In a new interview, Pusha T has called out fellow rapper Kanye West, saying that his antisemitic comments of late were “very disappointing”.
Over the past two months, West has faced a backlash following his highly controversial “White Lives Matter” stunt at Paris Fashion Week. In the following weeks, he got himself booted from both Instagram and Twitter for ensuing antisemitic comments posted to his social media accounts.
In one such comment, West said he didn’t believe in the term antisemitism after claiming that it’s “not factual”.
Countless celebrities, including David Schwimmer, Paul Stanley, David Draiman, Jack Antonoff and Dave Chappelle, have since come forward to speak out about West’s damaging remarks. West has now been welcomed back to Twitter and Instagram, but the scars are still healing.
Pusha T, who worked with Ye on his recent album It’s Almost Dry, described how he felt after hearing about West’s comments in a new interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“It’s definitely affected me. It’s been disappointing,” he said. “As a Black man in America, there is no room for bigotry or hate speech. So yeah. It’s been very disappointing.”
Despite his disappointment, Pusha T maintained that it was always “a very special thing” to work with West on the project.
“Creatively, Ye has meant freedom to me,” he continued. “A lot of times, people would try to get me to change certain things about my process, change certain things about me lyrically, change certain things about the content. He never has been like that. He always saw me for who I was and knew how to take it to the next level.
“We actually have a lot of the same taste, we love just barred-out rap. He would tell me things like, ‘Man, you just be the extreme version of yourself. And I’m gonna be the extreme version of myself.’”
Elsewhere, Donald Trump has called West a “seriously troubled man” in the aftermath of their recent dinner together at the former US President’s Florida residency, Mar-a-Lago.
