Speaker 1: Could it happen here? I don't know, but I get
Speaker 1: paid whether or not we find an answer to that question.
Speaker 1: This has been the introduction to the podcast. I'm Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone else, Hello, Hello, good morning afternoon. This is Garrison. Uh.
Speaker 1: We have Sharene and we also have our friend Prop
Speaker 1: from Hood Politics here. Hello, greets, y'all talk to me nice.
Speaker 1: I fully respect the transparency about like will you get
Speaker 1: paid regardless? Yeah, exactly exactly whether or not we learned
Speaker 1: if it could happen here. Here's the thing. When I
Speaker 1: used to teach high school, which believed it or not,
Speaker 1: I did, taught ninth graders. We was like maybe eight
Speaker 1: years apart at the time, and uh uh there was
Speaker 1: at one point and I taught Inner City and it
Speaker 1: was it was at one point, Um, I got this
Speaker 1: idea from one of my like uh like mentor teachers
Speaker 1: where I was like, okay, check this out. So I
Speaker 1: made you remember overhead transparencies. Yeah, I do, So I
Speaker 1: made one of my check It was like I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna put this because I'm just gonna put this up
Speaker 1: here because like y'all can do your work or not,
Speaker 1: YO say, like I get paid either way. I care.
Speaker 1: That's why I show up and I try so hard,
Speaker 1: you know, but you're not hurting me by whatever rebellion
Speaker 1: you're practicing here like this, this is school ends at
Speaker 1: three o'clock. At three oh five, I forgot everything you
Speaker 1: said to me, you know, so you're not hurting me. Now.
Speaker 1: If you want to make me earn this, then let's
Speaker 1: get busy, you know. And it was like, no, man,
Speaker 1: you're gonna earn this. I was like, all right, let's
Speaker 1: go to You know, I was a great teacher. I mean,
Speaker 1: I may have turned off a few people, but I
Speaker 1: don't know that. Do you know what does hurt me?
Speaker 1: Prop what hurt you? Oh? God, Garrett, the main streaming
Speaker 1: of it do semitic rhetoric. Um, so you did a
Speaker 1: good job there, Garrison. Great, you know what, you know
Speaker 1: what put putting in for a commendation for you. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get a little trophy from the company for that one. Hey, homie,
Speaker 1: that was Garrison. That was yeah, So it's Varsity bro.
Speaker 1: That was Varsity fan. Unfortunately, today we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about Kanye West. There's a lot of elements to this
Speaker 1: topic of discussion between the media's coverage of what's happened,
Speaker 1: isn't it ye? Now, Garrison, don't it's yeah? Okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you the thing is like and like at some point
Speaker 1: probably now I am I have refused to talk about
Speaker 1: the same yeah you know, uh and specifically even covering it,
Speaker 1: you know, on the pod, but it's definitely time to
Speaker 1: be like, you know, whose man's is this? Yeah? You know,
Speaker 1: like come on, somebody can get somebody, come get your
Speaker 1: man's here. You know what I'm saying. Um, Yeah, There's
Speaker 1: a lot of different kind of parts of this between
Speaker 1: how the media has been covering it the past month,
Speaker 1: his own like history of like attention grabbing spectacle, the
Speaker 1: whole mental health side of things. There's religion has uptaking
Speaker 1: meta comments, and how the rights been co reacting. There's
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot a lot of stuff based on
Speaker 1: you know, a few a few not not great statements,
Speaker 1: and a lot of interesting things have revolved around him.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, think you just pick your favorite subversive
Speaker 1: artists from fifteen years ago, and then picture that person
Speaker 1: doing this the guy just like, come on, come on.
Speaker 1: My favorite subversive artist from fifteen years ago might have
Speaker 1: been Dave Chappelle. You know my favorite subversive artist from
Speaker 1: fifte years ago, it was probably Steve from Blues Clues. Hey,
Speaker 1: Steve remains remains solid. He's yeah, he's a hero. Wait no,
Speaker 1: I'm now seeing on Deadline that he has recently embraced
Speaker 1: white nationalism words tattooed on the back of his head
Speaker 1: next to the blue pop print. Oh dear, that's a joke.
Speaker 1: Steve is fine, he's kidding. That didn't happen. But yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because you're like and knowing all of it's it is
Speaker 1: and I hope I'm not. I hope I'm not co
Speaker 1: opting this whole show, but it's it is. The Tyra
Speaker 1: Banks clip from America's Top Model where it's like we
Speaker 1: we believe, we all believed in you, just furious, like
Speaker 1: we got damn it. We believed in you. You know. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And as the perspective of like a younger person who
Speaker 1: wasn't really around for I guess when Kanye was better,
Speaker 1: this stuff has not been surprising to be because I've
Speaker 1: only been watching him the past decade, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of what we're gonna talk about. I would it would
Speaker 1: probably be fair to call me like a casual knower
Speaker 1: of Kanye. But I'm I'm I'm much older than you, Garrison,
Speaker 1: and so I remember George Bush doesn't care about black people,
Speaker 1: which was like, that's the height of all that seems
Speaker 1: that seems accurate. That was the high water point when
Speaker 1: we were like, he's for the generation, this is this
Speaker 1: is a new breed because but what's what's what's ill
Speaker 1: is like it was obviously a sign of his manic nous.
Speaker 1: In retrospect, it was like, oh, he was in a
Speaker 1: manic episode, I mean. And the other thing is that
Speaker 1: he really just has a history of basic contrarianism. So
Speaker 1: he'll he'll he'll oppose George W. Bush because that's the
Speaker 1: contrarian thing to do. At the moment post on eleven,
Speaker 1: everyone was very pro Obama. Some instead, he's gonna be
Speaker 1: pro Trump because he's gonna he's gonna try to be
Speaker 1: that subversive exactly, and that's definitely been a pattern throughout
Speaker 1: his Career's it just sucks to see it go ahead.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not an expert on his music. I
Speaker 1: wasn't particularly a fan, but the thing I know that,
Speaker 1: like everyone talked about his motherfucker's sampled blood on the leaves,
Speaker 1: like and now that's a But also at the time,
Speaker 1: it was like, wow, this is you know, he's he's
Speaker 1: he's he's trying to say something. And now there's a
Speaker 1: degree to which it's like, was that just the most
Speaker 1: contrarian that move he could be making, right, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like what you said, prop But like initially when this
Speaker 1: when the when the T shirt and stuff was happening
Speaker 1: at Paris Fashion Week, I really did not want to
Speaker 1: talk about this because I thought it was just another
Speaker 1: one of Kanye's publicity stunts, kind of in line with
Speaker 1: his mega hat and Trump appearances from a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to like play into the media
Speaker 1: cycle of just amplifying these stunts that Kanye does, which
Speaker 1: I think kind of feeds into and encourages this kind
Speaker 1: of behavior. But then Kanye went on Tucker and started
Speaker 1: posting on the Internet, and things have gotten a lot
Speaker 1: worse since then, and now I feel like it actually
Speaker 1: is we should now actually talk about this because there's
Speaker 1: some interesting things going on um and ideally we can
Speaker 1: talk about it in a way that's actually useful and
Speaker 1: that we can gain insights from and not just you know,
Speaker 1: highlighting the bigoted and unhinged things that a public figure
Speaker 1: has said. So and I think kind of feigning with
Speaker 1: shock her surprisement at his recent actions and behavior and
Speaker 1: stay eatments is mostly not useful, like as opposed to
Speaker 1: just like clearly condemning bigotry and anti Semitism and doing
Speaker 1: like the platforming and also upon this, upon the news
Speaker 1: of the T shirt stunt and the pointless matter stuff
Speaker 1: and anti Semitism, I was not actually really surprised because
Speaker 1: I kind of saw this as a natural evolution of
Speaker 1: the logical progression of the type of bit that Kandie
Speaker 1: has been doing, particularly for the past five years. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of the angle that we're going to approach
Speaker 1: this with. I think we should probably start by talking about, well,
Speaker 1: the types of alignments Kanye has had over the course
Speaker 1: of his career towards Christianity and how that kind of
Speaker 1: reached the peak in so you can see the kind
Speaker 1: of earliest tints of this type of thing. It's pretty
Speaker 1: dumb a song like Jesus Walks into Us and four
Speaker 1: um and then he kind of does some cool stuff.
Speaker 1: We get to the album ease Us, which kind of
Speaker 1: revolves around self like deification. I never expected to hear
Speaker 1: you say Jesus awesome okay, which is which is a
Speaker 1: pretty good album, and it kind of it's it's it's
Speaker 1: before he gets actually into like Christ. It's it's more
Speaker 1: like God as like a spiritual force that you can
Speaker 1: interact with and you can like align can align yourself
Speaker 1: with um can I can I fill in the can
Speaker 1: I fill in the walks area? Yeah? Like port important
Speaker 1: context about Kanye One is understanding how the South Side
Speaker 1: of Chicago is, you know, and what it's like to
Speaker 1: be black. There's like, you're not how do I say
Speaker 1: this church is as normal as dinner with in in
Speaker 1: our community, specifically in the South side of Chicago. Of course,
Speaker 1: of course your daddy's a deacon. Of course, your mom
Speaker 1: teaches Sunday school. Of Course the most hardened of criminal
Speaker 1: will stop and talk to mother Johnson when they see
Speaker 1: her on the side of the road because she was
Speaker 1: your Sunday school teacher, you know, so and you still
Speaker 1: come every Sunday. Like it's just such a part so
Speaker 1: the Christian idea, it's such a part, an integral part
Speaker 1: of our of our community, and of course of his
Speaker 1: because he's just one of us. You know, um that
Speaker 1: of course he's gonna do a song called Jesus Walks,
Speaker 1: you know, Um, of course. And of course he actually
Speaker 1: probably the whole time, believed he was a Christian, you know,
Speaker 1: because of because we all are Joe saying, like and
Speaker 1: unless you come from like the f o I or
Speaker 1: like Nation of Islam stuff situation like specifically just with
Speaker 1: black people, were just we just went to church, you know.
Speaker 1: So in all of our all of our musicians, you
Speaker 1: take the greatest musicians of any of our times, they
Speaker 1: used to be choir singers, they used to be in
Speaker 1: the worship band, like we just it's just a part
Speaker 1: of our life, you know. So so for him to
Speaker 1: do that was not strange. Was strange was him thinking
Speaker 1: it was unique. That was the part that was so
Speaker 1: weird about like why you think this is there's like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's the aspect of thinking that some of
Speaker 1: the gospel type of stuff he was doing was unique,
Speaker 1: which yeah, maybe it was unique for me on such
Speaker 1: such a large platform, but it was not new. And
Speaker 1: then the the other thing that is different is that
Speaker 1: there is a difference between the type of the type
Speaker 1: of like um, black church that you're talking about and
Speaker 1: white Christian evangelical born again very different around conversion, which
Speaker 1: is what he starts getting into, and yeah, what he became,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, But that's not that's why
Speaker 1: I was like, let me give it. That's so that's
Speaker 1: why I like at first and I'm speaking as somebody
Speaker 1: who also came from like a very person of color
Speaker 1: experience and with Christianity, and then finding you know, sort
Speaker 1: of white evangelicalism and thinking because we're using the same
Speaker 1: words that we're talking about the same thing, and then
Speaker 1: about five minutes sitting at that table, you're just like, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: you just kind of like make the little piece outside
Speaker 1: and let me slide out, because clearly we don't believe
Speaker 1: the same things. You know. I first found your music
Speaker 1: as I was kind of me and my family were
Speaker 1: exiting evangelicalism. Yeah, and that was a very useful kind
Speaker 1: of step that was still using some familiar language, but
Speaker 1: it was like going in a better direction. Yeah yeah, yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think that the next kind of notable thing
Speaker 1: is the more gospel esque album Life of Pablo, allegedly
Speaker 1: inspired by the life of the biblical Paul, and there's
Speaker 1: the song ultra ultra light Beam, which features contemporary gospel
Speaker 1: superstar Kirk Franklin and Chance the Rapper, who is also
Speaker 1: a very open Christian. Yeah. Uh. Then he gany has
Speaker 1: a few years of dealing with mental health stuff, he
Speaker 1: gets hospitalized, he comes out of the hospital, and then
Speaker 1: in April he some somewhere around sixteen, he kind of
Speaker 1: endorses Trump kind of um. But then in but then
Speaker 1: in April, West sends out a series of tweets expressing
Speaker 1: admiration for Trump, including that he felt he was his
Speaker 1: brother and they both have quote dragon energy. Um. People
Speaker 1: like Trance of Rapper initially came to west defense, saying
Speaker 1: that black people don't have to be Democrats, which he
Speaker 1: later apologized for, and a lot of tweets that were
Speaker 1: up that are now gone Yes. And then one of
Speaker 1: the kind of worst inclinations of where things are kind
Speaker 1: of going was a fucking TMZ interview which was supposed
Speaker 1: it was which was supposed to be about Kanye's support
Speaker 1: of Trump, but then he went on to make some
Speaker 1: pretty gross comments about black people choosing to be enslaved.
Speaker 1: I don't think people necessarily understand what happened last week
Speaker 1: with the Great American making America great again? Hat what
Speaker 1: are you trying to do with the message you're send me? Well,
Speaker 1: it was really just my subconscious It was a feeling
Speaker 1: I had, you know, like people were taught how to think,
Speaker 1: we're taught how to feel. We don't know how to
Speaker 1: think for ourselves. We don't know how to feel for ourselves.
Speaker 1: People say feel free, but they don't really want us
Speaker 1: to feel free. And uh, I felt a freedom and
Speaker 1: first of all, just doing something that everybody tells you
Speaker 1: not to do. I just loved Trump. Do you hear
Speaker 1: about slavery for four hundred years? For four hundred years?
Speaker 1: That sounds like a choice, Like he was there for
Speaker 1: four hundred years, and it's all of y'all, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's like we're mentally in prison. I like the
Speaker 1: word prison because slavery goes to too direct to the
Speaker 1: idea of blacks. It's like slavery holocaust, Holocaust shues, slavery
Speaker 1: is blacks. So prison is something that unite says there's
Speaker 1: one race, blacks and whites being one race. Uh, that
Speaker 1: we're one were the human race. And fun fact, like
Speaker 1: van who stood up to him, I think to this day,
Speaker 1: especially among like black media figures. He's, as far as
Speaker 1: I can remember, like one of the only that confronted
Speaker 1: him in the moment boldly didn't mince his words. You
Speaker 1: could tell he was like almost weeping, because I mean
Speaker 1: that's the way I felt watching it, where it was
Speaker 1: just like oh what do you what are you saying?
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's just so hurtful because you're like
Speaker 1: you can't believe, Like come on, man, like drop the act, bro,
Speaker 1: Like now now we're all suffering. It's like it's almost
Speaker 1: like I get I get it. We get it. Looking back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even college dropout, that record was just him being Now
Speaker 1: I we used to think it was like revolutionary. No,
Speaker 1: it's just him being a contrarian. I don't know, have
Speaker 1: to go to college. You know. Now I know, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, it wasn't as deep as I thought it was.
Speaker 1: You know, so you're making it. Yeah at the moment
Speaker 1: you're liking genius, Like Dark Trusted Fantasy was like the
Speaker 1: most amazing album I had ever heard up to that point,
Speaker 1: brilliant and yeah, as you guys are talking, there's like
Speaker 1: sprinkles of religious stuff in that one, and then a
Speaker 1: lot of his stuff and he just takes it one
Speaker 1: step too far, because I just remember thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy's a musical genius, and then when you see
Speaker 1: that genius kind of turn on itself, it's just really disappointing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, shout out Van for like confronting him and
Speaker 1: directly saying you're wrong. This hurts and I can't believe
Speaker 1: you say that, and you owe your community and apology.
Speaker 1: That was pretty dope. Yeah, So after that incident, he
Speaker 1: took to Twitter dot com to clarify, slash, defend, slash
Speaker 1: double down on his slavery comments, talking about being mentally
Speaker 1: enslaved and how it's we need to you know, this
Speaker 1: is just an example, like and how his comments were
Speaker 1: just an example of of free thought. It's an idea,
Speaker 1: and once again I'm being attacked presenting new ideas. And
Speaker 1: then he ended this kind of tweet thread with a
Speaker 1: fake Harriet Tubman quote saying I freed a thousand slaves.
Speaker 1: I could have freed a thousand more. Officely they knew
Speaker 1: they were slaves, which is not not a real Harriet
Speaker 1: Dubling quote. Now that that doesn't seem like a thing
Speaker 1: she would say at all, and all of all the
Speaker 1: tweets were lated deleted, but it was it was kind
Speaker 1: of doubling down on some of the same rhetoric and
Speaker 1: then allegedly, um some of the TMZ staffers have also
Speaker 1: now come out and said that he said some andy
Speaker 1: semitic things during during the interview that were cut out.
Speaker 1: Now that's not verified and TMZ is obviously not a
Speaker 1: great source, but just an interesting note on him possibly
Speaker 1: saying some other things that people were thought were kind
Speaker 1: of weird. Just thought that we may as well just
Speaker 1: cut this out because it doesn't seem super relevant at
Speaker 1: the time anyway. So around the same time in eighteen,
Speaker 1: Kanye befriended someone named Candice Owens, who was at the
Speaker 1: time the communications director for the far right group Turning
Speaker 1: Point USA, led by man with face too small for
Speaker 1: his head, Charlie kirk Um. Kanye tweeted quote that he
Speaker 1: loved the way Candice Owens thinks. Um candas Owens basically
Speaker 1: makes all of her money by being paid by rich
Speaker 1: conservative white men to say that racism isn't a problem anymore. Uh.
Speaker 1: Days after his Candace Owens tweet, when there was the
Speaker 1: mega hat wearing TMZ visit, he was accompanied by to
Speaker 1: TMC by Candas Owens. Uh. That's something that a lot
Speaker 1: of people miss is that Owens is Owens is a
Speaker 1: is a core vector point for all of the stuff
Speaker 1: around Kanye UM and much of Kanye's rhetoric in this
Speaker 1: vein of like slavery being thought to control, a lot
Speaker 1: of that directly comes from Owens. That that that's the
Speaker 1: talking points that Yeah, all of those talking points come
Speaker 1: directly from Owens, which come from her being paid by
Speaker 1: the Brothers UM. And then obviously, West solidified his position
Speaker 1: in the pro Trump camp with the heavily publicized Whitehouse
Speaker 1: visit in late October eighteen where Kanye give like a
Speaker 1: ten minute long monologue while wearing the Niga hat and
Speaker 1: I love this guy right here. Let me get this guy.
Speaker 1: I love this guy right here. That's really, that's really
Speaker 1: and that's from the heart. I didn't want to put
Speaker 1: you in that position, but that's from the heart. These
Speaker 1: are like the intersections that are being vectored in this
Speaker 1: scenario in this thing is like like I said, like
Speaker 1: I I didn't, I did not want to cover this,
Speaker 1: but now that it's like it's clearly necessary to do
Speaker 1: just for even for this context, like there's a certain
Speaker 1: I save. I save the word coon, like con is
Speaker 1: not something you throw around like that's to me, it's
Speaker 1: the yeah, it is. It's far as far as a
Speaker 1: black person or me as somebody who works in justice
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, it is the worst thing I
Speaker 1: can call you, you know what I'm saying, So like
Speaker 1: I save that term. And and it's because of the
Speaker 1: same reason why it's hard for the totality of our
Speaker 1: of the black community to ever really fully disavow somebody.
Speaker 1: It's because of our history of collective suffering, like are
Speaker 1: We've survived because of our communal protection of each other.
Speaker 1: So even when somebody is losing it, it's just like baby,
Speaker 1: just come home, baby, Okay, listen, No, he hadn't a
Speaker 1: bad day, you know. I mean, you just you want
Speaker 1: so much to protect them because you understand how much
Speaker 1: internalized like self hate and racism, how much you internalize
Speaker 1: that stuff, you know, so you just want so bad,
Speaker 1: so bad to be like Okay, Candice, let's turn the
Speaker 1: cameras off, like you're getting your money, right, that's this,
Speaker 1: this is what we're doing, right. You just come on,
Speaker 1: you can tell us, you just give you getting your money,
Speaker 1: just tell us, you know, it's like, you know, no, family,
Speaker 1: don't really believe it's do you? You know? And and
Speaker 1: then we get to be like, baby, don't get your
Speaker 1: money like that, like, don't don't get your money based
Speaker 1: on our suffering like you, because you're thinking that there's
Speaker 1: no there's no way, there's no way this is really you,
Speaker 1: you know, and so so so when you put those
Speaker 1: two together, it's like, like, why did it take us
Speaker 1: so long to disavow R Kelly? Why did it take
Speaker 1: us so long that this Why is Chris Brown still
Speaker 1: a star? You know what I'm saying, It's because it's
Speaker 1: it's because of that. It's just you don't ever want it,
Speaker 1: like you gotta save you gotta save coon. You gotta
Speaker 1: save that for when you really mean it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Uh, For me personally, I'm like I
Speaker 1: just don't. I don't pull that word out off in
Speaker 1: And then there's moments when you're just like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what else to call it. This, Like I just
Speaker 1: you if you if you are selling your own people
Speaker 1: out for the purpose of making money, that's cone that's conery,
Speaker 1: Like I don't, and it's it's just hard for me
Speaker 1: to say it, but anyway, go on, tell us more
Speaker 1: about Candice owns. The girl had suited the girl that
Speaker 1: suited her school suited her school board for racism, she sed,
Speaker 1: she did, Yeah, she sure did. We'll get back to
Speaker 1: Owens in a bit. By the time nineteen started, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, this is when Kanye went public about his
Speaker 1: born again conversion to Christianity and kind of his full
Speaker 1: pivot towards the I guess mostly kind of untapped mainstream
Speaker 1: Christian rap market, which is kind of I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to frame some of his decisions here as being
Speaker 1: more monetarily driven then what a lot of people assume,
Speaker 1: because I can totally understand these as business choices, especially
Speaker 1: coming after the Trump visit, his his his State of
Speaker 1: the him in with Trump and friendship with Candace Owens
Speaker 1: handed him a partially alieneded fan base, accompanied by a
Speaker 1: new wave of fans from right wing Christian evangelicals to
Speaker 1: all right, you know, turning point you with say, Daily
Speaker 1: Wire type supporters, and then by the beginning of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: West kind of tamped down on some of his explicit
Speaker 1: Trumpian political persona type stuff, and in its place came
Speaker 1: this weekly pseudo Christian gathering known as the Sunday Service,
Speaker 1: just like a weekly mostly invite only, choir packed music
Speaker 1: gathering that changes locations every week. Sometimes that properties owned
Speaker 1: by Kanye, sometimes that churches outdoors all all around the country.
Speaker 1: Yes see, And this is this is where things get
Speaker 1: uncomfortably start to get uncomfortably culty. This is where things
Speaker 1: get quite culty. And it's like and and and and
Speaker 1: don't get it, like, let me not, let me not
Speaker 1: cap they were objectively dope, like as as music concern Hey,
Speaker 1: these are objective and that's and that's the hard part
Speaker 1: about Kanye where it's just like just dope. Though, look,
Speaker 1: you go back, you go back a couple of decades.
Speaker 1: That was not untrue. If people's temple, they had great artists,
Speaker 1: they put on great music. That was a big part
Speaker 1: of their appeal. And and and Kanye for Sunday's Service,
Speaker 1: I hired a lot of extremely talented people to lead
Speaker 1: up those programs back. Yeah, a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of like legendary gospel singers, you know, and very recognizable names.
Speaker 1: And again giving that that his history and context and
Speaker 1: then the context is just black people in general. Part
Speaker 1: of it felt like at the time, Okay, he's trying
Speaker 1: to return to his roots. It's like this is what
Speaker 1: you grew up in and you realized like maybe you've
Speaker 1: gone too far. Maybe it's like I'm so far into
Speaker 1: this Hollywood world, you know, I'm starting to like So
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm gonna do my best to like like
Speaker 1: anyone does, like, let me return back to what I
Speaker 1: know was the safest moment in my life, and it
Speaker 1: was Sunday Services. So it's like I gave him the
Speaker 1: benefit I am. I gave him the benefit of the
Speaker 1: doubt because it's like that's what we all do. You
Speaker 1: return home, you start praying again, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And just would I would totally believe that if it
Speaker 1: weren't for the fact that he tried to trademark the
Speaker 1: terms Sunday Services, right Like once you started doing that,
Speaker 1: you're like, huh, I wonder what's actually going on? Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: performers and attendees had to sign in d A S
Speaker 1: and adhere to a strict address code that changed every week. Um.
Speaker 1: The service featured gospel inspired remixes of classic songs from
Speaker 1: different genres, and also strike choir led gospel tunes with
Speaker 1: the occasional biblical servant, often often given by like a
Speaker 1: white guy in his thirties or sometimes Kanye Yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 1: It's probably mostly known for attracting celebrities to come and
Speaker 1: then also playing at Coachella in twenty Yeah. Well there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with Acella. So yeah, nothing, nothing ever bad.
Speaker 1: Half of that couch there, and they're just normal booking
Speaker 1: promoters that are just looking at numbers and saying these
Speaker 1: people will buy tickets. So I know, I showed this
Speaker 1: to you, Garrison Prop. Have you ever seen the movie,
Speaker 1: um Marjo, No, I have not. There's a couple of
Speaker 1: it's about the evangelical movement right at the start of
Speaker 1: the religious right okay, the fallwell days and everything, And
Speaker 1: there's a couple of moments that show an early megachurch
Speaker 1: with a majority black congregation and incredible singers and incredible
Speaker 1: music acts, and then a bunch of like old white
Speaker 1: people running things and taking all the money. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, it makes me think about that. I
Speaker 1: don't know entirely. Yeah, the the and the thing is
Speaker 1: like like I said, you know, uh obviously as a
Speaker 1: end of the show, you know, I'm familiar, you know,
Speaker 1: get the same with your your history, and even you
Speaker 1: describing your history of church is just like that, that's
Speaker 1: just not my experience. Like that wasn't the church we
Speaker 1: were in, because I was just in a whole different tradition,
Speaker 1: you know. So when you when you come across and
Speaker 1: I like, I can't stress this enough. When you come
Speaker 1: across you know, the Nashville of it all, the like
Speaker 1: the CCM of it all, like and and and these bigger,
Speaker 1: you know, suburban, mega white churches like you again you
Speaker 1: think you're saying the same thing, like you you just
Speaker 1: it's this weird like and I know one of the
Speaker 1: things for me was like and then Oscar Grant happened,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And then Mike Brown happened.
Speaker 1: And then I'm like and then you realize like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: now we're not We're not. And then that begins. Then
Speaker 1: you start questioning your own background, like dude, well like,
Speaker 1: well what did we believe? And we was kids, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And then looking at this Sunday
Speaker 1: looking at this Sunday service, I was like, yo, this
Speaker 1: is this is youth group. That's we did in youth group.
Speaker 1: You just you know, you get a good singer and
Speaker 1: they remix a Jodacy song and just praise in it.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. I'm like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: You're just singing up a pop song and you're just
Speaker 1: giving it Christian words. This isn't clever, Like you know,
Speaker 1: we've we've been doing this, you know. And and but
Speaker 1: then like like yeah, like the same thing, like once
Speaker 1: you exit that like you know that subculture, and you
Speaker 1: start like breathing the air and you're just like, oh
Speaker 1: so you so you're telling me Muslims don't have horns,
Speaker 1: and aren't you know what I'm saying, going to immediately going, well,
Speaker 1: it's not like that. It seems like it turns out
Speaker 1: there just wonderful human beings that believe beautiful things. Then
Speaker 1: you start looking back and you're going, damn, maybe I
Speaker 1: was kind of maybe I did kind of drink that
Speaker 1: cool aid, you know. But yeah, and we're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, when we're talking about how kind of the
Speaker 1: white suburban church can be sometimes saying the same words
Speaker 1: but also be very different. We'll be talking about Joel
Speaker 1: Osteen in a little bit oh yes, oh yes, yes,
Speaker 1: the smiling like I'm telling you dig like you just
Speaker 1: you just and then yeah, once you once, once the
Speaker 1: veil comes off and you realize like the way these
Speaker 1: people are talking to you. And for me, it was like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, you use the same the same words you're
Speaker 1: using about my experience, you're using about the queer community,
Speaker 1: I'm using about the trans community. And then you start going,
Speaker 1: oh shit, oh okay, oh it's on now, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Now you're like, Okay, nah, I'm cool
Speaker 1: on all this. Let me let me go, let me
Speaker 1: go to Ethiopia, you know, let me see what y'all
Speaker 1: think about this, you know. But yeah, any anyway, yeah
Speaker 1: that that that that aspect. And then I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm rambling because it's such it's so close to home.
Speaker 1: This Kanye sid is so close to home that like,
Speaker 1: you're like, because I can see how you'd fall for it,
Speaker 1: is what I'm trying to see how he'd fall for it,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of at the height of his Sunday
Speaker 1: Service stuff in because when Kanye started openly talking about
Speaker 1: his born again conversion to Christianity, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote a Fox News article quote yea, you
Speaker 1: must be born again. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian shared
Speaker 1: their Christian faith in a big way over this weekend.
Speaker 1: Adam Tyson, a pastor from southern California, told Fox News
Speaker 1: recently that he's been leading West in a Bible study
Speaker 1: for months now and would quote teach from God's Word
Speaker 1: about how salvation is only by grace alone, through faith alone,
Speaker 1: in Christ alone. Great cutting edge journalism. I also reformed
Speaker 1: Calvinist talk. Yeah, this is always interesting and I guess
Speaker 1: meaningless because they don't have to be consistent. But I
Speaker 1: can remember when Kanye said what he said about George
Speaker 1: Bush after Katrina and the degree to which Fox News
Speaker 1: treated him like a fucking ghoul, like like the incarnation
Speaker 1: of yea. Some of the cruelest and most racist ship
Speaker 1: I ever saw on Fox News was focused around that.
Speaker 1: But no, now he's now he's publicly praying, so like
Speaker 1: he's back on our side. We're all good. You know?
Speaker 1: That was that clip was It was around the time
Speaker 1: of like ring tones. It was my ring tone. I'm
Speaker 1: saying George Bush doesn't care about black people. That was
Speaker 1: my ring tone. Because of those things. Fucking somebody needed
Speaker 1: to say it. Somebody needed to say it. Somebody needed
Speaker 1: to say it, yo. And then when you see like
Speaker 1: out of y'all remember this, but George George Bush did
Speaker 1: a post like presidential interview and they asked him like,
Speaker 1: what was your like lowest point in when your president?
Speaker 1: He was like when Kanye said, didn't care about black people,
Speaker 1: Like not the multiple invasions, not the two times you
Speaker 1: invaded foreign country, none of that, none of the war crimes,
Speaker 1: none of that. Cool when you said you ain't care
Speaker 1: about black people, that is I I gotta say, though,
Speaker 1: that's also kind of because I remember when he said that,
Speaker 1: how happy everybody was, just because it was nice to
Speaker 1: see George Bush sad. But it's also kind of another
Speaker 1: harbinger of well, that's maybe too much cultural power for
Speaker 1: one man should have all that. We got there because
Speaker 1: difference I knew how to make. Yes, it definitely added
Speaker 1: to Kanye's cash a because it was like, bro, you
Speaker 1: you did it. You took down a president. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know the last rapper to takedown a president. Yes, the
Speaker 1: last rapper to takedown a president was easy. And I
Speaker 1: iced tea like it took a long time. Well, we
Speaker 1: could get somebody lay Eazy, We're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the Jerry Curl juice dripping on the White House, like
Speaker 1: that's that's eat, that's easy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And then you know with body counting cop killer from
Speaker 1: iced tea, like that was the last time anybody was
Speaker 1: able to take out a president, you know. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: you didn't you and the Annals of History, now, fam,
Speaker 1: that's what we thought at least. Yeah, So I think
Speaker 1: I think stuff like that made him think he's like
Speaker 1: he transcended blackness the same way like j thinks he has,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I think that mentality plays,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, a lot into the Messiah complex that
Speaker 1: he clearly has. Yeah. After the Kim Kardashian baptism and
Speaker 1: the Adam Tyson Bible study groups, Kanye started talking much
Speaker 1: more openly about the like the evangelical style born again
Speaker 1: conversion that he had in While at the biggest to
Speaker 1: make a church in the country based out of Houston, Texas,
Speaker 1: Kanye talked about his recent conversion to Christianity to the
Speaker 1: sixteen People President at the churches regular Sunday service, Kanye
Speaker 1: declared that he no longer cares for fame and money,
Speaker 1: but it's only in the service of God. And in
Speaker 1: conversation with the celebrity pastor Joel Osteen at the church,
Speaker 1: Kanye said, quote, the only superstar is Jesus, and I
Speaker 1: know that God has been calling me for a long
Speaker 1: time and the devil has been distracting me for the
Speaker 1: long time. Here's a pro tip. The only time you'll
Speaker 1: ever hear someone say I no longer care for money,
Speaker 1: it's because their riches God right, as they have enough
Speaker 1: of it. Yes, you have more than you could spend
Speaker 1: in a In a radio interview, Kanye into into more
Speaker 1: detail about his conversion, saying that he began reading the
Speaker 1: Bible during his hospitalization for mental health issues and started
Speaker 1: quote writing and copying out Bible verses, which is not
Speaker 1: listen ya, Like, I don't want to be just like
Speaker 1: blatantly anti Bible, but if you're in the hospital for
Speaker 1: mental issues, they should let people they should not let
Speaker 1: you access any religious text at all, Like any religious text.
Speaker 1: This is but like like this whole the story is
Speaker 1: it is standard inner city church talk, Like this is
Speaker 1: par for the course. You're like, look, dude, you know
Speaker 1: you go up and you give you give your testimony
Speaker 1: and testimony service. You know, I was listen, I was outside,
Speaker 1: I was doing all the gangs. I was with all
Speaker 1: the girls. And then one day I was high, you know,
Speaker 1: I was in nine gangs and I was and I
Speaker 1: was at a four day binger, and I just looked
Speaker 1: up and I said, God, if you could get me
Speaker 1: out of this, you know. And then over in the corner,
Speaker 1: I saw a Bible like it's it's standard, you know, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's there's so much about it that standard. Also, just
Speaker 1: to Evangela again, I brought up the whole I know,
Speaker 1: younger care about money, but every one of these rich
Speaker 1: megachurch pastors who is making hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: a year will have speeches where they're like, I don't care.
Speaker 1: The money means nothing to me. It's all for God everything,
Speaker 1: Like he's the only real star up here. Like it's
Speaker 1: it's it's all very again. If you're I think this
Speaker 1: hit people like a brick who aren't familiar having had
Speaker 1: experienced particularly like strains of Southern Christianity. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: way Kanye has been talking makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: But it's also I think that chunk of people were
Speaker 1: all flume mixed by the black Israelism stuff, which I'm
Speaker 1: guessing we're going to talk. Yeah, that that's more Northeastern
Speaker 1: Middle Yes, that the Hebrew is realized stuff. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go, So stay there a lot of thoughts. So
Speaker 1: around this time in nineteen is when Kanye announced he's
Speaker 1: no longer making secular music, which is a term I
Speaker 1: heard a lot as a kid music. Absolutely not no,
Speaker 1: no way, that's worldly man worldly. When the last time
Speaker 1: I heard the phrase worldly? Yes, ye, worldly, I'm in
Speaker 1: the world. That's right, that's right. So this led to
Speaker 1: his late twenty nineteen album Jesus Is King. It's objectively
Speaker 1: it's a good alpul um it is it's also borderline
Speaker 1: Christian diminionist in some themes. Um. The very first words
Speaker 1: in the album are God is King, we are the
Speaker 1: Soldiers um. And that song ends with the Army of
Speaker 1: God and we are the Truth um. So you know
Speaker 1: that that goes into the entire ideas about like the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of God where the soldiers. So in this idea
Speaker 1: there's there's like there's this battle between the antagonism against
Speaker 1: the godly community from the forces of spiritual darkness and
Speaker 1: you know, shout out and woo woos in there. There's
Speaker 1: for every Christian rapper of the world who had this
Speaker 1: guy make one one record and then cover everybody's charts.
Speaker 1: So now no one cares about your how you've been
Speaker 1: serving at these like you know, camp cann of cooks,
Speaker 1: you know, wrap it in these twelve year old white
Speaker 1: kids and trying to get your trying to get your
Speaker 1: albums out, and then this Kanye just cleans up your
Speaker 1: whole ste genre. He had the pretty funny song, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, closed on Sunday. You might check fil A,
Speaker 1: which I think is funny. Now that is that's actually
Speaker 1: pretty good. But the man is talented. No one's art.
Speaker 1: It's also probably sincere. That song ends with Jesus listen
Speaker 1: and obey, so like it's you know, um no, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's it's funny. It's like that. There's
Speaker 1: just there's this like with hip hop, you know, as
Speaker 1: a rapper, there's this like fine line between clever bars
Speaker 1: and dad jokes like you you you got a teeter
Speaker 1: on that and I was like, yo, you are dancing
Speaker 1: on that on that border with this one, you know,
Speaker 1: so evangelicals kind of embraced Kanye in this period. Some
Speaker 1: were obviously skeptical based on him being a black person
Speaker 1: and his in his general past, but overall a lot
Speaker 1: a lot of people were happy to have kind of
Speaker 1: to use him as a token figure almost um in
Speaker 1: a in a in a Guardian piece titled Kanye West
Speaker 1: is Spreading the Gospel of White Evangelicals, Malika Havali writes, quote,
Speaker 1: like other black conservatives, the rapper and designer downplays racism
Speaker 1: while promoting bootstrap virtue signaling while signifying Black cultural and
Speaker 1: religious traditions. His album is peppered with samples of Black
Speaker 1: church staples like James Cleveland's God Is West advances the
Speaker 1: gospel of white evangelicals. Although he has challenged convention nearly
Speaker 1: every aspect of his artistic life, Kanye West has been
Speaker 1: born again as a conservative. And that whole article is
Speaker 1: a really good piece kind of going into how how
Speaker 1: specifically he's the type of thing he's engaging with is
Speaker 1: distinct from the Black church tradition, and it's just like
Speaker 1: Joel Osteen Ship absolutely and then the Hill song of
Speaker 1: it all exactly exactly do you cover Hill? Are we
Speaker 1: gonna talk about hill Song at all. I don't have
Speaker 1: anything of hill Song in this script. The script is
Speaker 1: already too long. It might it might need to be
Speaker 1: a two parter at this point. Will probably do Hillsong
Speaker 1: on bTB at some point. Hill Song was a big
Speaker 1: part of my childhood. Yeah, is a big part of
Speaker 1: the whole fascism, Yeah, my child I really feel like
Speaker 1: I really feel like just as just secular, just just
Speaker 1: the idea of just like secular, like academia. Anybody who
Speaker 1: studies culture. I feel like the effects of something like
Speaker 1: a hill Song is always siloed into this like study
Speaker 1: of religion, you know what I mean, this is just
Speaker 1: the state, but like really the cultural societal impact global
Speaker 1: like of something like a hill Song stretches so far
Speaker 1: past just a theological or religious thing. I think. I
Speaker 1: don't think people really understand like the influence something like
Speaker 1: a hill Song would have. And just like any other thing,
Speaker 1: it's like you know, a squad in there, mess cool
Speaker 1: people there, you know what I'm saying, go on, go on,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. There's some stuff that I
Speaker 1: was just like, all right, yeah, no, y'are weird those
Speaker 1: but you know, but generally it's like I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you just be DMX went to Hillsong, New York,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Like, so this the type
Speaker 1: of influence over so much of the even just pop music.
Speaker 1: It's like you understand, like like Top you know, number
Speaker 1: of Top forty pop songs were actually written by their
Speaker 1: worship band, Like just stuff like that. Like that the
Speaker 1: effects of something like a hill song, I feel like
Speaker 1: is grossly under under reported and underrated. Another interesting note
Speaker 1: UM the University of Virginia professor Ashton Crawley wrote for
Speaker 1: MPR and saying, quote, Kanye West has used the concept
Speaker 1: of salvation to disallow thoughtful engagement with his politics. I
Speaker 1: think is an interesting sidebar to kind of everything we've
Speaker 1: talked about, especially with his with his more evangelical stuff
Speaker 1: coming directly after his Trump stuff. UM. Now, obviously I
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on inside Kanye's head, nor can
Speaker 1: I judge his sincerity of faith, but I can certainly
Speaker 1: see the business aspect of brounding yourself as basically the
Speaker 1: first like extremely mainstream Christian rap artist in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: I can totally I can see from a business perspective
Speaker 1: what happened in eighteen with his politics, I can I
Speaker 1: can see how this may have been a gamble that
Speaker 1: he took. UM. So throughout after his Sunday Service kind
Speaker 1: of era, Kanye was kind of running for president, but
Speaker 1: like not really. It mostly seems to be a publicity thing. UM.
Speaker 1: His campaign obviously did not result in him becoming naming president,
Speaker 1: but it did result in his wife divorcing him in
Speaker 1: favor of Pete Davidson. UH. The most notable aspect of
Speaker 1: his campaign is in July, at a rally in North Charleston,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, Kanye broke in into here is as he
Speaker 1: as he claimed that him and his wife had discussed
Speaker 1: abording their first child. UM. This allegedly left his wife
Speaker 1: mortified and quote deeply worried over Kanye's mental state, which
Speaker 1: eventually led to their divorce. Kanye continued and continues to
Speaker 1: focus on abortion. UM, but he continued to talk about
Speaker 1: that throughout his quote unquote campaign and in interviews UM.
Speaker 1: Later that September, he said that God revealed to him
Speaker 1: a quote the black genocide that is abortion. UM. God
Speaker 1: revealed that to him. Is this the same line? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll say this. I don't have a lot of nice
Speaker 1: things or a lot to say at all about Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 1: But one of the first thing I thought back when
Speaker 1: he got institutionalized during his mental health outbreak is like, oh,
Speaker 1: people actually care about him, Like he actually has people
Speaker 1: in his life who love him and are making him
Speaker 1: seek help. Um, which a lot of very famous people
Speaker 1: who have you know, psychotic episodes and stuff don't don't
Speaker 1: have that, right, no one around them is willing to
Speaker 1: be critical enough to be like, you need help right now.
Speaker 1: It does seem like she really tried to help. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy to think that, like like on on our
Speaker 1: like bingo card that the adult in the room was
Speaker 1: going to be Kim Kardashian. Yeah, like I her would
Speaker 1: have not predicted that, you know her, her actions in
Speaker 1: the marriage make sense to me. Yeah. So with all
Speaker 1: of that context, this finally leads us to our main
Speaker 1: topic of discussion. Haven't there yet recent actions coments leaked
Speaker 1: to white supremacy and anti semitism. So this most recent
Speaker 1: circus started at the beginning of October during Paris Fashion Week,
Speaker 1: where Kanye literally hand in hand with far right media
Speaker 1: personality Kinda's Owen's debuted his new line of T shirts
Speaker 1: while wearing a long sleeve that read white Lives Matter. Now,
Speaker 1: this is this The slogan is obviously in response to
Speaker 1: blm um, but the more formal like white Lives Matter
Speaker 1: movement is is like an explicitly neo Nazi group tied
Speaker 1: to the area in resistance society, the National Socialist movement
Speaker 1: and the loyal white knights of the Ku klux Kan.
Speaker 1: So it's like the actual group is explicitly like Nazis,
Speaker 1: but obviously the slogan is not. It's easy to come
Speaker 1: up with the slogan white Lives Matter, like it's not
Speaker 1: like that's not like where did he get that from? Like?
Speaker 1: Come on? So Kanye's promotion of the slogan was obviously
Speaker 1: celebrated by many neo fascist online celebrities. Nick Fuentez of
Speaker 1: America first forwarded the post, saying that quote anti white
Speaker 1: racism and white Lives Matter are now mainstream. This is
Speaker 1: an unambiguous win um And then A. Tucker was very
Speaker 1: quick to do a segment on his show where he
Speaker 1: wondered what the T shirt was really about. Days ago,
Speaker 1: during fashion week in Paris, West accompanied by his friend
Speaker 1: Candice Owens, unveiled a t shirt that read simply white
Speaker 1: Lives Matter. The response from the fashion industry in international
Speaker 1: media was instantaneous and uniform shock, horror, rage. There was
Speaker 1: no excuse for this, thundered The New York Times. West
Speaker 1: is legitimizing extremism, shrieked Rolling Stone, etcetera, etcetera. What was
Speaker 1: strikingly missing from the coverage, whoever, was any explanation for
Speaker 1: why West did this? What was the T shirt about?
Speaker 1: No one seemed to think to ask him, much less
Speaker 1: to listen to what he had to say. Instead, the
Speaker 1: enemies of his ideas dismissed West, as they have for years,
Speaker 1: as mentally ill, too crazy to take seriously, Look away,
Speaker 1: ignore him. He's a mental patient. There's nothing to see here.
Speaker 1: I don't know who's who's to say? Who who's to say? Really?
Speaker 1: How surprise all the all Lives Matter people weren't in
Speaker 1: such an uproar about that. Yeah, I wonder why. The
Speaker 1: next Monday, Kanye wrote on Instagram, quote, everyone knows that
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter was a scam. Now it's over your
Speaker 1: welcome out. This is this is this is right. This
Speaker 1: is like direct Candace Owen's ship in a way that
Speaker 1: will explain later. Um, but so, a few days after
Speaker 1: Kanye and models for his new Easy lineup don the
Speaker 1: White Lives Matter t shirts at Paris Fashion Week, he
Speaker 1: himself made an appearance um to quote Rolling Stone on
Speaker 1: the show Where White Lives Matter the Most, Tucker Carlson's
Speaker 1: Fox News show, Tuck across It Tonight. Honestly, solid, solid
Speaker 1: turn of phrase. Yeah, that's that's a good way to
Speaker 1: write that. Good. Thank thank you, comrade rolling Stone. So
Speaker 1: you made reference to the white Lives Matter T shirt
Speaker 1: she brought out at Paris Fashion Week? Why did you
Speaker 1: do that? And what did it mean? You know? I did?
Speaker 1: I do certain things from a feeling I like, I
Speaker 1: just I just channeled the energy. It just feels right
Speaker 1: it using a gut instinct, a connection with God and
Speaker 1: just brilliance. You know, because if you ask, like Tanya Harding,
Speaker 1: how she did the triple flip or the triple spin,
Speaker 1: she was in so much practice that when it was
Speaker 1: time for her to skate in a in a kind
Speaker 1: of competitive format, it just happened. Like it happened outside
Speaker 1: of practice, that happened in the real format. And that's
Speaker 1: what happened. That's what's happening is God is like preparing
Speaker 1: us for the real for the real battles, and we
Speaker 1: are we are in a battle with the media, like
Speaker 1: the majority of the media has a godless agenda. Oh
Speaker 1: that's brilliant. So um. In the cliff, he talks about
Speaker 1: this idea coming to him as like a feeling. Um,
Speaker 1: this is basically the same explanation that he gave for
Speaker 1: wearing the mega hat. It's like a spontaneous not instinct
Speaker 1: or feeling, the spontaneous decision you make to make model
Speaker 1: and sell over priced printed T shirts. That about like
Speaker 1: wearing a kilt. I remember for one of the records,
Speaker 1: he said he had that feeling over that he was
Speaker 1: going to do it in Chicago because he wanted to
Speaker 1: set young black man free. So he's gonna wear a
Speaker 1: cult uh. He also said when he was going to
Speaker 1: run for president that it just happened in the shower
Speaker 1: and he just started laughing and he was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna round for president. I'm gonna be the president. I
Speaker 1: don't like not believe him that these exact like come
Speaker 1: this way like exactly, Like yeah, that probably, but it's
Speaker 1: it's funny to frame the decision to like do these
Speaker 1: very planned out things as just a single, like gut
Speaker 1: gut moment of spontaneous instinct, because making and producing T
Speaker 1: shirts takes like it's like a process. And he talked
Speaker 1: about this as if he decided to do this like
Speaker 1: right before going on stage at Paris Fashion Week, which like, no,
Speaker 1: like this was like a decision that you may aid
Speaker 1: and you then took steps to execute. Um. So in
Speaker 1: then in that section of the interview, Kanye did go
Speaker 1: on to dismiss the assertion that his behavior is the
Speaker 1: result of any mental health issues. UM. Then, in a
Speaker 1: segment talking about Lizzo and body positivity, Tucker and Kanye
Speaker 1: had this exchange referencing body weight being demonic and a
Speaker 1: part of quote black genocide. It's actually clinically unhealthy and
Speaker 1: for people to owe to promote that. Um it's said
Speaker 1: it's demonic. You know what would I ask you? I've
Speaker 1: noticed this. Also, why do you think they would want
Speaker 1: to promote unhealthiness among the population. It's a genocide of
Speaker 1: the black race. They want to kill us in any
Speaker 1: way they can. Kanye then goes on to talk about
Speaker 1: like abortion also being black genocide, which he has been
Speaker 1: talking a lot about in the past few weeks. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that Lizzo clip, Like, man, it's that was like just
Speaker 1: like I mean, like I can only wait, I can
Speaker 1: only think of like vulgar phrases to describe it, where
Speaker 1: it's just like just it just kicked me and my balls, dude,
Speaker 1: like we're already on the ground. Just that's what if
Speaker 1: it's just felt like a ball stomp or it's just
Speaker 1: like you don't have to come on, man, you're a
Speaker 1: you're down bad bro, Like really, I got nothing, man,
Speaker 1: Like why are you going to I'm gonna like it's exhausting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm trying to say. It's exhausting. We just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: all of all of the coverage is exhausting and feeding
Speaker 1: and like the feeding into it as media spectacle only
Speaker 1: encourages this type of like unhealthy behavior and it does
Speaker 1: not help, Like it it doesn't help to be a
Speaker 1: regular person on social media having like strangers interact with
Speaker 1: you in a weird way, let alone, if if you're
Speaker 1: one of the most famous people in the world, Like,
Speaker 1: it's it's not it's not healthy. I'm going to quote
Speaker 1: from New Republic and this is kind of about his
Speaker 1: white Lives Matter shirt and his initial Tucker Carlson appearance
Speaker 1: quote little more than a troll, another tiresome and mediocre
Speaker 1: provocation to stir up attention by using a contrarian slogan
Speaker 1: that until now was mostly associated with far right white supremacists.
Speaker 1: West has in recent years made more waves with his
Speaker 1: efforts to trigger the Libs than he has with his
Speaker 1: music White Lives Matters. It's still gonna associated with hate groups,
Speaker 1: but he got what he sought, attention and amplification from
Speaker 1: Republicans and right wing media. West earned to sit down
Speaker 1: with Fox News on Tucker Carlson Tonight to talk about
Speaker 1: his boy Trump and the response he has received to
Speaker 1: his overall magaification. Carlson was hardly alone and celebrating West
Speaker 1: for not only rejecting Black Lives Matter, but promoting the
Speaker 1: same sense of white grievance and victimization that he has
Speaker 1: trumpeted on his Fox News program for years. The Republican
Speaker 1: House Judiciary Committee twitter account spent hours slobbering over the interview,
Speaker 1: taking a victory lap of sorts for It's a new
Speaker 1: generation of edge lords and the A tweet from the
Speaker 1: the Judiciary gop account is still up. That just reads
Speaker 1: Kanye period elon period Trump period, which my god, if
Speaker 1: that's the state of the of the Republican Party, like
Speaker 1: this your king. Yah ah. So at first, Kanye appeared
Speaker 1: to relish in the T shirt controversy, writing on Instagram
Speaker 1: that my one T shirt took all the attention. After
Speaker 1: the T shirt incident, Adidas said that they were placing
Speaker 1: its lucrative sneaker deal under review. The previous month, Kanye
Speaker 1: exited his deal with the Gap. And you know, several
Speaker 1: contemporaries of Kanye did push back on this ship that
Speaker 1: he was pulling um, including a rapper Sean Diddy Combs
Speaker 1: who Can, who condemned the design in a video on
Speaker 1: Instagram and said, don't wear the shirt, don't buy the shirt,
Speaker 1: don't play with the shirt. This is not a joke. Um.
Speaker 1: And what happened next took things to a new level
Speaker 1: of grotesqueness. West spent the next few days spewing anti
Speaker 1: Semitic vitriol online, first on on Instagram, where Kanye posted
Speaker 1: screenshots from a private message exchange between him and Combs
Speaker 1: where he suggested that Combs was being controlled by Jewish people,
Speaker 1: saying I'm gonna use you as an example to show
Speaker 1: the Jewish people that told you to call me that
Speaker 1: no one can threaten or influence me. So obviously not
Speaker 1: great playing at being influenced by yeah, yes, bye bye,
Speaker 1: like by fossil fuel billionaires essentially. Um. But yeah, obviously
Speaker 1: not playing not great, playing right into the kind of
Speaker 1: ideas that Jewish people like control into the entertainment industry
Speaker 1: and like have direct influence on what people say, you know,
Speaker 1: basic anti Semitism stuff. Um. So soon after this, his
Speaker 1: Instagram account was suspended, and then after he was locked
Speaker 1: out of his account, Kanye decided to re join Twitter
Speaker 1: dot com after a two year hiatus, and it was
Speaker 1: welcomed back by Elon Musk saying well, welcome back friend, um.
Speaker 1: Minutes minutes later, minutes after Elon's welcoming of Elon of
Speaker 1: of of minutes minutes later after after Elon's welcoming of
Speaker 1: of of Kanye West, Connie tweeted, I'm a bit sleepy tonight,
Speaker 1: which is a weird way to open this tweet. By
Speaker 1: the way, I'm a sleepy tonight, Okay, but what but
Speaker 1: when I wake up, I'm going death con three on
Speaker 1: Jewish people Jewish jew Jewish people in all caps. The
Speaker 1: funny thing is is that I can't actually be anti
Speaker 1: Semitic because black people are actually jew. Also, you guys,
Speaker 1: I don't say the whole word jey. That was a
Speaker 1: That was a TV joke. That wasn't Garrison being you
Speaker 1: guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball
Speaker 1: anyone who are whoever opposes your agenda with the follow
Speaker 1: up tweet saying who do you think created cancel culture? Which, well,
Speaker 1: that's also okay. I I do want to stop at that.
Speaker 1: That is a much deeper Nazi reference than you might guess.
Speaker 1: There's a called the Culture of Critique. There was a
Speaker 1: deep understanding among the o G Nazis back in the
Speaker 1: twenties and thirties that literary criticism that like the idea
Speaker 1: of sort of cultural criticism, that these were all Jewish
Speaker 1: plots in order to like, you know, it's actually similar
Speaker 1: to a a lot of what the rights is today in
Speaker 1: order to like make white people feel bad and shamed
Speaker 1: about their culture. Um Nazis today, there's a book called
Speaker 1: the culture of the Culture of Critique or a culture
Speaker 1: of Critique that's about the same thing. This is actually
Speaker 1: a really deep idea. And Robert, are you saying that
Speaker 1: the cultural Marxists at the Frankfurt School invented political correctness
Speaker 1: to undermine Western civilization? Now I'm saying that, yes, But
Speaker 1: I'm also saying in a deeper sense that the Jews
Speaker 1: invented the concept of feeling bad about bad things in
Speaker 1: order to make white people feel bad about conquering the world,
Speaker 1: which was the original. That's that's that's the o G ship,
Speaker 1: before we water this ship down, before before it becomes
Speaker 1: cultural Marxism, back when it's good old fashioned cultural Bolshevism. Yes, cultural,
Speaker 1: So that's the one version. Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's the
Speaker 1: that's the I don't know, iPhone, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You want you want a BlackBerry racism? Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So this is basically a lot of like textbook anti
Speaker 1: semitism um mixed in with some black Hebrew Israelite shit
Speaker 1: um about you know, being the true chosen people of God,
Speaker 1: kind of akin to like the if people listen to
Speaker 1: the show, they'll they might be familiar with like the
Speaker 1: Nazi Christian identity idea of white Christians being the real
Speaker 1: Israelites here. Yeah, it started, so we get the start
Speaker 1: of Black Israelism in the Northeast into the Midwest. I
Speaker 1: think it's Kansas and New York City are two of
Speaker 1: the big early cities in the eighteen nineties, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's number one anti Semitic from the start. An
Speaker 1: awful lot of it is based around like a hatred
Speaker 1: of Jewish people. Um, but it's also this like idea
Speaker 1: that there's x number thirteen lost tribes of Israel and
Speaker 1: then the black people are the lost tribes of Israel,
Speaker 1: and so there would be mixes of like taking actual
Speaker 1: elements of like Hebrew religious worship and uh mixing them
Speaker 1: in with kind of weirder stuff. Anyway, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: has a long history. It is concentrated. Like the part
Speaker 1: of this like if you have ever spent time in
Speaker 1: like New York, like Philly or whatever, you will run
Speaker 1: in the Black israel Lites on the street like there.
Speaker 1: It's it's a thing that you will encounter. Um. There's
Speaker 1: not a ton of them, I think most essentates like
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty thousand, but they're they're very vocal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the phrase now with like most of the Hebrew reals lights.
Speaker 1: It's like the two children in Israel are the black
Speaker 1: Latino and this so called Native American or this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's this, this idea and here's where. Here's where
Speaker 1: it gets tantalizing and complicated in I'm saying this as
Speaker 1: a black man. You know, is you open your Bible
Speaker 1: and at the back of every Bible got a map,
Speaker 1: and you're looking at it and you're going, well, is
Speaker 1: where the ship take place? Right? So you're like, well,
Speaker 1: how come y'all only teaching us about Europeans? You only
Speaker 1: talking about every painting got these white people everybody. You're
Speaker 1: just like, no, this don't this ship don't make sense,
Speaker 1: This can't be it. And then I'm getting I'm getting
Speaker 1: deep cuts here. It's like you. And then you get
Speaker 1: into the Book of Acts, where it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: the Bible, like where the Gospel spreads. And the first
Speaker 1: time they leave, the first time they leave Israel is
Speaker 1: Stephen meeting in Ethiopian, just meeting the Ethiopian Unich, and
Speaker 1: the Ethiopian goes to where where was Moses when Moses?
Speaker 1: Others back in the Exitus story, where was Moses? Where
Speaker 1: did Moses go when he fled? When he fled Egypt,
Speaker 1: he went to Midian, he went to Ethiopia. So you're like,
Speaker 1: this ship took place in Africa, right, and at the time,
Speaker 1: we you still believe like the Sinai Peninsula that's North Africa,
Speaker 1: you know, so you're like, these are brown skin people.
Speaker 1: Why is your narrative and everything you tell me about
Speaker 1: white people? So if you still believe, if you were
Speaker 1: still sort of like in all of the story and
Speaker 1: the person dilike this subversive you know, socialist, you know,
Speaker 1: anti imperialistic, ampi, anti empire character of Jesus that you
Speaker 1: know you're Arab and Muslim friends still understand as as
Speaker 1: you know, as he says like a person, then you're like, yo,
Speaker 1: we might be talking about the same man here and
Speaker 1: he was as brown as us. So and if you're
Speaker 1: like and if you're like the God, you're like, dude,
Speaker 1: the gospel with South we hit, we hit in Ethiopia.
Speaker 1: There's accident the first Christian city, like at some point
Speaker 1: you like, the ship didn't go north until four years later.
Speaker 1: So you you just draw this conclusion that like, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna box me out, my only response, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna box me out, of all of the clear history
Speaker 1: that took place among brown skinned people. Then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be like, I have no choice but to be like, well,
Speaker 1: fuck y'all, not a true Israel over here. And if
Speaker 1: you read again, if you you can't not possibly be black,
Speaker 1: and read the book of Exodus and be like, well, ship,
Speaker 1: that's us. You know what I'm saying. You can't like,
Speaker 1: how do you not see it? You know? So, so
Speaker 1: it's it's so alluring, especially again when you go to
Speaker 1: the when the white pastor talking about like, well, your
Speaker 1: poverty is your choice, and hey, well you know, and
Speaker 1: your reform Calvinist person was like, well that was the
Speaker 1: Lord's divine will. You were you know, you were divinely ordained,
Speaker 1: you know, to be suffering people. And at least at
Speaker 1: least you got the Gospel because you were a slave.
Speaker 1: Maybe God was solving. You're like, fuck that that can't
Speaker 1: possibly be to God I'm reading about in this book.
Speaker 1: You know. So you're like, Okay, well, I guess you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And then it's like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: ranting on this because I feel like like it's especially
Speaker 1: for this audience to really understand that context. You this
Speaker 1: this street in a lot of ways, like it became
Speaker 1: like this street religion. It gives these young men dignity,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. You're you're offering them a
Speaker 1: sense of history and importance and dignity and and and
Speaker 1: order that we you usually just get from the streets.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It's not happening a Sunday
Speaker 1: school because at church that's just oh black, that's just
Speaker 1: old women singing these hymns in the big hats. It's
Speaker 1: like I'm not getting that sort of like that that
Speaker 1: masculine hit, if you will, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So like this a lot of this faith, like it
Speaker 1: really it attracts young men because it's like it's like
Speaker 1: we it's like we needed that order. We needed somebody
Speaker 1: to like come and like be a little more military
Speaker 1: about us, but then tied this longer history. Because if
Speaker 1: the only history you hear about yourself is your oppression
Speaker 1: for somebody to be like, no, you've chosen people to God,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be like, well hell yeah, you know. And
Speaker 1: then again, I can't stress this enough. Part of this
Speaker 1: is in reaction to what white evangelical did by trying
Speaker 1: to erase brown people from the history. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, It's like, um, I can't. I'm like, that's
Speaker 1: clear he clearly your picture is Michael Angelo's booth thing
Speaker 1: of of that's that's an Italian man like that can't
Speaker 1: possibly be the dude in these books, you know. So
Speaker 1: you like, I mean he was, Jesus was black, Like
Speaker 1: I would like you just that's your only conclusion, and
Speaker 1: you like, and these people are saying, yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: absolutely is, and you're like, well, we'll shoot I'll rock
Speaker 1: with y'all, you know, And it's it's it's definitely unclear
Speaker 1: what the extent of Kanye's belief and stuff around black
Speaker 1: Hebrew Israelite type stuff is. He's still has a lot
Speaker 1: of the evangelical type of stuff going on and what
Speaker 1: he's saying, so he could have just picked up these
Speaker 1: type to things from cultural osmosis. We'll hear a little
Speaker 1: bit more about what he has to say about this
Speaker 1: in the next episode, but we're gonna have to I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to call it there. That's going to be
Speaker 1: a day and join us after the weekend for a
Speaker 1: special special Part two on on on the feed talking
Speaker 1: about more of the same more of the same thing,
Speaker 1: but getting slightly worse. Um And it turns out when
Speaker 1: you get kicked out Twitter, that doesn't stop you from
Speaker 1: saying bad things. You just start saying that other places.
Speaker 1: UM So anyway, Yeah, that's that. I very impressed, Garrison.
Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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