Kanye West has recently taken the center of controversy surrounding a line taken from a song on his upcoming LP “The Life of Pablo“. The song, entitled “Famous“, features Barbadian born singer Rihanna, and a particular line in the song appears to reference Kanye’s 2009 MTV VMA controversy, in which the rapper infamously cut short Taylor Swift‘s acceptance speech for the Best Female Video Award.
The line in question reads as follows:
“I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex…I made that b****h famous”
Although it should be noted that Taylor Swift was already a successful singer/songwriter before the VMA incident, having already released 2 full length studio albums and had already sold 14 million copies worldwide; Kanye’s comment is just as politically incorrect as it is factually incorrect. The insinuation made that an already successful woman somehow owes him sexual favors because he rudely interrupted her acceptance speech for an award she had already won and in the process made her “famous” is disturbing and deeply misogynistic. News flash: a woman doesn’t need a man to be successful. And even if Kanye’s allegations are true, Taylor does not nor will she ever owe a married man with two children sexuals favors because of it.
Of course, as expected, Kanye went on another Twitter rant to attempt to justify his actions. In a series of barely intelligible tweets, West claimed that he had an hour long conversation with Swift, and that she laughed at his apparent “joke” in confidence. Sorry, Kanye, but your Napoleon complex won’t win this round. A representative for the Swift camp, Tree Paine, stated that Kanye had indeed called to notify Swift of the album track, yet instead of laughing it off, Taylor warned him of the sexist nature of the content in which the lyrics were presented in. Kanye allegedly asked Taylor to release the song from her Twitter account. Yes, you read that right. Kanye West tried to get Taylor Swift to release and promote a song that directly disrespected and degraded herself in several aspects. Does this man have no shame at all?
And just when you thought you’d had enough of Kanye’s attention seeking antics, an Instagram post created by a model who appeared onstage at the Madison Square Garden event that “Famous” premiered at claimed that Kanye refused to pay the models who allegedly posed in his “Yeezy” collection, in fact, the clothes worn on stage by several models appear to not even be selections from Kanye’s clothing line. Yikes!
Whether you think Taylor Swift’s persona or ego or music is displeasing or not, it should be universally agreed that no human being, man or woman, should be degraded for the sake of musical entertainment. That is not art. That is not what music should be about. Music should be about sharing your experiences with the world, it should be about empowerment, it should be learning from lessons taught. It should be fun. It should be serious. It should be personal. But it should never target someone with false and misogynistic accusations about things that are only brought up again to gain relevancy and provide hype for your album release. Shame on you, Kanye West. As a male who has a wife and a daughter, you should cherish and appreciate and respect every woman as you do them. Especially women who have done nothing to harm or insult you. Because, well, if you don’t love like that, blood runs cold.
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