Nick Cave has defended his fondness of Kanye West‘s music despite the rapper’s controversial anti-Semitic views – see what Cave had to say below.
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Last month, Cave revealed that he wanted Kanye West’s ‘I Am God’ to be played at his funeral. Just a few days later, Kanye West kicked off a sandstorm of drama and controversy, including the rapper rescinding his apology to the Jewish community for his past anti-Semitic remarks, and went on to declare himself as “a Nazi” and write “I love Hitler”, as well as selling a white T-shirt with a large swastika on the chest on his website, listed as “HH-01” – possibly a reference to the “Heil Hitler” chant.
Following the weeks of controversy cooked up by Kanye West, Nick Cave has responded to fan letters through his The Red Hand Files blog. Referencing Cave’s pick of ‘I Am God’ to be played at his funeral, a fan asked: “How the hell can you listen to the song without seeing the scum of a human being that Kanye has become?”
Nick Cave responded, first expressing that he doesn’t condone Ye’s controversial views: “A lot of time and energy has been spent explaining the evil of Nazism, the harm of antisemitism, why it is wrong to sell t-shirts emblazoned with swastikas and why it is unacceptable to coerce one’s girlfriend into standing naked on the red carpet at the Grammys. On that matter, it seems, we can all find some common ground. I agree.”
He then noted that he doesn’t believe in separating the art from the artist: “The idea of an artist being divorced from their art is absurd. An artist and their art are fundamentally intertwined because art is the essence of the artist made manifest. The artist’s work proclaims, ‘This is me. I am here. This is what I am.’ However, the great gift of art is the potential for the artist to excavate their interior chaos and transform it into something sublime. This is what Kanye does. This is what I strive to do, and this is the enterprise undertaken by all genuine artists. The remarkable utility of art lies in its audacity to transfigure our corrupted state and create something beautiful.”
Later on in the letter, Cave shared that artists are “not prisoners of our flawed nature but can transcend it” and that “in his brokenness, Kanye is an exemplar par excellence of this notion, the braided dance between sin, transcendence and genius”.
Going on to recognise that human beings “are all broken, flawed and suffering”, Cave also declared Kanye’s views as “odious and disappointing”: “As sickening as anti-Semitism is – in its sadly always-present, ever-morphing forms – I endeavour to seek beauty wherever it presents itself. In doing so, I am reluctant to invalidate the best of us in an attempt to punish the worse. I don’t think we can afford that luxury.”
Kanye West has struck more controversy apart from his recent anti-Semitic views and selling of the ill-received swastika t-shirt. The rapper on February 3 attended the Grammys with his wive Bianca Censori, who uncloaked her coat to reveal a see-through dress with her nude figure underneath. He later claimed “dominion” over his wife in a bizarre tweeting spree, which also saw him state that he thought “slavery is a choice” and voiced his support for Diddy and Chris Brown, and urged for the former to be released from prison amid sexual abuse allegations.
The spree saw his X account taken down and deactivated, and Shopify then went on to shut down West’s Yeezy website. It was later confirmed that the rapper had been dropped by his talent agency, and his former Chief Of Staff had quit the Yeezy company.
As well as his X page becoming active again, Thursday also saw Shopify state that the artist’s website was taken down due to the potential for fraud – not because it was selling a Swastika T-shirt.
In the time since the rant on social media, Ye’s ‘Vultures’ collaborator Ty Dolla $ign has condemned hate speech, Charlie Puth begged West to stop promoting “incredibly dangerous” messages, and Friends star David Schwimmer called for action to be taken against the rapper for his hate-filled “Nazi” posts, arguing that “silence is complicity”.
Elsewhere, Ye has been sued for discrimination by a former Yeezy employee, and accused of texting “Hail Hitler” to a Jewish staff member.
Prior to Cave’s selection of ‘I Am God’ as his funeral song, the musician in 2020 hailed Kanye West as “the greatest artist” on Earth. He later stated that he found West’s allegedly anti-Semitic comments “deeply disappointing” and “disgraceful”.
“For me, for him to pull out these antisemitic tropes, I think it’s, personally, disgraceful,” he said in 2022. “Does this person need to descend from such great heights down to such tedious shit we’ve heard so much so often? It’s deeply disappointing to me, and for some time it might be difficult for me personally to listen to a Kanye record, but at the same time I value the output more, on some level.”
“Ultimately, I value the output more, and I know that in time I will be able to get over that and just feel free to be able to listen to Kanye’s music again. That he won’t forever be trapped in the worst aspect of his character, and the music that he makes is a journey away from the worst aspect of his character, like all our music is.”
