Kanye West is not an icon; he’s a creep
If anyone else did this, it would be harassment
Kanye West is 44 years old.
In itself, that’s an unremarkable fact. He’s been a stalwart of mainstream music for 18 years, picking up 272 career awards without ever straying from the limelight.
But the paradoxical tragedy of Kanye West is that what makes him a generational talent is also his biggest flaw. His immense passion for anything he sets his mind to can, and has, manifested itself as bizarre psychosis.
During a surreal trip to the Oval Office, West’s chaotic and long-winded rants on the merits of hydrogen planes made President Trump look erudite, and more worryingly - normal.
There is no greater evidence of West’s marital zeal than his own Instagram page, which is filled with screenshots besieging his wife’s new boyfriend Pete Davidson with abuse. In the last month, Ye has posted and deleted a litany of images, almost all of them relating to the comedian, who is 16 years his junior.
This includes a text message purportedly from Davidson, which includes such vitriolic and rage-provoking lines as ‘I’d never get in the way of your children’ and ‘I do hope one day I can meet them and we can all be friends.’
In uglier scenes West dragged his four children into the argument by accusing their mother Kim Kardashian of ‘kidnapping’ daughter Chicago.
Ignoring his estranged wife’s requests for privacy, the billionaire musician told her, invariably via a capitalised Instagram post, ‘West was your biggest W.’
Back in the real world and away from the celebrity echo chamber, Kanye’s incessant stream of ego-fuelled ultra-maniacal wailing would be tantamount to harassment. But then again, how can we expect a man who claimed his ‘greatest pain in life’ was not seeing himself perform to list humility and restraint as attributes.
The Yeezy founder’s view on inappropriate conduct has changed more times than the Donda release date, and formed the basis of a baseless argument that the #MeToo movement was ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four mind control.’
Yet he was forced to clarify, a day after being booed at last month’s Super Bowl 56, that he did not condone ‘anything physical’ that happened to ‘Skete’ Davidson. West characteristically leaked messages from Kardashian in which she accused him of ‘creating a dangerous and scary environment.’
‘This is scary and it doesn’t have to be.’
The uncomfortable truth for the rapper’s millions of fans is that if the man behind the abuse was anyone other than Kanye West, the same internet crowds backing the musician would have thrown him to the wolves.
Despite the abuse’s targets’ public notoriety, West’s mixture of Marvel-style poster mock-ups, torrents of name-calling and Trump-style nicknames (taking to calling Pete by the name ‘Skete’) is merely embarrassing himself, and reminding us all as to why Kim Kardashian was right to get away - and take their children with her.
Every ludicrous post has come from behind the crumbling façade that West’s only crime is ‘loving his family.’ So much so, he packed an SUV full of roses and parked it across the road at Kim Kardashian’s house.
Yet the musician has had no problem moving on from Kim Kardashian. One can only wonder what new girlfriend Cheney Jones thinks of her partner’s wandering eye. Maybe she doesn’t care. Maybe this is all a promotional trick for ‘Donda 2,’ which is only available on his own $200 ‘Stem Player.’
Or maybe someone needs to explain to him why his chances of a decent divorce settlement and custody deal decline with every ridiculous post, leak and accusation.
The fact that nobody in the rapper’s close circle has staged any form of intervention, or at least taken action to prevent Ye’s capitalised and ubiquitous ramblings means he’s either surrounded by yes men, or surrounded by no one at all. At this point, neither would be surprising.
Kanye West is 44 years old.
If he really cares about his family it’s time he acted like it.