With the release of his new album Ye, West’s support for Trump and comments about slavery have faded from some fans’ memory

Just one month after he re-affirmed his support for Trump and said slavery “was a choice”, Kanye West has released a new album. While many are discussing the quality of the record’s seven tracks, few are debating whether West should be releasing new music in the first place.

West first made his support for Donald Trump known in November 2016, 10 days after Trump won the election. He climbed atop a stage floating over San Jose’s SAP Center. Much to ticket-holders’ surprise, he spent an inordinate amount of the time between songs expressing support for the president-elect. For those shocked by the election’s outcome, West’s full-throated endorsement only compounded their frustration.

Less than two months later, the rapper arrived at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, bleached-blonde and smiling widely for a photo op with the incoming Potus. At the end of April 2018, he doubled down on that support, tweeting the president was “his brother” and that they both had “dragon energy”.

Kanye West: ye review – a candid tour of a troubled mind Read more

The optics of the public pairing proved too much to bear for some. West was endearing himself to so-called deplorables and the burgeoning alt-right at the expense of alienating a significant swath of his broad fanbase, not least African Americans. The noted public intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates framed West’s Trumpian ignorance as “dangerous” in a sweeping piece for the Atlantic that read like a fan’s eulogy. Many others agreed that Kanye was, to borrow a phrase from social media parlance, cancelled.

The release of Ye, the artist’s first new album since cozying up to Trump and other public figures on the vocal fringes of American conservatism, serves as the first true test of his listenership’s socio-political convictions. And despite the apparent online grandstanding of a vocal handful, it seems that people are unable to resist tuning in.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump And Kanye West pose for photographers in the lobby of Trump Tower Photograph: UPI / Barcroft Images

The arrival of new West material historically comes with great fanfare. Rogue video installations in urban centers preceded Yeezus, while a fashion-centric Madison Square Garden gathering for The Life Of Pablo left a lasting impression. The rollout of Ye followed that tradition. Influencers, industry insiders, and press were whisked away by private jets this Thursday to a scenic Wyoming listening event with the artist. Once Kanye was embedded with a who’s who of hip-hop, the hype machine was in full swing. The proceedings were livestreamed online with fans across the world discussing each second on Twitter and Reddit.

sean boulger (@idiots_delight) #YE is nuts. Kanye's happiest, most hopeful...and PRETTIEST album by a fucking mile. Rich, melodic production that's confidently sparse when it needs to be and goes widescreen when called for. Few brush strokes, but they're big, and bright, and have a million colors in them.

Many critics of the seven-song Ye dropped their defenses upon discovering how light the record was on political content. West drops a few nods here and there to his controversial commentary, but his superficial references to the likes of Stormy Daniels are less significant than personal songs like Wouldn’t Leave. The album artwork depicts a Jackson Hole setting scrawled with a self-deprecating one-liner about being bipolar. Not unlike Trump, West opts here to talk about mental health rather than gun control, even on the confessional I Thought About Killing You.

Zach Keali’i Murphy (@Fade_to_Zach) MY MESSY THOUGHTS UPON FIRST LISTEN OF KANYE WEST'S NEW ALBUM #YE: pic.twitter.com/GyxhxrzXpd

A full year since Kathy Griffin’s graphic Trump beheading photo reveal and mere days after Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee struggled with their own waves of internet backlash, West’s shocking TMZ appearance mere weeks ago, in which he delivered a galling gaffe about slavery having been a choice, hasn’t quite led to the sort of repercussions it arguably warranted. Despite prompting some headlines and op-eds, it never led to a proper apology, even as it abutted Spotify’s failed implementation of a hateful content policy intended to penalize the alleged abusers R Kelly and XXXtentacion. Twitter essentially buried a New York lawyer the other day for intimidating hate speech, and Drake had to issue a formal statement after authentic blackface photos of himself emerged, yet West gets off with a slap on the wrist for his MAGA sins.

Our capacity to hold people accountable for their statements has been compromised in the social media age of apology. Fatigue sets in quickly as factions dig in their heels to debate the case of a given day’s offender. Though the #MeToo movement’s laser focus on abusers has resulted in real world consequences for the likes of Mario Batali, Bill Cosby, and Harvey Weinstein, the anti-Trump #Resistance leaps between targets at an untenable pace.

Proof of West’s popularity came with the release last week of Pusha T’s latest album, Daytona. Produced by West, it’s projected to make the Billboard 200 album charts’ top 10 based on sales and streams in the US. Whether people choose to listen to West’s work in support or in spite of his behavior, it all adds to his bank account and clout.

While West could easily end up right back in the crosshairs with his next hastily tapped tweet, it’s unlikely to take him down like Roseanne’s did. Perhaps that’s because his Trump support appears superficial compared to her ceaseless crackpot conspiracy theorising. Fans have convinced themselves that West doesn’t actually espouse the same uncomfortable values as Trump’s base, but rather that he admires his fellow megalomaniac. That’s seems to be enough to keep The Ye Show renewed every season.