"In March of this year, Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, announced an "open casting call" to his thirty-three million followers on X. Anyone thinking of showing up for the casting call had plenty of reasons to be wary. Previous Kanye West music videos had included one in which he and the rapper Lil Pump wear ridiculous boxy costumes and impish grins while sexually harassing a gigantic Adele Givens;"
"But anyone who was still following West in 2025 had even more acute cause for concern, as the rest of his X post made clear. The casting call had five rules. West, a shock-jock poet on social media no less than in his music, spelled them out, with line breaks and expressive capitalization: All males NO FAT PEOPLE The skin complexion of Sean Combs and darker With shaved heads OR must be willing to shave head if approved MUST BE COMFORTABLE WEARING SWASTIKAS."
Kanye West's provocative output and social-media behavior escalated into explicit endorsement of Nazi imagery and public repudiation. In March, Ye posted an open casting call to thirty-three million followers on X with rules demanding specific race, body-type exclusions, shaved heads, and willingness to wear swastikas. Previous West music videos had featured sexually explicit and surreal imagery, including boxy costumes with Lil Pump, a semi-pornographic dance transformation by Teyana Taylor, and depictions of West nude among celebrities. Ye later ran for President and praised Hitler. A documentary examines the sequence of events leading to his fall from grace.
Read at The New Yorker
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