culture
for almost 20 years.
After releasing his debut
single in 2003,
he'd go on to sell millions of
records and win critical acclaim.
Later launching a billion-dollar
fashion empire,
he was seen by many as a pioneer.
Infamous for going off-script
and sharing his unfiltered
political views...
George Bush doesn't care
about black people.
..Ye has continued to be public
about his ever-shifting politics.
I love this guy right here.
More recently, his words
have caused outrage.
Rapper Kanye West has been accused
of promoting a hate statement
at his Yeezy fashion show
at Paris Fashion Week.
Many, including former
collaborators, have expressed
concern about how Ye
is using his platform.
At this point it's clear to anyone
who's been paying attention
that our brother, Kanye West,
has been thoroughly indoctrinated
with Nazi propaganda.
Suggesting he was on a war footing
with Jewish people, Ye's words
stirred up anti-Jewish hate
and threatened an entire community.
In the face of backlash,
he just kept going.
I can say anti-Semitic things
and Adidas can't drop me.
Now what?
Now they just dropped you.
Adidas joined the long list
of companies cutting ties,
costing Ye his billionaire status.
Cancelled by the mainstream...
Ye is our guest.
He's going to be here for
the next three hours or so.
And also America First leader
Nick Fuentes.
..Ye has found a new audience
with the alt-right,
taking his dangerous
conspiracy theories online.
The Holocaust is not what happened.
Let's look at the facts of that.
And Hitler has a lot
of redeeming qualities.
To millions of fans
across the world,
Ye's words still hold power.
Hey, will you sign my shirt for me,
man?
And with rumours of a presidential
campaign...
YE24. So you are running?
..there are fears that he could
radicalise a whole generation.
You listen to people that's getting
their cheque cut by Jewish media.
I want to understand the impact
of Ye's actions.
He's espousing these views
that have no credence to it.
There's no information
to back this shit up.
This demon in the box that he's
playing with is irresponsible.
Where it's going to end up at,
I don't know.
And how did one of America's
most celebrated artists
become a megaphone for hate
and division?
This is so amazing. Look at this.
It's absolutely nuts.
Look at that view.
Cody, Wyoming,
is completely beautiful
but not necessarily the place
you'd associate with Kanye West.
Believe it or not, he's really
gotten away from the LA scene.
He's been in Wyoming,
in the mountains.
Are we to expect a sort of
rap-country album?
I don't think you can put it past
Kanye West at this point.
When Kanye moved to Wyoming,
there was already concern
over his wellbeing.
His 2016 tour made headlines
for meandering political speeches.
I got the vision, bro.
That is what I've been blessed with.
My vision.
Following a 15-minute monologue
in Sacramento,
the tour was cancelled.
Get ready to have a field day,
press, cos the show's over.
What followed was a stay in hospital
and then reports
of a bipolar diagnosis.
If you were looking at the story
of Kanye West in music,
you'd start that in Chicago,
but that isn't the Kanye that
I'm interested in, actually,
because the latest incarnation
of Kanye is Ye,
and this is the place where
he launched his 2020 bid
to become the president.
It's where he really started
wearing his politics
and his theology on his sleeve.
Ye bought a ranch here for a
reported $14 million in 2019.
Alongside the move came
a new public persona.
# You're such a BLEEP ho... #
In his video, which he directed
and later premiered
at a porn award show, Ye performed
as the brash, provocative rapper
that his fans have come to know.
For some time he's been criticised
for his misogyny.
# I'll buy you a sick truck,
I'll buy you some new BLEEP
# Get you that nip-tuck... #
But in the space of just over
a year, he went from this...
# Send me some mo' BLEEP,
you triflin' ho BLEEP... #
..to this.
# You my Chick-fil-A... #
He shot this video
at his Cody ranch,
projecting the image
of a God-fearing family man.
# Follow Jesus
# Listen and obey... #
This poignant single was followed up
by the gospel album Jesus Is King.
Ye linked his new-found focus on
God back to his recent struggles
in this revealing interview.
I remember sitting
in the hospital at UCLA
after having a mental breakdown
and there's documentations
of me drawing a church.
As a guest on one of America's
leading televangelist shows,
Ye shared his new mission with
a packed stadium of Christians,
who seemed delighted to welcome him.
Now the greatest artist that God
has ever exist...erm, created,
is now working for Him.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I wanted to dig deeper
into Ye's time here.
Rumour has it that
when he came to Cody,
one of his first stops
was the mayor's office.
Hello. How are you doing?
I'm Mobeen, really nice to meet you.
Matt? Yeah. Can I call you Matt?
Yeah, of course.
So, you know I'm in town because
I'm looking into Ye's time here.
Uh-huh.
He just wanted to know a little
bit about the community,
try and get a handle on some of
the things that, you know,
could be issues for us.
So, he was trying to get a handle
not on what could affect his plans,
but actually what are issues
for the town?
For the community, yeah. OK.
Our goal is to bring
the manufacturing back to America.
We moved the headquarters
to Cody, Wyoming.
We have a 4,000-acre ranch,
and a couple of other
properties out there.
We're going to be farming
and going seed to sew,
and have our cotton hydroponic farm,
and our hemp farm,
and our own wheat farm.
This is me. Yeah.
The mayor agreed to show me some of
Ye's grand plans for Cody.
You've just got to remind me to stay
on the right side of the road. OK.
I'm kidding!
THEY LAUGH
We're going to take a
right, right here.
Ye rented this warehouse with the
promise of bringing jobs to town.
So, this is a place for their
research and development.
So, the way the operation...
For the shoes?
Adidas and shoes, right, yeah.
For the creative kind of things,
for coming up with
new designs and stuff.
Did Ye get into that
because he was in this area,
or did he move to this area because
that was already part of his vision
and he thought he could use
this area to kind of
make that a reality?
Yeah, I think that he had those
kind of thoughts and intentions
when he came here.
You know, have those small
communities where, you know,
if you come in and you bring
some kind of job creation,
it's only even five or ten jobs,
that still ends up being
relatively impactful.
When I run for president in 2024,
we going to definitely...
Now what y'all laughing at?
SCATTERED LAUGHTER
When I run for president in 2024,
we would have created
so many jobs that I'm not going
to run, I'm going to walk.
I don't think I really understood
the level of investment that
Ye had made in this place.
And that brings with it
a whole lot of opportunity.
Allowing Ye to position himself as a
political leader that'll bring jobs,
it's that populist America First
idea that we've heard from Trump.
Today, when you think about
the more dangerous ideas
Ye's putting out there,
that now seems like a pit-stop
on where he's ended up.
MUSIC: Life Is Just A Moment
by Roy Ayers
A lot of cows.
Even if politics isn't your thing,
you probably already know that
Ye ended up running for president
four years ahead of schedule,
in 2020.
And he didn't win.
This is it.
There was a whole team trying
to make it happen,
and some of them still live in Cody.
Hello. Hello, John. I'm Mobeen.
John Boyd moved to town when his
daughter was working with Ye
on the album Jesus Is King.
Thank you. Shall I take
my shoes off? Er, yeah.
I don't want to bring the
snow in, yeah.
How's it going? It's going good.
Is it OK? You having a good day?
Yeah, yeah.
Can I just put this here?
In a short space of time, he went
from being a spiritual adviser
at Bible studies sessions
Ye held at his ranch
to a major player in
his political campaign.
How would you describe, at the time,
the basis of that campaign?
Well, I created the
ten points on his platform.
We address education, freedom
of religion, energy policy,
foreign policy, racial
reconciliation, you know,
they were ten dynamic points that
I think the whole team really
rallied around and agreed with.
And he really liked the points.
Right.
I really want to watch
this rally with you.
In July 2020, Ye took his campaign
to South Carolina.
Speaking to a room packed
with people,
and with a live stream beaming his
appearance across the world,
this was a chance for Ye to prove
his presidential credentials.
That's you there, right?
Yeah, I was standing
right behind him.
I organised that whole -
pretty much the whole thing.
I thought he'd deviate a little bit,
but this...
Where he went was
completely different.
CHEERING
According to John,
Ye had planned to share his vision
for the future of America,
but he went off-script
and decided there were other things
he wanted to get off his chest.
He had said some stuff
that was just, you know, erm,
just way out there.
Especially his comments
about Harriet Tubman.
SCATTERED MURMURS
SCATTERED CHEERS
As you're standing by the
side of the stage,
what's going through your mind?
Er, train-wreck.
I'm thinking, "You're going to lose
control over this whole scenario".
More than anything else,
the rally made headlines
for Ye's views on abortion.
Four years after
his public breakdown,
there were fresh concerns
about Ye's wellbeing
and the rally ushered in
a new phase in the politics of Ye.
He gained a lot of respect from
a lot of people on the right
just for being so bold on their core
issues, namely abortion.
It wasn't just voters that were
now seeing Ye in a new light.
His statements at the rally won
him prime-time coverage
on America's highest-rating
news network,
and high praise from
one of its most famous faces.
The most compelling voice
against abortion
and Planned Parenthood
is not a Republican.
The most widely-heard Christian
Evangelist in America
is not ordained.
Instead, he is a rapper married
to a Kardashian -
who, by the way,
everyone says is crazy.
If a part of his audience
is pushing back,
he's going to gravitate towards
the part of his audience
that's celebrating him.
Where it's going to land,
where it's going to end up at...
..I-I don't know.
After the rally, Ye appeared to try
and make the most of his new status
as a voice of the Christian right.
America.
What is America's destiny?
What is best for our nation,
our people?
In this carefully-crafted
campaign video,
Ye seems to make his bid for
the evangelical Christian vote.
We as a people will revive
our nation's commitment to faith.
To what our constitution calls
"the free exercise of religion,"
including, of course, prayer.
Through prayer,
faith can be restored.
Christian fundamentalists took note.
Fast forward two years,
and Ye's new campaign is
taking shape in LA.
He's joined forces with the Cristian
white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
Who would you like to be
the candidate?
Maybe somebody that
hasn't announced,
but we want a visionary,
fearless leader... OK.
..who's going to put Jesus first.
A cult figure online,
Nick revels in misogyny, homophobia,
racism, and anti-Semitism.
I don't support women's rights.
I don't support "LGBT" rights.
I believe in race
and gender essentialism.
I'm Catholic.
I'm a Catholic reactionary.
I believe that organised Jewry is
extremely influential in the
United States and pushes America
towards an open society,
liberalism, internationalism,
for their own benefit
at the expense of America.
I think they do that corporately.
Nick wears his anti-Semitism
on his sleeve.
Conspiracy theories and Holocaust
denial are part of his brand.
And it looked like Ye wanted it
to be part of his brand, too.
This widely-publicised picture
of them both on Ye's private jet
signalled a new and sinister
chapter in Ye's politics.
# Children grow and women produce
# And men go working,
some go stealing
# Everyone's got to make a living #
In just a few years,
Ye had gone from political novice
to beacon for the alt-right.
So, how did this happen and
what does it now mean?
MUSIC: Jenny From the Block
by Jennifer Lopez
LA is, in so many ways,
the place where Ye -
or Kanye back then -
entered that league of superstardom.
Rewind 20 years, and the Kanye
the world was introduced to in 2003
was celebrated as an innovator
and super-sampler who'd write about
his insecurities and not fitting in.
It was a shift from the
street persona
hip-hop was selling back then.
Nobody guessed that an
art school dropout,
managed by his college professor
mother, Dr Donda West,
was going to redraw
the boundaries of a genre.
Ten solo albums and
24 Grammys later,
Kanye West was part of
the pop-culture establishment.
En route, there's been accusations
of misogyny and anti-blackness.
But today, as he faces a reckoning
for his dangerous rhetoric,
Ye's entire career is being
looked at in a new light.
To understand how
he got to this point,
I reached out to someone that's
been around from the start.
Hello, hey. What up, dog?
Wassup, wassup?
I'm Mobeen, so pleased to meet you.
Yeah, this is fresh.
Really, really nice.
This is fresh!
You ain't bring me one?
I didn't bring you one...
You ain't bring me one?
If I knew you'd like it,
I'd have brought you one.
Yeah, I love it.
I'm not happy.
I would've bought you one,
if I knew you'd like it.
Yeah, that shit hard, dawg!
THEY LAUGH
That shit hard!
I appreciate you like the jacket.
It's amazing, man.
You know, the reason I'm excited
about speaking to you
is you have been...
You've had a kind of front-row seat
through a lot of different phases.
Yeah, 22 years.
Malik Yusef has songwriting credits
on almost every Ye album -
from 2021's Donda all the way
back to 2005's Late Registration.
Tell me, at that time,
what was his mission?
Cos I can take a guess, but
I want to know from you, like...
I think it was to wake people up
to the true plight of African people
on the planet, in this day and age.
The album Yeezus,
the politics are in your face -
like from the moment you
turn that record on.
The swagger of Ye was...
That was the.. Yes.
You could feel that shit,
so we went to Saturday Night Live,
cos the words needed to be heard.
# My mama was raised
in the era when
# Clean water was only served
to the fairer skin
# Doin' clothes,
you woulda thought I had help
# But they wasn't satisfied unless
I picked the cotton myself
# You see it's broke... #
How did it feel,
a performance like that?
That isn't going to make
middle America feel good. No.
It's like a person that's boxing,
you know what I'm saying?
You can see it when it'll land.
You can see when that shit,
when he throw that motherfucker
from here, that that bitch
is going to land.
My interpretation of New Slaves
is he's talking to, like,
working-class communities,
and the black community and
he's saying, "Your aspirations,
"you're worth more than
those aspirations".
Yes, a lot of people try to skip
over that in our catalogue.
They try to skip over cos it is
so political, and it is so jarring.
And it feels revolutionary
and very clear.
It feels very different... Yeah.
..to the Ye I know now.
Yeah, B, I mean...
It's hard for me to hear you
say that, you know what I'm saying?
Because this is a person who I love.
I can feel your whole energy just...
Yeah, this is a person who
I love, you know?
And a heavy loss to lose you,
because we made this
for people just like you.
We designed a customer.
We designed somebody that's smart,
that gives a fuck,
that is a citizen of the world.
We had these talks.
Seeing if we could make a
billion dollars off being really,
really good people.
"Don't fuck up the whole
thing for us, too,
"cos we put as much energy
into this as you did."
We just weren't the lead
singer of the group.
We had to build a person to go in.
And Kanye might detest me
saying we "built" him,
but that's the fuck it was. Mm-hm.
We tethered a rope to you, said,
"Go in there, get all that shit,
and bring it back,
"and we'll build our own
shit from there." Mm-hm.
Maybe he not the person that gives
up shit for everybody else to win.
But then, when he go and throw
himself on the pyre of white
supremacy, it makes me feel like,
"Hm, you are the type of person that
sacrifice everything for somebody,
"just not us".
You know, aligning yourself
with people like Nick Fuentes and
getting these people platforms that
they otherwise wouldn't have...
It's true.
There's Ye fans who will have
heard of Nick Fuentes for
the very first time through Ye.
Mm-hm.
Not because they were going down a,
you know, a rabbit hole on the
internet and looking up propaganda,
but because Ye turned them onto it.
Mm-hm.
When someone that you care about,
like Ye, has so much influence,
and is putting this stuff out there,
is there part of you that thinks,
"OK, I want to... I want to
at least try to stop him,
"I want to try to make this better"?
Nick Fuentes is not
somebody I fuck with,
because these motherfuckers
is punks, man.
They're not real.
They're espousing these views
that have no credence to it.
There's no information to
back this shit up.
And I say it to him,
he's acceptive of it.
But that's in our circle,
it works better.
When he leaves,
he goes and gets around him
until he's back, fired up again
with that bullshit.
So, it's very clever how he
shrouds himself with, like,
a peanut gallery
on his side,
but I'm still like, "Yo, G".
So, people to support those views?
Yeah, or maybe not even care.
It's really clear to me
that Malik loves Ye.
He sees him as a family member,
and he's worried about him.
I think he's also really hurt
because there's this idea that,
for a long time, this whole crowd
around him who were from Chicago,
they had this plan, and it wasn't
just about entertaining people
or putting out a bit of music,
it was about speaking to
a particular constituency.
It was about, kind of,
societal change.
It was about a change to the system.
And it took all of them
to build that.
He referred to Ye as
the "lead singer".
He might've been the lead singer,
but we were all doing this work.
I reckon Ye has always been aware of
the power that comes with celebrity.
I, right now, because of New Slaves,
have the most powerful voice
by a mile.
So, you're talking... I've got
a trillion dollars' worth of voice.
His politically-charged music was
followed up with deliberately
provocative tour merch
featuring the Confederate flag.
The tour merch...
React how you want.
You know, the Confederate Flag
represented slavery.
So, I made the song New Slaves.
So, I took the Confederate Flag
and made it my flag.
Whilst he said it was
all about interpretation,
many people were angry that
Ye would stick what they saw as
a symbol of white supremacy
on a tour jacket.
Boasting about the currency
of controversy,
Ye seemed to lap it up.
I know how to swim through
backlash, you know?
I know how to float.
I can tread water through backlash.
I don't care about backlash.
In 2022, after wearing a
"White Lives Matter" T-shirt
and putting out a whole run of
anti-Semitic statements,
Ye's business partners drew
a line in the sand.
He thought they'd never do it.
Today, Adidas joined the long list
of companies cutting ties with Ye.
In a statement, officials with
the athletic brand wrote...
From 2015 to 2022,
Adidas sold Yeezy-branded clothes
and shoes designed by Ye
and his team.
At its height,
Yeezy brought in a reported
$2 billion of annual revenue.
Today, although Ye has been
dropped by Adidas,
the designs can still be
picked up on the resale market.
Hello, you OK? Is Adeel around?
I am. How are you?
Hello, I'm Mobeen,
really nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
How are you doing?
I'm doing good, y'all doing good?
Yeah, I'm really good, thank you.
Nice to meet you.
I wanted to know if Ye's influence
was still being felt
in places like this.
Everyone knows Kanye West.
Everyone knows this style,
this brand.
He has a unique impact on
fashion and culture.
He's worked for decades to build
this fanbase that he has today,
and they follow him.
Regardless of what he does outside
the media, in the politics,
his impact globally, when it
comes to fashion or culture,
is unprecedented.
Give me, like, a classic 350.
Like, grab...
So, this is one of
his first ones ever made.
These are the Yeezy 350
Turtle Doves. OK.
I remember when these came out,
you remember - what was the price
when they came out?
Like over 2,000? 3,000?
Yeah, it was like 1,600, $2,000.
People were trading cars for that.
Cars.
People were getting rid of cars.
People were trading their cars in?
This is one of
the hottest shoes ever.
Selling your car for a pair
of shoes sounds nuts,
but the hype machine Ye created
around his brand worked like magic.
And we'll put it on Instagram,
put it on Twitter,
shout it out, you know?
For years, Ye positioned himself
as the authority on what was cool
and what was not -
famously sharing his opinion
at award shows,
even when he wasn't asked.
In the early days of social media,
he plugged his art online.
So, when he moved from
selling music to shoes,
he knew exactly how to turn
fans into consumers.
You in the loop if you got this.
You the man if you got this,
you know what I'm saying?
You gotta get it, you know what
I'm saying? There's a trend.
You gotta be up with the times.
Today, it's exactly that ability
to translate online hype
into real-world trends
that's concerning so many people.
We had some people that were like,
"We don't want to shop with you
guys if you sell Kanyes".
They were just so opposed to it,
like parents... It wasn't too much
of the younger generation,
it was more like older generations.
And they were like
"Oh, we don't want to support it".
But they sell - like, our first
sale today at the store
was a pair of Yeezy slides.
So, this is our stockroom.
And then, this is literally
Yeezys, Yeezys, Yeezys, Yeezys.
Yeezys there, like a book store.
Adeel, what is the value
of all the stock?
Just Yeezy stock, like probably
1-2 million, at least.
Two million quid? Yeah.
Two million dollars? Dollars.
If you were to take these products
and the shoes didn't have
the word Yeezy on it,
they didn't have Yeezy branding,
it just had Adidas on it,
would it still sell?
I don't think it would.
If people didn't know this was
Kanye West, that's his fanbase,
it would just be another shoe.
People would actually...
The craziest thing is,
I always tell people this,
"I think people would hate
on it even more".
They'd be like, "What kind
of ugly shoe is this"?
Say it was a random kid in Miami
that just designed this
and he created his own company,
and it looked just exactly like this
without the Yeezy brand,
no-one'll care about it.
Some of these shoes,
Adeel was saying,
are kind of ugly.
But because they've got
particular branding,
because they've got that name,
people will buy them.
So, going with that theory,
if Ye can add his name to something
and sell an ugly shoe...
..it's entirely possible that he can
sell other ugly stuff too,
including ugly ideas.
I want Jewish children
to look at their daddy and say,
"Why is Ye mad at us"?
I want all the kids that
love my shoes and love my songs
to say, "Why is Ye mad?
"What have you done to his people?"
This shocking interview has
since been taken down
after Ye expanded on the
dangerous anti-Semitic tropes
that he'd shared in his tweets.
The Jewish people have their hand
on every single business
that controls the world.
And everybody knows that full fact.
Ye's claims about Jewish people
controlling money
and the media are untrue.
And it taps into a centuries-old
trope that promotes a false
narrative about the power of the
Jewish community as a collective,
who are working together for
their own interests
to the detriment of others.
Ye is stoking the already
alarming surge in anti-Semitism
across America, against a backdrop
of rising white nationalism
which accelerated under
Trump's presidency.
In 2017, a rally in Charlottesville
was attended by white nationalist
Nick Fuentes and other extremist
groups from across the country.
The march's message was unequivocal.
CHANTING: Jews will not replace us!
Jews will not replace us!
With many more people feeling
emboldened to express their hate,
the Anti-deformation League
reported the highest number of
anti-Semitic incidents
on record in 2022.
And white supremacists were
responsible for a reported 21
out of 25 extremist murders
in America that year.
I want to understand what was behind
Ye's flawed and dangerous thinking,
and what, if anything,
did he hope to gain?
Hey, Mobeen, how are you doing?
Hey, how are you doing?
Nice to meet you.
Yeah, you too, man.
Are you all right? How's it going?
Good, good.
Thanks for the time, bro.
No, thank you for coming down.
Kevin Coval,
a Jewish writer and poet,
has paid close attention to
what Ye has been saying.
Shall we grab a spot? Yeah!
Is that OK?
Oh, my God, this is such a nice
place. This is beautiful, man.
I'm someone who has had all
kinds of experiences, kind of,
in proximity to him, just being
a Chicagoan, being a Chicago kid.
Came up and mentored by some of
the folks that his mum
was colleagues with.
Instead of turning away from all
of Ye's ugly falsehoods,
Kevin confronted them head-on
in an online article.
To me this just seems like a
very teachable moment
that we should embrace,
rather than run from.
You know, and I thought what
he said is deplorable.
There seems to be a theme with
a lot of what Ye has put out there,
which is, essentially,
this notion of Jewish control.
There's conspiracy theories that
are referenced. Yeah.
Of course, he is delighting
in anti-Semitic tropes,
and sampling and recycling them,
which is hard to take because
he's such a genius when it comes to
the samples he's chosen
in his career.
He's picking these tropes that
go really back to the charge
of de-icide against Jews, you know,
who've been accused of killing Jesus
but, you know, we're not running
the Roman government.
I mean, it was the Romans,
you know?
But this notion has been
perpetuated again and again.
Why do you think that is?
I think that there is a strain
of evangelical Christianity
that is anti-Semitic, and I
certainly believe that there is a
rich tradition of white nationalism
that is anti-Semitic.
You know, I mean, the notion
that there's a cabal of, you know,
Jewish bankers that run the world,
you know, has a lot to do with how,
you know, Christianity has posited
Jewish people historically.
I think we have to address that,
because I think it's a place
to come together between black
and Jewish communities, and I think
that's work that we need to do.
In part, because I think that
there are forces that are greater
than our communities that are
trying to keep us apart,
and ultimately trying to destroy us,
both communities.
You know, it's no -
it's no mistake that in a place
like Charlottesville, you know,
you have white supremacists
walking with tiki torches saying,
"The Jews will not replace us,"
but I mean, they also mean
black folks, they also mean
Latinos coming to this country.
They mean anyone who they don't
identify as, you know, a,
you know, kind of like an Aryan.
Sure. It's a form of neo-Nazism.
Amidst the rising tide of hate,
Ye wore a T-shirt featuring
the slogan "White Lives Matter" -
a simple statement charged
because it's a slogan used
by white supremacists and other
hate groups to respond to
the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ye's actions were hurtful and
alarming to many around the world.
But the condemnation
wasn't universal.
The enemies of his ideas
dismissed West,
as they have for years,
as mentally ill.
We've rarely heard a man
speak so honestly
and movingly about what he believes.
Once again, Ye grabbed the attention
of the right-wing news media.
They celebrated him as a voice
that needed to be listened to.
So, how was this all being processed
by those working for
racial justice in America?
Hey, Marcus, I'm Mobeen.
Hey! Hey nice to meet you!
Not so long ago, Ye was seen
as someone who could contribute
to that conversation.
So far, so good. How about you?
Yeah, really good, thank you.
Yeah, I love the outfit.
Oh, thank you.
Dr Marcus Hunter was one of the
people who first coined the phrase
"Black Lives Matter".
I think that is going into
a very dangerous place, you know,
where the consequences of his
actions, of his statements
are much larger in scale, not only
because of his increased celebrity,
but also because of what he means
to, you know, the black community,
what he means to the black people
who buy his music, who support him.
We would say "your day ones"
you know, like,
that you're harming your day ones,
and you're throwing them out
to pasture for these day 15,
day 20, day 30s.
I want to understand, then,
how you felt,
how you responded when
you saw Ye wearing a
"White Lives Matter" T-shirt.
Yeah, it was, for me,
"slavery is a choice" part two.
When you hear about slavery for
400 years - for 400 years?
That sound like a choice!
Like, you was there for 400 years,
and it's all of ya'll?
That's devastating to
so many communities.
That's devastating to
the consciousness.
Just think about young
black children and
they really worship you,
they value your music,
they feel like you're more
important than the teachers who are
communicating this information.
And mind you, nobody wants
to learn about slavery,
it's not like people's
favourite topic.
You finally are, in America,
able to teach it and it's a part
of the curriculum -
only for someone to come out
and say, "It's a choice".
Like, it's important for people
to understand it was involuntary.
You know, it's criminal.
Do you think that a lot of
this perspective and the viewpoints
he's expressing could just be down
to the idea of shocking?
Because it's served him well,
hasn't it?
I think a lot of times with him,
there is an attention-seeking
going on, and unfortunately, it's
been going on for quite some time
cos, as I said, it begins with
"slavery is a choice,"
you know, in terms of public
statements that really negate
the experience and the history
of black people here.
But when you say "White Lives
Matter", the jeopardy is for
so many more people than just
you and your ecosystem.
So many more people
who you might never meet.
That's the part that we don't know.
Who are you trying to empower,
and who are you trying
to disempower?
You've gaslit the black community,
you've gaslit the Jewish community,
gaslit, you know,
the commercial industry.
Just a lot of people who are now
very clear about the fact
that you have been harmful
to all of them.
Also clear is that Ye was
not backing down.
In late 2022, Ye went from
spotlighting white nationalists
to courting a group of
black supremacists.
The connecting thread?
Anti-Semitism.
We are the Jew,
and they are Jew-ish,
like that of a Jew.
That's what I'm talking about.
Oh, you wanted to hear that -
I'm already cancelled, right,
so I can say stuff like that.
Now, that ideology, it comes from
this extreme version of this group
called the Black Israelites.
They believe that certain black,
Hispanic and Native American people
are the only true descendants of
the biblical 12 tribes of Israel.
So, this is a group that many people
see as an anti-Semitic hate group,
because their ideology frames
the global Jewish community -
that are acknowledged as
the Jewish community -
as impostors that have
stolen their birthright.
The Black Israelites spend a lot
of their time on the streets
in Hollywood preaching,
and in streets around the country,
preaching on Saturday afternoons.
Who's giving them compassion?
Who's giving them the love
that they need?
Ain't nobody doing that, man.
You understand, so it's time
for us to love our own
and come together with our own.
Cos those brothers in the streets...
So, what role does this ideology
play in where Ye is today?
..the truth according to the Bible.
We want to tell our people the truth
and give them the guidance...
Hey, how are you doing? I'm Mobeen.
Captain Gadoha, yeah?
Yeah, what's your name? Mobeen.
Is it all right if I chat to you for
a little bit? Yeah, for sure.
I'll be completely honest with you,
I hadn't heard of the Black
Israelite movement before. Right.
I heard of it via Ye.
Right, right, right.
And you know, he put out a tweet
at one point saying that
he can't be anti-Semitic
because he is, er, he's a Jew.
Right, right, right. Yeah?
And I know he did kind of a podcast
thing as well, with someone
from your organisation, a senior...
Yeah, Captain Azaria.
Captain Azaria.
And in there, he said, "I am Jew,
I am a Jew, they are Jew-ish."
Exactly. Yeah? Explain what
that means to me.
That was correct, what Kanye said.
Of course, we've been saying it
since 1969, that we're the Jews,
the true Jews that
the Bible speaks of.
Could you see how that could be
construed as stripping away
someone's identity and
being offensive? Of course.
Do you ever get people
coming here and saying that
you're anti-Semitic?
Do you have that conversation?
All the time.
So, what do you say to those people?
Prove it.
Prove it. I tell them prove it
in the Bible that I'm anti-Semitic.
And I'll prove to you I'm not.
It's very difficult to say
it's just facts from the Bible,
cos the Bible or the Koran,
or any of these religious texts,
people interpret them
in different ways. For sure.
So, it's very difficult for someone
to say, "Oh, it's just facts,"
because that's your interpretation.
Right. Erm... In your opinion, yes.
It would be my interpretation.
Absolutely my opinion.
Right, so, yes.
To put forward the idea that another
community are not who they say
they are could lead to harm,
and it's one of the reasons
so many Jewish people are concerned
about groups like this across
America and around the world.
At the moment it feels like he's
flirting with the idea. Mm-hm.
Do you think he could be reborn
and join your movement?
In my opinion, no.
You don't think he will?
He's too rich, he doesn't care.
Everything for him is a play,
you know what I mean?
It's a play for him.
I don't think he really truly
believes in the culture.
He's kind of cherry-picking -
would that be a fair way to put it?
Mm-hm. That's he's just taking a,
kind of, one core belief,
but he might not have signed up to
the whole thing, is that the idea?
Exactly, right, right, right.
Is this something you were...
Were you born into it,
or was it something
you've discovered?
I was just in the world just
like anybody else.
Meaning outside the truth,
not knowing my heritage,
my culture, and things like that.
And I found the truth, you know,
watching on YouTube, honestly.
So, how old were you when you were
watching this on YouTube,
and you really thought,
"This is something that
I really need to consider"?
I was 19. 19? Yeah.
Some of the people that Ye
is aligning himself with right now
are huge figures on the world
of the internet.
I'm talking about people who would
identify as white nationalists.
OK. Right? Right.
Do you think that's worrying?
For who?
For all of us. Because, you know,
you've got a pop culture
with huge amounts of influence
putting out a tweet.
I think that is anti-Semitic,
I think that is scary.
I mean, are you insinuating
he's inciting something? Right?
I think so, yeah.
I mean, this is my opinion.
I think it's going beyond
the boundary, you know...
What boundary? Are there boundaries?
You know what I'm saying?
I understand what you're saying.
You're saying there is
a level of human decency that
everyone should have,
and he's going beyond that.
You just said it.
I understand, I get you.
But what... So, who's going
to stop him?
You get what I'm saying?
Does it... Am I in fear?
No, not at all.
And should you be in fear?
I don't think so.
Thinking about Captain Gadoha
sitting down at his laptop
and going down this
rabbit hole on YouTube,
and that ending up with this...
That is really dangerous.
So, then, for a moment if
we consider Ye and his fandom,
and the fact that he is plugging
these ideas, and also the ideas
of people like Fuentes,
Christian fundamentalists,
and that is going out to potentially
millions of people in the fandom,
what kind of effect is that
going to have?
What is that going to look like
20 years from now?
That's a really scary thought.
It can seem easy to dismiss ideas
shared on a street corner,
but the fact is divisive ideas like
these, amplified on the internet,
can reach millions and can
have consequence.
In December 2019, a kosher
supermarket in New Jersey
was the target of deadly violence.
Three people were shot and killed.
There has been considerable
reporting that these
two suspects are linked to the
Black Hebrew Israelite movement.
We have evidence that both suspects
expressed interest in this group.
The attackers were shot dead
at the scene.
The police later discovered
one of them posted about
Black Israelite ideology
on social media.
Before I went any further,
there was another part of this story
that was important to understand.
Hi, Bassey. Hi.
I'm Mobeen. Hi, Bassey.
Lovely to meet you. Oh, you, too.
How are you doing? I'm good.
You OK? Thank you, yeah.
Ye's outbursts have fuelled
a very public conversation about
hate speech from someone that has a
documented mental health condition.
I want to know what role, if any,
Ye's bipolar diagnosis has to play.
Ooh! Can we make it up here?
This'll be a good thigh workout.
Oh, this is beautiful!
Oh, wow.
After being diagnosed as bipolar,
Bassey became a mental health
advocate and wrote a book
about her own experiences.
APPLAUSE
Let's get right into it.
Please give a warm Def Poetry
welcome for Bassey Ikpi,
from Nigeria!
CHEERING
Back in the early 2000s, she was
known for her stirring performances
in the Def Jam poetry scene.
Welcome to the place where a
black face asks, "Who will be next"?
And a white one answers, "Not I".
Welcome to the place that
justice forgot.
Welcome to the place that fights
no battles with the have-nots.
Welcome to the place where
our blood runs.
It's here she crossed paths with
an up-and-coming producer
trying to make his mark as
a performing artist.
The thing about that performance
is that no-one knew who he was.
He wasn't Kanye at that point,
he was just this kid from Chicago.
And one of the poems he did
ended up on one of his songs.
So, like, a year,
two years later, we're like,
"Wait, is that the same guy?"
You were there that day?
I was there that day.
Tell me that ain't inse-curr.
The concept of school
seems so se-curr.
Sophomore three yurrs ain't
picked a car-urr.
LAUGHTER
Just like Ye, Bassey's journey
towards her bipolar diagnosis
began during a tour.
When the doctor, like,
went off the list of symptoms,
I was sitting here like,
"All of that is me."
"I've experienced all of this."
Just give me that list.
Erm, consistent high energy,
the lack of discernment,
the inability to regulate when it's
appropriate to say certain things.
Being unable to regulate your moods.
And a lot of what was scary,
too, was that the highs,
I thought, were my personality.
I thought that's who I was.
Like, I talk a lot and...
Just kind of fun-loving,
"I can do anything".
Yeah! I like to go out, exactly.
I like to go out, I can...
You know, my friends were like,
"Oh, she never sleeps.
"Just call her. She's up."
I would write.
I was so creative, I thought.
It's almost physically
uncomfortable.
It is physically uncomfortable.
It's like, if you don't get
this thing out, you're not
going to be able to rest.
So, as soon as you get it out,
you'll rest. But it never stops.
The getting it out never stops.
The rest never comes.
There's always more.
There's always more.
People with bipolar experience
extreme highs known as mania
and depressive lows.
It isn't clear what causes it,
but stressful and traumatic events
like grief are known to be triggers.
It's treated with therapy
and medication.
So much of what you describe,
I can see it in the
very public life of Kanye.
So, the extreme highs.
Those are all symptoms.
You know, all that arrogance,
all that bravado, all that, like,
big talk about yourself and your
capabilities and abilities,
those are symptoms.
And here's the thing, too,
that people don't really get.
It is you but magnified. Right?
So, I'm not making the case
that he's this, like,
"Oh, no, no, no,
he's just a lovely guy.
"And this is all, like, as soon
as he takes the medication,
"he'll be different."
He's probably a jerk.
He's probably
hard to get along with.
He's probably, you know...
All the things that we think of him,
he's probably all of that.
And the illness magnifies it
to unthinkable levels.
Someone like you or I,
we would eventually lose friends
and not have replacements.
We would eventually lose money.
So, our rock-bottom that was
kind of like,
"OK, I need help"
would come much quicker.
He's being embraced by
this new group of people,
and he's falling into that embrace.
This can't end well.
This won't end well.
There's the anti-Semitism,
there's the anti-blackness,
there's the aligning with
white nationalists.
They're not going to attract
a lot of sympathy, are they?
No, not at all. And they shouldn't.
It's understandable.
I understand perfectly why people
feel the way that they do.
I don't have these conversations
to change their mind
about Kanye West.
I have these conversations so
people will understand the reality
of living with a mental illness
that people are unable to find
sympathy and empathy for.
As well as all the harm he'd caused,
Ye's behaviour was, in some ways,
contributing to a lack of
understanding of bipolar disorder.
Living with the condition
in no way excuses Ye's bigotry,
but it is part of his story.
Come into the office.
A month after Ye was dropped
by agents and brands...
This is Giuliano right here.
Hi, Giuliano!
He was filming me outside,
so I said, "Just come inside."
Let's pick up over here.
How are you guys?
..he invited paparazzi
into his LA studio.
Here, take this. Oh, yeah.
Thank you, Kanye.
They'll make another one, here.
Appreciate you, man. Yeah.
Despite huge backlash, Ye acted
like it was business as usual,
confirming a presidential
bid was on the cards.
Ye24.
I'm trotting out...
So, you are running? Yes.
Just days later, Jay and Nick
Fuentes were reported to have met
with former president Donald Trump.
The dinner made headline
news around the world,
and fears were growing that Ye was
helping Nick get a seat at the table
to push American political debate
even further to the right.
It felt more important than ever
that Ye be held to account
for his actions.
But getting hold of a celebrity
with no PR team, no record deal
and no agent isn't exactly easy.
This is worth a shot.
I think it's a direct letter.
It's not shying away
from this idea...
..there are things you
need to talk about.
I've seen this video
that's been published,
which is Ye in an
American flag puffer jacket
dropping in on this church.
It's not a particularly glossy,
glamorous church,
certainly not a megachurch.
So, I'm going to swing by.
And the idea is, maybe they have
a route in to him directly.
Maybe they have that
kind of contact.
And even if they don't, I've got
my bunch of letters to Ye.
So this is the perfect place
to drop one off.
I wasn't sure how my visit to
the church would turn out.
But the man being hugged
by Ye in the video
was right there in the car park.
Do you live in your car, Mark?
Absolutely.
How long have you been living in...?
I've been homeless for nine years.
Nine years? Minus a year.
Oh, really?
That must be quite tough.
No, it's not. Tough is when you're
shopping-cart homeless.
When you have a car, you feel safe.
Yeah.
Mark explained that Ye often
dropped in at the church,
and it turns out Nick Fuentes and
members of the Ye24 campaign team
were also regulars.
They all said that I was the most
religiously erudite in the room,
and Ye started looking to me
for my opinion on
every topic that came up.
He called me the following Monday,
the Monday before Thanksgiving.
And the first thing he
said to me was,
"I want you to be my campaign
manager to run for president."
I'm fascinated by this idea
that Ye effectively chose you
to run his campaign.
And I mean... God chose me.
You think Ye's another actor?
We're all actors!
Shakespeare said we're
all actors, right?
OK, so that's a way to look at it.
But you don't fit into the mould
of someone I would say is
a seasoned political campaigner.
No, not at all.
Does he strike you as quite erratic,
or does he strike you as someone
that knows exactly what he's doing?
Does he change his mind a lot?
I feel he's a little whimsical.
Whimsical? Yes.
Can I go one step further?
And obviously, I'm not asking
you to diagnose here,
because neither of us are
qualified to do that.
Of course, Ye has spoken publicly
about the fact that he's bipolar.
I don't think he has bipolar.
He's spoken to that.
He has no interest in medications.
Does he...?
So, he says, "Maybe I'm autistic
and Rain Man with superpowers".
OK?
That's his latest take.
I'm concerned that if he's not on
his medication, maybe things
are going to get worse for him.
No, that's Satan.
I rebuke that,
in the name of Jesus.
Screw that.
Screw you for suggesting that.
For suggesting what?
That he take his medications.
You think that would be a bad thing?
That would be an evil,
horrible thing to do. Yes.
Why would it be evil?
Because God doesn't like sorcery.
So, that was that.
With no sign of Ye,
I was about to leave
when I bumped into another Ye24
campaigner in the car park.
I'm going to go for it, OK?
Nick Fuentes,
the alt-right extremist who airs
his racist views on his live
streams, was also there.
I want to ask him about
his increasingly influential
role in the campaign.
On social media, Nick says that
referring to Ye's mental health
is a convenient way
to undermine his message.
No? You don't think so?
Have a good day, Nick.
It looked like I'd never get
the chance to question Nick or Ye
about the impact of the extremist
views they were putting out.
Fucking hell.
Hearing about this church,
I thought it might be a place
that Ye stopped off at,
and he made an appearance,
and then might be able
to get a line to him.
I didn't realise...
..that this little church,
with a guy living in
the parking lot...
..seems to be the
current headquarters of
the entire operation.
I did go inside and spend some
time with the pastor,
who didn't want to be on camera.
He told me Ye had bought
part of the property
and had big plans.
The pastor showed me...
He said, "If you come out to these
buildings," we took a little walk,
he showed me the rooms at the back
full of women on their sewing
machines, mood boards,
new designs for the Yeezy line.
This place is now meant
to be his political headquarters,
and a place where Yeezy fashion
designs are created and made.
He's trying to turn this place,
this unassuming church,
into his new empire.
And actually, the bigger
question there is,
where is all this going to end?
Because I don't think this is
the last incarnation of Ye
that we're going to see.
There's a trajectory here,
and there's a spiral,
and it's downward.
It's Thursday, December 1st, 2022.
I'm your host, Alex Jones,
and in studio,
Ye is our guest.
He'll be here, he says,
for the next three hours or so.
And also America First leader,
and that is Nick Fuentes.
Now, you've got God's warriors
coming together.
Infowars is an online
talk show hosted by the
conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
After a string of challenging
interviews with more
traditional outlets, Ye continued
to spread his dangerous
conspiracy theories online.
The so-called crime doesn't
deserve the punishment.
What did I - I thought...
That's right, you're not Hitler.
You're not a Nazi.
You don't deserve to be called
that and demonised.
Well, I...
I see...I see good things
about Hitler also.
The Jews... I love everyone.
Ye doubled down on his bigotry
in front of a reported audience
of millions.
I don't like Hitler,
and I know you're trying to be
shocking with that.
I'm not trying to be shocking.
I like Hitler, I do not...
The Holocaust is not what happened.
Let's look at the facts of that.
And Hitler has a lot of
redeeming qualities.
The murder of six million Jewish
people during the Holocaust
is an inconvenient truth for
conspiracy theorists.
So, instead of engaging
with history,
they simply argue that it didn't
happen in order to continue
promoting their hateful untruths
about supposed Jewish power
and control.
Following his initial
anti-Semitic statement,
the Holocaust Museum in LA
invited Ye for a private tour.
He declined the offer.
But I wanted to find out more
about just how dangerous
these statements are.
You know, words matter,
words have consequences.
We see students from all over LA,
and most of them don't know
what anti-Semitism is.
And to learn it from someone
like Kanye West is, you know,
that's a serious problem.
You mean that's their first
reference point of anti-Semitism?
It's Kanye West rather than an
understanding of history, of
the Holocaust, any of those things?
Exactly.
So, what they're learning from Kanye
West is these anti-Semitic tropes
that have been around for
thousands of years.
We know that Jewish people have
been used as scapegoats.
Our message definitely provoked
a lot of hateful remarks,
and that was really the first time
where we saw hateful messages
posted on our social
media platforms.
When you think about it,
there are 15 million
Jewish people in the world.
Ye has over 30 million followers
on social media.
It's chilling because,
even if you cancel Ye,
the tweet is out there.
It's already...
it's out there in the world.
The floodgates have been opened,
and there is that ripple effect.
The impact of Ye's words
were felt globally,
with his hate spilling into
the real world.
And in Jacksonville, the city's
mayor is also condemning a number
of anti-Semitic messages recently
seen across the city.
It follows controversial remarks
made by rapper Kanye West.
The message could be seen during
the Georgia-Florida game day
celebrations, and it was projected
at the stadium, reading - quote -
"Kanye is right about the Jews".
On college campuses and
online stores,
hate was being spread
in Ye's name...
..at times leading to violence.
In Central Park, a 63-year-old
man minding his own business
became the victim of a vile
hate crime earlier this month.
Cops say this man spewed
anti-Semitic rhetoric and
made a reference to Kanye West
before attacking the victim,
punching his teeth right
out of his mouth.
And then, he walked away.
News stories like these,
and another incident where
a Jewish man had his nose broken by
an attacker whose friend reportedly
shouted, "Do it for Kanye,"
were evidence that even though
Ye had put out messages urging
for no violence,
the consequences of his words
had gone beyond his control.
So far, I had no response
to my letters,
but Ye certainly had a lot
of questions to answer.
But one person in his inner
circle agreed to speak to me.
That's me over there.
Alex Klein, a tech entrepreneur,
was a friend and business partner
of Ye's between 2019 and 2022 -
and it was during that time
that Alex witnessed first-hand
a worrying shift in Ye's personal
and professional persona.
# Know you can't find a
place to rest... #
In this music video,
Ye wore a black mask that would
come to symbolise this dark
chapter of his career.
Standing in the midst of
a striking scene referencing
biblical destruction, Ye appeared
to give fans a sign of where
his music and politics was headed.
But way before all of that,
Alex, like many in his generation,
had grown up with Ye's music.
What would you say your level
of fandom was?
Oh, I loved Kanye.
You know, any new music he dropped,
I would listen to it right away.
I was interviewed in 2015.
And I was asked, if you could pitch
one person on your company,
who would it be?
And I actually said Kanye.
I was like, "I would pitch Kanye,
cos he's an operator and an artist
"who works in many disciplines".
Four years later, Ye and Alex
were in business together
to launch a new music device.
But in the aftermath of
Ye's anti-Semitism,
Alex felt he could no longer
work with him.
We turned down $10 million.
Kanye was very angry.
He was saying, you know,
"I feel like I want to smack you,"
You know, "You're exactly
like the other Jews."
Like, almost relishing and revelling
in how offensive he could be,
using these phrases,
hoping to hurt me.
There's a whole bunch of people
out there who will say
it's irresponsible even to be
having a conversation about Ye,
because he's so beyond the pale.
Why do you think it is important
to talk about Ye?
Because the...
..return of Kanye is inevitable.
And I think it's important to shed
light on the situation,
because Kanye...
..has communicated,
using his powerful and
persuasive voice,
racial conspiracy theories that
diverts attention to a scapegoat.
And this demon in the box that
he's playing with for
his own benefit is irresponsible.
The conversation
has become like, you know,
"Oh, it's his mental health, and,
"Oh, you know, maybe a few
"Jewish people screwed him over".
And it's like, no, it's like...
..Kanye needs to be taken seriously.
I asked him, I was like,
"So, do you really think that Jews
"are working together
to hold you back?"
And he said, "Yes, yes, I do.
"But it's not even a statement
that I need to take back,
"because look at all the energy
around me right now -
"without that statement,
I wouldn't become president."
He thinks it's his manifest destiny,
his God-chosen destiny
to become president.
He used these anti-Jewish statements
as part of a political platform.
And he told me that he was
attempting to do
what Trump did in a more
intense way.
So, the analogy he used
to me was like...
..the way like Kobe invented a
new way to play basketball,
which then LeBron followed on to,
"Kobe is like Trump,
I'm like LeBron for politics."
So, he wants to supersize Trump?
Exactly, yeah.
I hadn't ever imagined
that Ye could have unleashed
all of this hate as part of
an election strategy.
It wouldn't be the first time a
candidate has used division
to win support from voters.
Up until now, I couldn't find
a way to contact him.
But then, I was given some details
that I was told were
a direct line to Ye.
I was hoping this could be
my chance to find out the truth
about his divisive campaign.
So, there's every chance
this isn't even going to connect.
You don't try, you don't know.
PHONE RINGS
It's actually ringing.
Just rung out.
PHONE RINGS
But just as we put the camera down,
Ye called back.
PHONE RINGS
Hello?
Hello, this is Mobeen Azhar.
I'm from the BBC.
I was trying to get hold of Ye.
Ye!
Er, so my name is Mobeen.
I'm from the BBC.
So, Ye, I-I've been working
on this documentary for a while.
I've been speaking to...
So, the person who gave me your
number specifically said,
"Please don't pass on my details."
Yeah.
He hung up.
He might be thinking that,
"Maybe I just don't engage with
"any of this stuff, and it's just
going to blow over.
"I've done stuff that's
controversial in the past,
"and I've just moved on.
I've put out other albums.
"I've continued to get deals" -
and maybe that's true.
Maybe that commercial interest
and the fact that you stick
his name on stuff and it sells...
..maybe that'll pull him
through this.
But I don't think that's right.
I don't think that's right.
I don't think it's good.
I don't think it's
how responsible society works,
when you've put stuff out there...
..that has really hurt people.
And I don't mean just
hurt people's feelings.
I mean, resulted in people being
attacked on the street.
I don't think it should
work that way.
I think he has an absolute
responsibility...
..to answer some questions.
MUSIC: Love & Hate
by Michael Kiwanuka
In America today,
so often divided and angry,
Ye's story is a perfect fit.
Whilst his capital as an artist
and certainly his commercial
force is diminished,
the outrage he causes
has become his currency.
If he really believes his bigotry
could take him to the White House,
we can only hope the future
will prove him wrong.
# Love and hate
# How much more are we supposed
to tolerate?
# Calling for my demons
now to let me go
# I need something,
give me something wonderful... #