Ryan: Kanye West and the Great Society

October 10, 2019

Graphic by Alexander Somoskey.

Kevin is an award-winning writer who focuses on long-form literary nonfiction and investigative reporting.

Donald Trump has been name-dropped by nearly every major rapper of the last 30 years, starting with a reference by Beastie Boys on their iconic album Paul's Boutique, the Sgt. Pepper of hip-hop.

He's been mentioned by Jay Z. Ludacris. Young Thug. Nelly. Kendrick Lamar. Juicy J. Rick Ross. Eminem. Big Sean. A Tribe Called Quest. Scarface. Lil Wayne. The Coup. Master P. Ice Cube. Mos Def. Raekwon, Ol' Dirty Bastard, and various other Wu-Tang Clan affiliates. R. Kelly. Pete Rock. Nas. E-40.

And don't forget this surreal moment in our nation's history.

Then-candidate Trump on SNL ... dancing to a Drake parody.(Screenshot from YouTube)

When Bun B referred to Trump on the Chopped-n-Screwed anthem "Pocket Full of Stones," he was keeping with a tradition of rappers admiring Trump. This only changed a few years ago.

But then there's Kanye West, who proudly donned the red MAGA hat after discovering Candace Owens and being called "a jackass" by our nation's first black President. Then Kanye was hugging President Trump in the Oval Office? While wearing a Make America Great Again hat, supposed symbol of white supremacy, Nazism, hate, evil?

(Screenshot from YouTube)

People flipped. Everyone did. Longtime critics suddenly — and bizarrely — embraced Kanye as an ally, while longtime defenders disowned him, abandoned him like nail clippings, often mocking his struggles with mental illness and labeling him, if you can believe it, a white supremacist.

Then, in a moment that changed music history, Kanye released the single "Ye vs. the People."

Ye vs. the People (starring TI as the People)www.youtube.com

In it, he challenges what he sees as the unspoken rule that black Americans have to vote Democrat. He had hinted at the idea on his track "Black Skinhead," from the hauntingly gorgeous album Yeezus, but now he was addressing it head-on, with the passion of a man going to Confession for the first time in a decade.

Why should black folks have to abide by any set of cultural or political or artistic guidelines to begin with? And, he argues, the pressure to adhere to this longheld framework is itself undergirded by a subtle and cleverly masked racism, imposed by a group of people who portray themselves as the champions of race and enemies of white supremacy and destroyers of dumb yokel rednecks with their Rebel flags and monster trucks and fully-automatic AR-15 assault weapons. All of which, it turns out, is some next-level projection.

Kanye also confronts the presence of these expectations and stereotypes in hip-hop. The idea that rappers must invoke a negative persona in order to succeed. And the moment they deviate from that image they are rebuked or ignored, even though the persona is damaging to the black community as a whole. Which is especially ironic given that the people who voice the most outrage tend to be highly privileged, supposedly progressive white folks who love to rant about white privilege and black oppression.

Is it better if I rap about crack? 'Cause it's cultural?
Or how about I'ma shoot you? or f**k your b***h?
Or how about all this Gucci, 'cause I'm f****n' rich?

Best of all, Kanye has answers. And they differ from the erudite solutions offered by, say, A Tribe Called Quest, who, like Kanye, have modeled a healthy, positive image of blackness for the black community.

A central theme within "Ye vs. The People" is empathy as power, rebellion, freedom.

Make America Great Again had a negative perception
I took it, wore it, rocked it, gave it a new direction
Added empathy, care and love and affection
And y'all simply questionin' my methods.

This concept is an extension of the powerful devotion to positive energy that Kanye adopted around that time, a purview he has cultivated into a wild new form of electronic gospel.

But his personal transformation was tough.

That [MAGA] hat stayed in my closet like 'bout a year and a half
Then one day I was like, "F**k it, I'ma do me"
I was in the sunken place and then I found the new me.

This is a struggle that many Americans undergo. Researchers call it the spiral of silence. The idea that the news media and social media present biased opinions as though they are fact, and when the message conflicts with a person's opinions or values, they feel isolated, alone.

Kanye and T.I. during the making of "Ye vs. the People"(Screenshot from YouTube)

As Kanye raps in "Ye vs. the People"

A lot of people agree with me but they're too scared to speak up.

Because we have an incredible ability to sense public opinion. So when we suspect that we hold a belief that rails against acceptable thought, we tend to keep quiet about it. That silence makes the opinion seem even more taboo, resulting in a more widespread silence.

In reality, many of these supposedly taboo opinions are not only popular, they are normal and practical and logical. Healthy, even. And the real danger is in demonizing them. But too many people are afraid they'll be ostracized for expressing their beliefs.

Like how — despite what we've been led to believe — most Americans cannot stand political correctness.

But the small minority of people who champion it are powerful and loud. They're like that cardboard city in North Korea, just visible enough from the border to make it seem like a thriving community. They're the Wicked Witch of the West, or Iago from Othello, or Plankton from Spongebob Squarepants.

So far, they have been successful. Although "success" by their metric is anarchic and primal, all destruction and loudness and people nervous to speak their mind. And the cost of rebellion can be devastating.

By the time Kanye West wrote "Yay versus the People," he had gotten sick of this power dynamic. So he broke the spiral of silence."

*

In the words of German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Whoever has language has the world."

Humans alone have it.

But in order for us to know freedom in our world, our language has to be public, shared, active. Because each of us thrives constantly with language, a stream of it always in our mind. Aristotle defined "thought" as the infinite dialogue between the soul and itself. Conversation is the exchange of thought between people. When we converse, we simultaneously release our infinite dialogue and accept the other person's. By speaking, we shape the world and free ourselves.

*

Another way to say it is that Donald Trump might have inspired the song that could very well signify the end of Hip-Hop, which is not only the most popular genre of our zeitgeist, it's the most popular, and successful, form of musicin American history, which is the most important era of musical history.

If the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, and Drake literally outpaces the Beatles, then, well, you get the point God forgive me. And Kanye is bigger than Drake. So who better to have the final word on the capacities of Hip-Hop than Kanye West?

Nobody.

Every genre must come to a close. There's a reason why people aren't eagerly awaiting the next great disco album, or flocking to arenas to hear the newest bluegrass superstar, or asking to get their hair done like the latest syringe-armed guitarist of Guns N Roses.

(Screenshot from Instagram)

The great era of Rock 'N' Roll ended roughly about the time Radiohead traded their guitars and drums for synthesizers and sequencers, not long after Kurt Cobain took an insane amount of heroin and cradled a shotgun in his guesthouse, only to be discovered several days later by an electrician. Even worse, Nickelback soiled Cobain's legacy with godawful anthems, and who have their own weird and contradictory and hilarious connection to President Trump.

These days, Rock N' Roll lives mostly via nostalgia, as evinced by the explosion of cover bands. Notice how you don't see any hip-hop cover bands. You will, someday. But, for now, Hip-Hop reigns supreme. And Kanye is the King.

The brilliant Nina Simone once told a reporter that "An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times."

Because music accords itself to the gravity and creative truth of the era. And currently we entrust hip-hop with this complicated maneuver.

But the past year, Kanye has been crafting a new sound through his Sunday services, weekly jam sessions with acoustic musicians and a choir and everyone dressed in white, praying through song, herding us into a better place, looking above for guidance. If it's anything like his track "Ultralight Beam," it will bring calm to our divided culture.

Mark my words: The resultant album will usher in an entirely new era, a magical flash in human history.

So far, hip-hop has been the defiant child of R&B and Electronica, the grandchild of Spoken Word and Steve Reich Minimalism, with tinges of Punk. Not for much longer. Kanye will see to that. And, weirdly, President Trump has helped inspire this transformation.

Meaning, Donald Trump will have had a hand in reinventing music as a whole, in spreading a movement of positive reformation. Love him or hate him, it does not matter. What other politician can make that claim?

There's an optimism to this that Dave Chappelle captured in his now-infamous Saturday Night Live monologue, just days after Trump was elected, asking Americans to at least give the man a chance. And again in his special "Equanimity," when he said

I swear no matter how bad it gets, you're my countrymen, and I know for a fact that I'm determined to work shit out with y'all.

In a moment of now-tired irony, the usual suspects heaped a barrage of hate at Chappelle for these remarks. But their outrage does not matter, in the grand scheme of things. Because it is an incredible time to be alive. It's beautiful. We should never forget that, no matter how petty or outrageous daily life gets.

At the moment, we are a country that is — everywhere, secretly — hurting. But we are Americans. Together. This is America. And, every day, God delights in our greatness and our empathy and our endless gift for love. So open your heart and listen. Say what you need to say.

New installments of this series come out every Monday and Thursday. Check out my Twitter or email me at kryan@mercurystudios.com

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Could China OWN our National Parks?

Jonathan Newton / Contributor | Getty Images

The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

EXPOSED: Why the left’s trans agenda just CRASHED at SCOTUS

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

You never know what you’re going to get with the U.S. Supreme Court these days.

For all of the Left’s insane panic over having six supposedly conservative justices on the court, the decisions have been much more of a mixed bag. But thank God – sincerely – there was a seismic win for common sense at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It’s a win for American children, parents, and for truth itself.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s state ban on irreversible transgender procedures for minors.

The mostly conservative justices stood tall in this case, while Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson predictably dissented. This isn’t just Tennessee’s victory – 20 other red states that have similar bans can now breathe easier, knowing they can protect vulnerable children from these sick, experimental, life-altering procedures.

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying Tennessee’s law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. It’s rooted in a very simple truth that common sense Americans get: kids cannot consent to permanent damage. The science backs this up – Norway, Finland, and the UK have all sounded alarms about the lack of evidence for so-called “gender-affirming care.” The Trump administration’s recent HHS report shredded the activist claims that these treatments help kids’ mental health. Nothing about this is “healthcare.” It is absolute harm.

The Left, the ACLU, and the Biden DOJ screamed “discrimination” and tried to twist the Constitution to force this radical ideology on our kids.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court saw through it this time. In her concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett nailed it: gender identity is not some fixed, immutable trait like race or sex. Detransitioners are speaking out, regretting the surgeries and hormones they were rushed into as teens. WPATH – the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the supposed experts on this, knew that kids cannot fully grasp this decision, and their own leaked documents prove that they knew it. But they pushed operations and treatments on kids anyway.

This decision is about protecting the innocent from a dangerous ideology that denies biology and reality. Tennessee’s Attorney General calls this a “landmark victory in defense of America’s children.” He’s right. This time at least, the Supreme Court refused to let judicial activism steal our kids’ futures. Now every state needs to follow Tennessee’s lead on this, and maybe the tide will continue to turn.

Insider alert: Glenn’s audience EXPOSES the riots’ dark truth

Barbara Davidson / Contributor | Getty Images

Glenn asked for YOUR take on the Los Angeles anti-ICE riots, and YOU responded with a thunderous verdict. Your answers to our recent Glennbeck.com poll cut through the establishment’s haze, revealing a profound skepticism of their narrative.

The results are undeniable: 98% of you believe taxpayer-funded NGOs are bankrolling these riots, a bold rejection of the claim that these are grassroots protests. Meanwhile, 99% dismiss the mainstream media’s coverage as woefully inadequate—can the official story survive such resounding doubt? And 99% of you view the involvement of socialist and Islamist groups as a growing threat to national security, signaling alarm at what Glenn calls a coordinated “Color Revolution” lurking beneath the surface.

You also stand firmly with decisive action: 99% support President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to quell the chaos. These numbers defy the elite’s tired excuses and reflect a demand for truth and accountability. Are your tax dollars being weaponized to destabilize America? You’ve answered with conviction.

Your voice sends a powerful message to those who dismiss the unrest as mere “protests.” You spoke, and Glenn listened. Keep shaping the conversation at Glennbeck.com.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

EXPOSED: Your tax dollars FUND Marxist riots in LA

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

Protesters wore Che shirts, waved foreign flags, and chanted Marxist slogans — but corporate media still peddles the ‘spontaneous outrage’ narrative.

I sat in front of the television this weekend, watching the glittering spectacle of corporate media do what it does best: tell me not to believe my lying eyes.

According to the polished news anchors, what I was witnessing in Los Angeles was “mostly peaceful protests.” They said it with all the earnest gravitas of someone reading a bedtime story, while behind them the streets looked like a deleted scene from “Mad Max.” Federal agents dodged concrete slabs as if it were an Olympic sport. A man in a Che Guevara crop top tried to set a police car on fire. Dumpster fires lit the night sky like some sort of postapocalyptic luau.

If you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.

But sure, it was peaceful. Tear gas clouds and Molotov cocktails are apparently the incense and candles of this new civic religion.

The media expects us to play along — to nod solemnly while cities burn and to call it “activism.”

Let’s call this what it is: delusion.

Another ‘peaceful’ riot

If the Titanic “mostly floated” and the Hindenburg “mostly flew,” then yes, the latest L.A. riots are “mostly peaceful.” But history tends to care about those tiny details at the end — like icebergs and explosions.

The coverage was full of phrases like “spontaneous,” “grassroots,” and “organic,” as if these protests materialized from thin air. But many of the signs and banners looked like they’d been run off at ComradesKinkos.com — crisp print jobs with slogans promoting socialism, communism, and various anti-American regimes. Palestinian flags waved beside banners from Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, and El Salvador. It was like someone looted a United Nations souvenir shop and turned it into a revolution starter pack.

And guess who funded it? You did.

According to at least one report, much of this so-called spontaneous rage fest was paid for with your tax dollars. Tens of millions of dollars from the Biden administration ensured your paycheck funded Trotsky cosplayers chucking firebombs at local coffee shops.

The same aging radicals from the 1970s — now armed with tenure, pensions, and book deals — are cheering from the sidelines, waxing poetic about how burning a squad car is “liberation.” These are the same folks who once wore tie-dye and flew to help guerrilla fighters and now applaud chaos under the banner of “progress.”

This is not progress. It is not protest. It’s certainly not justice or peace.

It’s an attempt to dismantle the American system — and if you dare say that out loud, you’re labeled a bigot, a fascist, or, worst of all, someone who notices reality.

And what sparked this taxpayer-funded riot? Enforcement against illegal immigrants — many of whom, according to official arrest records, are repeat violent offenders. These are not the “dreamers” or the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. These are criminals with long, violent rap sheets — allowed to remain free by a broken system that prioritizes ideology over public safety.

Photo by Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg | Getty Images

This is what people are rioting over — not the mistreatment of the innocent, but the arrest of the guilty. And in California, that’s apparently a cause for outrage.

The average American, according to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, is supposed to worry they’ll be next. But unless you’re in the habit of assaulting people, smuggling, or firing guns into people’s homes, you probably don’t have much to fear.

Still, if you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.

The left has lost it

This is what happens when a culture loses its grip on reality. We begin to call arson “art,” lawlessness “liberation,” and criminals “community members.” We burn the good and excuse the evil — all while the media insists it’s just “vibes.”

But it’s not just vibes. It’s violence, paid for by you, endorsed by your elected officials, and whitewashed by newsrooms with more concern for hair and lighting than for truth.

This isn’t activism. This is anarchism. And Democratic politicians are fueling the flame.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.