In recent weeks on Twitter, rapper Kanye West has gotten himself into some controversies on social media and elsewhere.
To list a few, the rapper showed pictures of his signed Make America Great Again hat in support of Donald Trump, he's leaked text conversations from his friends without their consent, and has claimed that slavery was a choice in an interview at the TMZ offices. He's fueled the fire and started controversies. This has led some Kanye fans to wish for the "old Kanye" back, a reference to West's 2016 song, "I Love Kanye." But here's the thing: There never was an old Kanye. He's always been himself, through every controversy.
Nine years ago, Kanye had his infamous moment at the VMA's where he stormed the stage and interrupted Taylor Swift winning an award to have a moment where he said Beyonce had one of the best music videos of all time.
Thirteen years ago, Kanye claimed that George W. Bush "does not care about black people" in a nationally televised fundraiser for Hurricane Katrina.
Two years ago, Kanye West got up on stage and compared himself to the likes of Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and President Truman in a speech.
Five years ago, Kanye released a song called "I Am A God," in which... well, you get the point.
West has always been braggadocious, crazy, egotistical celebrity. Now don't get me wrong here. I love a lot of Kanye's music. "Graduation" is one of my favorite albums of all time. The man is a talented musician with 21 Grammy wins. But, I believe we let a lot of our Kanye nostalgia blind us from the fact that he's always been this way.
To pretend that Kanye has "changed" recently or become someone different is simply false nostalgia.
Maybe Kanye had different political views back in the day. Maybe Kanye didn't dive into politics so much back in the day. But Kanye has certainly remained the same person throughout the years. He's created controversy to drive interest, and I'd imagine he's doing the same here.
Before this controversy, Kanye tweeted that his new album releases on June 1st. It's not so coincidental that Kanye has come up with a way to dominate the headlines and social media just a few weeks before his album releases. How do I know that? Because he's done it before.
In 2016, before the release of his album "The Life of Pablo," Kanye asked Mark Zuckerberg to invest 1 billion dollars in him on Twitter, claiming that he was 53 million dollars in debt. Two weeks before the album came out, he got himself in a Twitter beef with Wiz Khalifa that garnered much attention.
Oh, and let's not forget this gem he deleted later on his Twitter.
It's OK to have liked Kanye in the past.
It's OK if you want to like him now.
It's fine if you just appreciate his music and not so much the person.
That's all fine.
But that "Old Kanye" that you might think you liked back in the day? He's a figment of your false nostalgia. He's always been a morally bankrupt braggadocious rapper who's made some great music. It was true back in the day, and nothing has changed.
Kanye is Kanye.
He creates controversy to get attention, he'll dive right into drama, and he'll do morally questionable things in a generally mentally unstable way quite often. 2018 Kanye is the same as any Kanye before him.
