Rapper Kanye West is reported to have paid a settlement to a former employee who claimed he used antisemitic language in the workplace.
Per documents obtained by NBC, six other people, who have either worked with the rapper or encountered him in the professional setting over the past five years, have also alleged that they’ve heard him praise Hitler or discuss conspiracy theories about Jewish people.
It is reported that three of the individuals are ex-employees or collaborators of West, who claim that the artist used antisemitic language on numerous occasions. The three others alleged that they heard West embark on an antisemitic rant during a 2018 interview at TMZ‘s headquarters.
That interview is now notorious, with it grabbing headlines last month when an ex-staffer of the publication, Van Lathan, claimed that Kanye praised Hitler and the Nazis during it. “I’ve already heard him say that [antisemitic] stuff before,” Lathan said.
He continued: “I mean, I was taken aback because that type of antisemitic talk is disgusting. But as far as him, I knew that that was in him because when came to TMZ, he said that stuff and they took it out of the interview.”
It has also been noted that the accounts of the individuals who claim to have witnessed the TMZ incident suggest that West has used this kind of language for years, with occurrences happening long before his recent antisemitic comments.
Reflecting this, in the NBC report, Ryder Ripps, a Jewish artist who worked with Kanye between 2014 and 2018, claimed that there were multiple occasions when the rapper discussed Hitler and the Nazis in a positive light, or mentioned anti-Jewish conspiracies in 2018.
Ripps also said that he challenged Ye on his comments but ultimately believed they “didn’t seem that dangerous”. However, following the latest controversy surrounding West, Ripps has revised his stance, and now deems the rapper’s words as “dangerous and disgusting and actually violent”.
He continued: “With this pattern that’s happening and with the doubling and tripling down of all this, it’s pretty obvious that this is some kind of disgusting, hate-filled, strange Nazi obsession.”
