Kanye West has sparked more controversy by donning a black KKK mask at the listening event for his joint album with Ty Dolla $ign.
via: Complex
The “rave” event, which was broken up into multiple livestreams and at one point interrupted by an apparent disturbance in the audience, featured a number of special guests and followed the recent preview of Ye and Ty’s collab project amid Art Basel festivities.
Offset, Freddie Gibbs, Lil Durk, Kodak Black, Chris Brown, and North West were among those seen (and heard) during the livestream, the general spirit of which was akin to past events of this nature from Ye, albeit with far less of an emphasis on any sort of narrative-driven stage design.
For the bulk of the event, Ye was not wearing the aforementioned hood, which is of course reminiscent of the white conical dressings of the second wave of the Ku Klux Klan (which has been argued in the past to have possibly taken the look from the capirote in Spain, dating back to the Spanish Inquisition).
At any rate, the image of a Black conical hood is not a new addition to the Ye universe. As fans know, similar imagery was used during the Yeezus era a decade ago. Specifically, the video for Yeezus single “Black Skinhead,” stylized as “BLKKK SKKKN HEAD,” features a trio of similar black hoods in the opening shot. As the Nick Knight-directed video progresses, the perspective shifts so that portions of the hood imagery are utilized as a background upon which a digital version of Ye is seen performing the track.
Of course, a lot has happened in the 10 years since Yeezus debuted. Most notably, Ye made an appearance on alt-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ in December of last year during which he praised Hitler. The interview arrived after a series of widely criticized anti-Semitic remarks from Ye, who told Jones during the appearance in question, “I see good things about Hitler, also.”
In the recently released “Vultures” track with Ty, Ye briefly referenced last year’s string of anti-Semitic comments, asking in the track’s second verse, “How I’m anti-Semitic? I just fucked a Jewish bitch.”
