Former MSNBC host Touré said even though Kanye West has distanced himself from politics, the damage is already done.
“I’ll listen to the albums because he’s an extraordinary music maker, so if he puts something out, I want to have least listen to it once or twice to understand what he’s doing as a musician,” Touré Neblett, who goes by just Touré, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball during an interview that aired on Thursday.
“But will I be able to continue listening to it four, five, six, ten, 20 times as a pure fan without thinking ‘and this guy loved Trump,’ because now he claims to have renounced, but you’ve already done the damage of standing beside the guy and talking about how great he is,” he continued.
Touré said he found West’s support of Trump “incredibly challenging” for fans like himself, citing rapper espoused hurtful rhetoric that was “so aggressive against the reality of being black in America.” The journalist cited Kanye’s slavery remark as a prime example.
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years … For 400 years,” West told TMZ in May. “That sounds like a choice.”
West later apologized for the way his comment made people feel, but didn’t retract it, despite further backlash.
Touré said the tipping point to the increasingly bizarre media attention surrounding Kanye was his visit to the Oval Office in October. The rapper was scheduled to meet with Trump to discuss prison reform, but he ended up going into a 10-minute profanity-laced monologue praising the president.
“To see him in the Oval Office, talking at Trump with this bizarre stream of consciousness thing that didn’t really make any sense…you know if very difficult to accept Kanye as a Trump fan and to still love Kanye,” he told Hill.TV.
A few weeks later after his White House visit, Kanye announced that he was taking a break from politics.
“My eyes are now wide open and now realize I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in,” he tweeted. “I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!!”
But Touré on Thursday argued that Kanye never really gave a reason on why he supported Trump in the first place.
“He never truly explained to us why he likes Trump and I would love to hear Kanye…or really most Trump supporters to explain in a fact and evidence-based universe why they like him” Touré told Hill.TV.
The former MSNBC host added that he has yet to have that conversation.
—Tess Bonn
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