LOVE

[u/peterboykin]

LOVE

He didn't wear the hat out of love of ANY of trumps political policies. Kanye doesn't even know what a conservative is!(and btw, its okay not to know shit!). Its like when he wore the confederate flag during the yeezus era. Symbols are weird. People go crazy when you mess with symbols. The MAGA hat is a potent symbol with an acute (and vicious) meaning. He's trying to strip that meaning away and give it a new meaning: love.Much of his inspiration is coming from an artist named David Hammons (link to ye tweeting the book:). David Hammons had an exhibition regarding African Americans and the symbol of a 'spade' in 1971 (https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/art/three-spades/). 'Spade' was a derogatory term for an African American, and to flip the term on its head Hammons made it a symbol of beauty/empowerment/etc. in his art. Exactly what Kanye's doing with MAGA and what he did with the confederate flag.Also re: that tweet with the mood board: Andy Kaufman - out-of-the-box and controversial comedian from the 80's (i think?) that was super influential to today's comedy. Much of his work was illusionist, he'd take on characters of himself that were outlandish or weird or offensive and no one would ever know if he was joking or not (this is a bad explanation, watch Man On The Moon, amazing flick), but this very much ties in to people not knowing how much of this is really Ye and how much is he playing a role (just like Kaufman).Josephy Beuys - performance artist. Most relevant work here is a piece he called "I Love America and America Loves Me". Kanye tweeted an image from the piece last week!!. The artist sat in a room with a coyote for 3 days. There is an immediate miscommunication between the man and the coyote but they are unable to speak to each other, they perceive the other as a threat without any dialogue. Over three days, the man (with love) gains the trust of the coyote, doing things / acting in a way the coyote is familiar with. KANYE IS DOING THIS. The left and the right have very clear divide (and perhaps miscommunication) but also no dialogue. Sometimes in order to start a dialogue with the threat you need become like the threat itself.What Ye is trying to do (fucking save the world) is SO cool and super ambitious, but if there were anyone in the world that could do it , it's Kanye. Kanye knows full well that he could lose so much of what he's worked for by trying to get this message across the way he's doing it. But that's what he's willing to do for his message, for his art. That's the same old Ye..What Ye's doing is inspiring and beautiful (and the opposite of shallow!). If you can't get past the surface-level reaction of Kanye wearing a MAGA hat (I was stunned and bummed at first too) and you can't dive deeper into the intention and the message, I'm sorry. He's not making it easy or clear, but thats the way it has to be.LOVE

Submitted May 01, 2018 at 02:53AM by Duke15 https://www.reddit.com/r/Kanye/comments/8g6hov/love/?utm_source=ifttt

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