Kanye then vs. Kanye now: A comparison of quotes
If you’ve been anywhere near a Twitter feed in the past week or so, you’re probably aware that Kanye West has gone fully MAGA. The iconic rapper is fiercely doubling down on his professed admiration of Donald Trump, while also singing the praises of other conservative figures, like Candace Owens and Jordan Peterson.
Whether this is a sincere shift in Kanye’s politics or just bizarre marketing for his upcoming music doesn’t really matter. As troubling as it may be for fans to admit, the Kanye West of classic conscious tracks like “Jesus Walks” and “Crack Music” looks to be long gone.
There could be any number of reasons explaining this transformation — people just change, for starters — but it still requires some serious mental gymnastics to reconcile. Kanye is an artist whose original appeal was wrapped up in his sense of empathy; he’s also the guy who, after explaining why he would’ve voted for a bigoted Republican, yelled at his fans to stop worrying about racism.
Chance the Rapper says he’s the same ol’ Kanye, though. “Talked to him two days ago,” Chance said in a recent tweet. “He’s in a great space and not affected by folk tryna question his mental or physical health. Same Ye from the Vmas, same Ye from the telethon.” (Chance followed that tweet with another saying, “Black people don’t have to be democrats.” He’s since clarified his remarks in another statement shared on Twitter.) That “telethon” mention, of course, refers to Kanye’s famous 2005 declaration that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” said during a telethon to raise money for Hurricane Katrina relief.
To show just how wide the chasm is between that Ye and the Ye of our current moment, we dug up some past Kanye quotes that feel worlds away from his more recent statements. To be fair, Kanye has been consistent over the years when it comes to certain areas — violence in his hometown of Chicago, for instance — but his broader political shift is staggering, so that’s what we focused on. Here’s what we found in our look back at the old Kanye.
Kanye then:
Kanye now:
Donald Trump’s contentious relationship with the black community runs deep and dates back to way before the Bush administration’s botched the response to Hurricane Katrina. Some notable evidence: Trump’s continued insistence that the exonerated Central Park Five — who were arrested in 1989 and wrongfully convicted of committing assault and rape — are guilty; his amplifying of the birther conspiracy questioning if the country’s first black president was born in the United States; and, more recently, saying Haitian immigrants “all have AIDS.” Trump’s also a big hit with former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.
Through it all, Trump has maintained he’s the “least racist” person on multiple occasions, and Kanye has yet to publicly protest any of Trump’s racist comments or behavior. Instead, he’s a full-throated Trump supporter. It’s a drastic about-face from someone who once went off-script during a telethon to advocate for his community.
Kanye then:
“Hey realtor, I’m lookin’ for a nice park/ Twelve noon, she said my family gon’ make it too dark” — “Chain Heavy,” 2010
Kanye now:
In the 2010 track “Chain Heavy” — a highlight from the beloved “Good Friday” series — Kanye raps about being kept out of a certain neighborhood because of the color of his skin. Trump is guilty of the same racial discrimination. Back in 1973, the New York Times reported a story about how the Justice Department found that he avoided rentals “because of race and color.” Despite that, Kanye seems to have no qualms about embracing the former real estate mogul.
Kanye then:
“As long as I’m in Polo smiling, they think they got me/ But they would try to crack me if they ever see a black me” — “Gorgeous,” 2010
Kanye now:
“To black people, stop focusing on racism. … This world is racist, OK? Let’s stop being distracted, to focus on that as much.” — onstage in San Jose, California, 2016
The above couplet, taken from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s “Gorgeous,” refers to how, despite his celebrity, Kanye can never quite move freely as a black man. Even with that message, though, the lines have a prideful bent — he’s rebelling alongside a rugged-as-always Raekwon, who’s featured on the track. Six years later, at a San Jose concert, Kanye was jabbing back at booing fans, telling them to “stop focusing on racism.”
Kanye then:
“But they can’t cop cars without seeing cop cars/ I guess they want us all behind bars — I know it” — “Heard ‘Em Say,” 2005
Kanye now:
Ultra-conservative personality Candace Owens got some additional exposure over the past few days, thanks to Kanye’s endorsement. After his tweet complimenting her way of thinking, she appeared on Fox News to proclaim, “Police brutality is not an issue that is facing the black community whatsoever.” Ye’s come a long way from 2005’s contemplative “Heard ‘Em Say.”
Kanye then:
“Imma make a book of my tweets.. tweetbook” — on Twitter, 2010
Kanye now:
Well, at least he followed through on something, right?
Kanye then:
“I ain’t no motherfucking celebrity. I ain’t running for office. I ain’t kissing nobody’s motherfucking babies. I drop your baby and you sue me and shit.” — onstage in New York City, 2013
Kanye now:
Just two years after saying onstage that he had no interest in pulling a charm offensive — that he wasn’t running for office, wasn’t interested in traditional ideas of popularity — Kanye announced that he wanted to run for president in 2020, while onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2015.
Now, judging from the above tweet, it looks like he’s pushed his timeline back four years — presumably so he wouldn’t get in the way of Trump’s re-election run? Posters with Kanye’s face and a slogan that reads “Keep America Great…#Kanye2024” have been seen in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Another parallel between Kanye and Trump, aside from the presidential plans? Trump also gets weird when kissing babies.
Kanye then:
“Crack raised the murder rate in D.C. and Maryland/ We invested in that, it’s like we got Merrill Lynched/ And we been hangin’ from the same tree, ever since” — “Crack Music,” 2005
Kanye now:
On the standout Late Registration track “Crack Music,” Kanye evokes slave imagery to connect the stealing of black bodies to the criminalization of them. (He uses a similar perspective on 2013’s “New Slaves,” which takes aim at consumerism and the prison industrial complex.) But Ye changed his tune recently, describing the idea of modern-day slavery to be a self-imposed way of thinking.
Kanye then:
“I am in the lineage of Gil Scott-Heron, great activist-type artists.” — speaking to the New York Times, 2013
Kanye now:
“I told y’all I didn’t vote, right? … But if I would’ve voted, I would’ve voted on Trump.” — onstage in San Jose, California, 2016
When promoting 2013’s Yeezus, Kanye told the New York Times that he was part of a lineage of activist-artists, like spoken-word visionary Gil Scott-Heron. Kanye may think that he’s advocating for “free thought,” but he’s also simultaneously advocating for a president who traffics in dangerously divisive rhetoric and fear-mongering — and whose shortcomings as a leader seem to be endless. For a man like Scott-Heron, who spoke out against nuclear power and police brutality, Trump would’ve likely been a hard sell.
