Pariah Swap: Why Kanye West And Russia Need Each Other

-Analysis-

Kanye West came to Moscow and the Russian show business media went crazy. Russia has not had a foreign guest of such status since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine. The “Baza” Telegram channel reports that the artist’s concert will be held in Moscow on September 6, though there is still no official confirmation. Expressly for Holod, music critic and journalist Nikolay Ovchinnikov (co-author of the Telegram channel “Voice”) explains why Kanye West suits contemporary Russia so well.

You’ve probably read this on Telegram channels, but here’s a brief summary: Kanye West flew to Moscow for the Russian fashion designer and photographer Gosha Rubchinsky’s birthday party. Producer and music manager Yana Rudkovskaya hinted that the rapper is also choosing a venue in the Russian capital for a performance in the near future.

Socialite, public figure and former presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak also expressed hope that Kanye’s concert would be held in Moscow, likely in the fall. Meanwhile, scammers have already begun selling fake tickets for the show, and a huge crowd of fans gathered at the Four Seasons Hotel where the artist was staying. His arrival is the week’s main news, and here’s why.

Adidas and swastikas

But first, I must explain who Kanye West has become over the past 10 years. His last truly innovative album, Yeezus – with its abrasive sound and overloaded, passionate beat – was released in 2013. What came next is more suitable not for music news, but for society columns or the crime report.

What follows is literally the very very height of news. Kanye recorded an album (and threw a party in a New York concert hall, stupidly putting on tracks from an iPhone) and the whole world — the author of this text, too — watched it in theaters.

Kanye recorded an album and delayed its release … and again, and again. And when he finally released it, he reworked it virtually while on the air. Kanye signed a contract with Adidas and, as it later turned out, mocked the company’s employees: he insulted Jews and drew swastikas.

Kanye also got into a very public fight, then made up, then fought again with his now ex-wife Kim Kardashian. Kanye dresses his new traveling companion Bianca Censori in strange outfits, and it all looks like outright mockery and dehumanization.

Kanye supports Trump. Kanye himself wants to become president. Kanye struggles with bipolar disorder. Kanye blames a Jewish doctor (he emphasizes this) for the diagnosis. Kanye comes to right-wing podcasts, talks again about Jews, praises Hitler — and fights with Adidas.

That’s not the problem

At some point it all became an endless stream of questionable news feeds. Kanye has turned into a blend of Russian rapper Guf and hip-hop/Trap musician Pasha Technik — a hero who, while respected for his merits, has become an “enfant terrible” and uses his releases in place of psychotherapy sessions.

His life has become a performance that is awkward to watch.

The music remained in the shadows. At the same time, it can’t be said that it’s all over for Kanye. No. For example, he experimented with gospel – a bit absurd, but entertaining. He recorded an introspective and self-revelatory album, The Life of Pablo. He recorded a nervous and hectic album, Donda. He took on the mediocre artist Ty Dolla $ign as a collaborator and used him as the perfect sparring partner on the album “Vultures,” which sounds like a selection of the best things that have come out of Kanye in the past 20 years: from hip-hop with vocal samples like those on his early albums to heavy electronics like what appears on the aforementioned Yeezus.

It is no longer possible to continue to pretend that the artist is separate from his work.

There are no artists who produce equally perfect works throughout their lives. Lou Reed lost his fighting spirit in the 1990s, David Bowie tripped in the 1980s, and for the past 10 years Thom Yorke has once again been seeking a sound that suits his old man’s anguish.

It’s impossible to release great albums one after the other. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that you don’t want to talk about these albums because of the artist behind them.

Burying yourself

Ethical guidelines concerning the behavior of musicians have changed over the past 70 years. In the 1960-1970s, physical aggression, sexism and statements crossing the red line were much more acceptable. It was all condemned, but at the same time, justified by the eccentricity or creative works of the musicians. This is no longer allowed.

The hyper-popular YouTube music critic Anthony Fantano titled his “review” of Vultures “unreviewable”: not only because the album itself is (in his opinion) a nightmare, but also because it is no longer possible to continue to pretend that the artist is separate from his work.

Kanye West wants to bury himself — let’s not disturb him.

Go ahead, we think. And then we spend Sunday following along as the ghost of the rapper wanders around Moscow.

Millions of rubles 

In the winter of 2021, the director, popular theater figure Konstantin Bogomolov wrote a piece for Novaya Gazeta called “The Abduction of Europe 2.0” where he declared that “Europe is an abandoned cherry orchard left to be plundered” and that only Russia can save it. He argued that it would take “a right-wing ideology outside of radical orthodoxy, but which strictly and uncompromisingly advocates for the values of a complex world based on a complex person.”

In this sense, the war that began a year later was a special operation to save the “cherry orchard,” and Russia was the “Noah’s Ark” of traditional values.

Kanye’s arrival is like that of Tucker Carlson.

Kanye West is the ideal “complex man” who, being God (he said it himself, not me), can save us from a descent (here I’ll quote Bogomolov again) “into Bosch’s hell, where we will be met by multicultural gender-neutral devils.”

And this “complex” (controversial?) hero is quite suitable for modern Moscow — just like the birthday boy that West came to celebrate, for Rubchinsky is an equally controversial hero accused of pedophilia.

Kanye’s arrival is like that of Tucker Carlson: an American damned (partially or totally) in his homeland comes to a country, where his deeds will not be met with condemnation, but rather reverence and praise.

That is why the Russian glamour magazine Moskvichka can write enthusiastically about West’s arrival, and the official press follow his every sneeze. Having spent millions of rubles on hatred of the West and the memory of military victories, people are now ready to follow with delight every move of a U.S. citizen who has repeatedly praised Hitler.