Calling myself Hitler? It's art, says Kanye West

But what is art? It’s a pondery some of history’s greatest philosophical minds have conjured with for centuries if not millennia, but they might have saved themselves the bother – for Ye (formerly the rapper Kanye West, m’lud), it’s calling oneself Hitler and a Nazi!

The argument has emerged in a frankly bonkers defence West and his lawyers have launched in a case alleging antisemitic workplace discrimination brought by a pseudonymous Jewish marketing specialist. The plaintiff claims West subjected her to “antisemitic vitriol” while promoting his album Vultures 1 in 2024 and later fired her for complaining about it. The lawsuit cites text messages in which West allegedly wrote the seemingly quite unambiguous “I am a Nazi” and “welcome to the first day of working for Hitler”.

The rapper’s lawyers say West’s public persona is “intentionally provocative and thematically charged,” and that comments calling himself a “Nazi” and “Hitler” to this person were protected as part of his artistic expression.

Even more bizarrely, the case comes just a month after West apologised for years of public antisemitism in a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal. He had previously praised Hitler and sold swastika t-shirts on his website, but last month claimed his conduct stemmed from a 2002 car crash that caused severe brain damage and bipolar disorder and led to “poor judgment and reckless behaviour”.

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But now West and his team appear to have backtracked again, with his spokesman Milo Yiannopolous – the British far right commentator – when asked whether the rapper’s apology was contradicted by his lawyers’ arguments that his antisemitic speech is art, responding: “The premise of your question is faulty.”

“There is no contradiction,” said Yiannopolous. “Artistic product, even if interpreted as sympathetic to, or in support of, questionable or controversial or merely unfashionable ideology, is protected speech. The fact that Ye may or may not regret an artistic expression today does not mean that it was not an artistic expression when it was made.

“A man with 75 Grammy nominations must be permitted to make that determination for himself. I would go further. Ye does not merely produce art. He is art. His life and lifestyle, the clothes he wears, the language he uses, his means of expression and his opinions, be they political or otherwise, are all art.”

Er, yes. Best of luck persuading the judge with that!