Kanye Said What!? The Problem With Ye’s Latest Confession

Entertainment News | Music

Content warning: Story discusses sexual contact of minors.

Chile, Kanye West continues to use the internet as his masterful playground, this time confessing that he experienced incestuous sexual trauma until he was 14 years old. The tweet dropped alongside the release of his new song and video titled, COUSINS, in anticipation for his upcoming collaborative studio album, WW3.

Alongside the song’s official video, Ye posted, “This song is called COUSINS about my cousin that’s locked up in jail for life for killing a pregnant lady a few years after I told him we wouldn’t look at dirty magazines anymore.” 

He goes on tweeting his testimony as if he was standing solo under bright stage lights, “My dad had playboy magazines but the magazines I found in the top of my moms closet were different. My name is Ye and I sucked my cousins dick till I was 14. Tweet sent”

Now, was this Ye choosing to speak a raw truth unmuted? Was it a bold break from the status quo to bring awareness to trauma that lives in the shadows of Black and hip-hop communities? Or was it yet another moment of gay-baiting, leveraging the gayes to get riled up or even stick beside him? Whatever the case may be, COUSINS and its roll-out come with layered contradictions we’re no stranger to.

Let's start here: Ye has typically used social media to detonate cultural landmines. From the music industry and his marriage to Kim K to anti-Black and antisemitic commentary, Kanye has a track record of sharing just enough truth to get people talking, then laces it with enough controversy to keep his name trending.

It seems like the Chicago rapper is taking us around yet another sharp turn now that sexuality is on the table, without giving it the care it deserves. 

We can and should hold space for Ye’s past trauma. Sexual abuse is real, and data shows a disproportionate number of LGBT+ individuals are survivors. There is nothing “too far” or “off-limits” about sharing your own story, especially if it frees you of any blocks in your day-to-day.

It’s also equally important to call out that not everyone’s coming out story in the queer community is linked to these types of situations. What we can’t get our heads wrapped around, is the way Ye pivots from trauma to trolling in just a few scrolls.

Here’s where the eyebrow raises come into play.

After opening up, Kanye went on to tweet questions about whether he could now say the slur “faggot” since people are now perceiving him as gay. He also went on to joke about how he’s officially using the rainbow emoji, how he’s “envious of how white people can make gay jokes” and claimed that gay people are the “maddest” about him possibly being gay, even referencing paying “gay dues.” 

Let’s be real: the gayes aren’t mad at Ye for being perceived as gay. Hell, if anything, we’re unbothered and focused on more pressing things, like fighting anti-LGBT+ legislation and surviving capitalism. People may be heated because he’s lowkey just making queerness a spectacle.

What is questionable in the story is that this isn’t Kanye’s first rodeo speaking on queer identity. There have been moments where he’s seemingly empathized with the gay experience; so to loosely weaponize the nuances and trauma that come with it, like wanting to normalize using the “F” word as a “straight ally” is… interesting. 

In a 2005 MTV interview with Sway, Ye bravely spoke out about how he grew up being teased for “coming off gay” and being called “faggot” from peers in high school. 

Kanye said he separated himself from “anything remotely related to the lifestyle” and became somewhat of a bully, spewing out “F” bombs left and right in order to be accepted and prove his heterosexuality to his homies. 

Ye shared this behavior went on for a while until it was revealed that a close cousin of his had come out the closet, which made the artist shift his mindset and wonder how he could harbor so much hate for a person that he had mad love for. 

At the end of that interview, Ye boldly declared that hip hop was historically seen as “the opposite of gay” and challenged hip-hop to change the narrative as the genre should and always has been rooted in truth and individuality. 

That said, the question becomes: what happened between then and now? 

This isn’t about denying Kanye’s truth. It’s the way the message has been packaged up and delivered; in pieces, wrapped up in controversy, and at the expense of the communities he’s helped bring visibility and acceptance to. 

Why, after revealing something so intimate, not just recently but throughout his career, would one want to reduce queerness to bait and use slurs described as “jokes?” 

Is this a double standard he’s trying to prove between how gayes and straights are allowed to express themselves? Is it a call for acceptance in the sexual experience masked as chaos? Or is it his typical “let’s get the people talking” propaganda that has garnered the Grammy winning artist so much attention over the years? 

Whatever it is, the road continues to be unclear and the contradictions are running stale.  Gayes what do you think about Ye’s recent comments? Share your thoughts!