Kanye West Finally Says What He Means

What was your line with Kanye West? If you never listened to what he had to say in the first place, you don’t get a medal: The rapper now known as Ye really did, at one time, merit attention for making some of the most forward-thinking art of this century. (Plus he was funny, in an actually-trying-to-be way.)

But over the years he’s done plenty of things that indicate he is a fundamentally bad dude, like when he went on the radio to slut-shame his ex, or when he told Black people that they’d chosen to be enslaved. Of course, he’s faced accusations of reckless arrogance all along, but discerning whether those reflected a racist double standard—isn’t bragging American?—was never simple. For me the exit point came late and oddly. Earlier this year, Ye started publicly lambasting his ex-wife and making violent art about her new boyfriend. Actions that might have been written off as tabloid-baiting theatrics were, in the totality of Ye’s life, getting scary: He seemed to be trying to hurt others both for his own gain and for larger, almost metaphysical reasons, perhaps best described as evil.