Understanding Ye’s Weird Obsession With KKK And Nazi Culture
In today’s episode of The Devolution Of Kanye West, Ye recently sat down for an interview with DJ Akademiks, and maybe they talked about some things. Perhaps they discussed the “Gold Digger” rapper’s illustrious career as well as his many self-inflicted controversies. Even if Yeezus had anything of substance to say, it would have been completely overshadowed by the man who, 20 years ago, famously declared that former President “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people,” showing up in 2025 in a Black Ku Klux Klan robe and a swastika necklace.
At this point, we should admit Kanye West is just an attention seeker, and not only is there no real method to his madness, there’s no depth in any of his diatribes.
And maybe that’s how he’s always been.
In 2005, Ye had his iconic moment of perceived pro-Blackness. He stood on stage during the NBC primetime benefit event for Hurricane Katrina victims, A Concert for Hurricane Relief, right next to actor Mike Myers, who grew visibly uncomfortable right in front of our eyes when Ye said those famous words:
“George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.
It was a moment that certainly riled up America and solidified him as a polarizing figure — and a lot of Black people loved him for it. Now, many of those same Black people, as well as non-Black fans, are longing for the return of “old Kanye.” But what if there really isn’t an “old Kanye?” After all, Bush was just as much low-hanging fruit then as President Donald Trump is now. Calling the president out in that manner wasn’t some revolutionary act of bravery, but it certainly was an attention-grabber.
Here’s a question, though: Has Ye made a single, unambiguous expression of pro-Blackness since?
In the last 20 years, we’ve seen Ye don a MAGA hat after declaring his love for Trump. We’ve seen him pose for photo ops in that hat with prominent members of the MAGA-fied Republican Party. We’ve heard him declare that “slavery was a choice,” and then justify it with some ahistorical hotep nonsense about mental slavery. We heard him claim Harriet Tubman “never actually freed the slaves, she just had them work for other white people.” We saw him promote his “White Lives Matter” shirts and then sit across from raging white nationalist Tucker Carlson, where he defended it.
We’ve seen him join Candace Owens in raging against Black Lives Matter while aligning himself with an ideology that has done nothing but harm Black people and uphold white supremacy. He has also been the author of multiple tweet storms in which he declared his hatred for Jewish people and his admiration for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. (Perhaps he’s unaware that them people hated and sought the extermination of Black people too. Or maybe he also just really doesn’t care about Black people)
During all that time, when has he ever spoken up for Black people the way he did in 2005?
In fact, while we’re here, we might as well talk about some of the things that happened during the recent interview — like when Ye gifted Akademiks with a “White Lives Matter” shirt of his very own.
He also defended his tweet calling the younger children of Jay-Z and Beyoncé the R-word because it made the “Nazi-s***” not seem as bad. Akademiks appeared to agree that the one tweet was worse than the barrage of antisemitic tweets he launched, but that only prompted Ye to disagree with what he had just agreed with, suggesting his tweet attacking children with abelist language was actually the “best or the strongest” thing he tweeted that day.
Maybe this is the same “old Kanye,” or maybe this self-loathing MAGA conservative who pretends to be pro-Black when it’s convenient is what the “old Kanye” has devolved into.
I suppose that’s for the individual to decide. Some of us made up our minds a long time ago.
Anyway, you can watch the full interview with DJ Akademiks below.
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