Yahoo News Kanye West Faces Fresh Antisemitism Accusations
Fresh Kanye West antisemitism accusations have emerged in a BBC documentary charting the recent times of the troubled artist.
In The Trouble with KanYe, which launches tonight UK time on BBC Two and is paired with a podcast, the rapper’s former business partner Alex Klein accuses him of anti-Jewish remarks when the pair parted ways.
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Klein created West’s Stem Player for his Donda 2 album but the pair broke contact following West’s prior antisemitic remarks, according to Klein, who claims this led to West’s outburst, which is revealed in the doc.
“Kanye was very angry you know, he was saying ‘I feel like I wanna smack you’ and ‘you’re exactly like the other Jews’ – almost relishing and reveling in how offensive he could be, using these phrases hoping to hurt me,” Klein says in the documentary. “I asked him and I said ‘Do you really think Jews are working together to hold you back?’ and he said ‘Yes, yes I do but it’s not even a statement that I need to take back because look at all the energy around me right now. Without that statement, I wouldn’t become president”.
Speaking to the LA Times last year, Klein also said West “tried to call me racist when I gently told him that attacking a whole race of people wasn’t good for him or Stem.”
West, who now goes by Ye, has seen his career left in tatters following the stream of similar antisemitic tirades that have included praise for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Some have blamed him in part for an increase in antisemitic hate crimes in the U.S. and he has been condemned across the board, dropped by CAA and removed from Twitter, amongst other platforms.
In the BBC documentary, presenter Mobeen Azhar travels to Cornerstone Christian Church in California where West is known to visit. While there, he meets a man living in his car outside the church who said West had asked him to be his 2024 Presidential Election Campaign Manager. The homeless man, Mark, said that West regularly visits the church where white nationalist Nick Fuentes is known to hold political meetings. John Boyd, who ran West’s 2020 presidential campaign, also features in the documentary.
The BBC said it put the allegations to West but he didn’t respond. Deadline couldn’t reach him for comment.
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