Many of us likely excitedly smashed the retweet button when Kanye West returned from a long social media hiatus this month. No matter how you feel about him (or his music, or his fashion), his persona—on stage, online—is unpredictable and thus unavoidable. That’s precisely why the events of the last few days, from West’s appreciation of right-wing US YouTube personality Candace Owens to his full-on support for Donald Trump (complete with boasting of his autographed Make America Great Again hat) have been so shocking and bewildering.
The last 24 hours alone have felt like a rollercoaster ride, with many of us watching and trying to decipher what, exactly, is going on. Theories abound: Is this a mental health issue? Kim Kardashian West and Chance the Rapper both say no. Has the rapper veered to the far-right? Considering his vocal support for Trump at a November 2016 concert and his visit to Trump Tower the following month, it’s not necessarily a sudden conservative shift. Is it all part of a larger publicity cycle for his upcoming album?
West claims he’s looking to start a dialogue, but there’s little evidence of that so far. We’re in the middle of one man’s tweet storm, delivered to his nearly 30 million followers. He’s already decided that he won’t be persuaded—not by his fans or his friends and colleagues like John Legend—to change his mind. In a screenshot West posted of a text exchange between himself and Legend, he accused the singer of trying to manipulate his free thought.
But debate isn’t manipulation—it’s an exchange of ideas, a back-and-forth. Kanye West wants you to hear his opinion, but his text with Legend proves he doesn’t want to hear anyone else’s. That in itself is a rejection of the concept of “free thought” that West claims to hold so dear.
A common thread throughout all of his tweets—whether they be pictures of his MAGA hat, vague philosophical mantras about love and empathy, or non-sequiturs about ping pong—is the notion that West is a free-thinker. No one is influencing him in any way, he says; he’s giving us the pure, unadulterated version of himself. That’s easy for him to say, of course, as he is his own biggest fan. He wants us to appreciate him for being the greatest artist of his generation, one who came into the world fully formed with a worldview that has gone unchanged.
But he also thinks of himself as someone with great influence—and he’s not wrong. Just look at that Twitter follower count (and also how many articles have already attempted to understand what he’s doing right now). He’s managed to reach that place not just as a rapper and a producer, but also as a persona: When Kanye West earns himself a platform, he uses it to his full advantage. Like any famous person, the things he does and says are analysed by fans and critics alike; in this politically charged time, when entertainment and politics are so intertwined, we’re desperate for our celebrities to hold the same values we do. The nation, after all, elected a celebrity into its highest political office.
West himself has responded to his critics, reiterating the notion of “free thinking” to support his unexpected political worldview—which, let’s be honest, isn’t much of a worldview as much as it is shallow support to the New York tabloid persona turned reality TV star that is now the American president. He claims he won’t fall into a convenient party line, that he’s better than that. To suggest he’ll tell us what we want to hear would only mean we have manipulated him, stripped him of his identity and his own free will.
Kanye West can think what he wants to think, and he can say what he wants to say. No artist is obligated to align their personal views with their fans’. But their fans also have their own opportunities to think for themselves and express their opinions vocally or on Twitter. When people suggest that their free speech is being attacked, that they are being silenced for their opposing viewpoints, they are often missing an obvious irony: that they are able to continue to say what they want from public platforms, and the public can clap back with their own responses, too.
Only Kanye West knows what’s going on his head, and if there is an endgame to the frenzy we’re caught in as we follow along. To come up with an explanation for his motivations is futile. But we’re certainly allowed to do that, whether he likes it or not. Kanye West is able to provoke us with his messy and uneven view of the world, just as we’re justified in telling Kanye West that we disagree. If it’s a dialogue he wants, then he should expect his fans to have something to say, too.
Tyler Coates is the Senior Culture Editor at Esquire.com. He lives in Los Angeles.
