On May 8, fascist musical celebrity and rapper Kanye West (known also as Ye) released “Heil Hitler,” a single from a forthcoming album. It pays homage to the fascist German dictator whose actions facilitated the outbreak of World War II and who presided over the genocide of 6 million European Jews.
The song, released on the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, has been removed from music streaming sites such as YouTube, Spotify and SoundCloud in the face of public backlash, though dozens of AI-rendered versions still remain listenable. The social media site Reddit informed NBC that it would continue to remove “the song and any celebration of its message.” Major social media sites permitting the song include X, owned by fascist billionaire Elon Musk, and Facebook, owned by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.
West, one of the most financially successful rap music entertainers in history, has emerged as an unrestrained admirer of fascism in recent years. This process has now reached a new and repugnant low.
The “song,” with its accompanying video, is essentially a big budget equivalent of a child screaming swear words. West, who, along with everything else, is clearly mentally and emotionally unstable, begins with an introduction explaining his motivation for the song. Complaining that “these people took my kids from me, then they froze my bank account / I got so much anger in me, got no way to take it out,” he declares: “So I became a Nazi, yeah, bitch, I’m the villain.”
From this point on, the song repeats the phrase “Heil Hitler!” It breaks its monotony only occasionally by adding a swear word. Equally bizarre, the video consists of a group of black men dressed up in African tribal uniform mouthing the absurd and offensive chorus. The song ends with a clip of a speech given by Hitler himself from 1935.
The fascist right has predictably been enthralled by West’s new release. As of now, the song has been viewed at least 8 million times on X, in many cases, of course, by merely curious individuals. Videos of far-right social media trolls such as Andrew Tate playing the song in his car have also been viewed many times.
Russell Brand, a former comedian and film star, has also tweeted his support. Declaring West is “uncancellable” because he “reached such a zenith in the culture that he couldn’t be killed,” Brand then notes his admiration for the song’s “catchy hook.”
One individual (now identified as Missouri-based Proud Boy Michael Lasater) posted a video of himself and his girlfriend giving the Nazi salute to the song, along with the caption “N—-a, Heil Hitler,” and proclaiming it “the song of the summer.” The video, which went viral, resulted in the fascist being doxxed and setting up a crowdfunding page to raise $88,000 for relocation. The number “88” is a numerical code for “HH,” or “Heil Hitler.”
West, speaking about his current public persona, proclaimed incoherently in an interview this month with podcaster Piers Morgan that
there’s so many people and artists that are championing the idea of someone being able to just express who they really are, and have been able to go through the war of being attacked by the banks, being attacked, you know, by the banks—that’s the best way to put it.
West’s actions are not simply those of a diseased individual. He is foul, but he is not a fool. He has his political and ideological antennas up. His longstanding and relentless selfishness, narcissism and backwardness have now combined with toxic features of American political life, emerging from the vast social inequality, state bankruptcy and imperialist violence.
His latest song coincides more or less with the fascist “commander-in-chief” Donald Trump’s ascendancy once again to the presidency. While Trump’s “salutes” to the Nazis have been slightly more disguised, he has continued to send weapons to Netanyahu’s government as it plans to implement Israel’s “final solution” for the Palestinian people in Gaza. Trump has fought to assert his version of the “Führer principle” in government, sending masses of people without conviction to a high security concentration camp in El Salvador. He also plans to deport United States citizens while revoking the right of habeas corpus.
Trump has carried out a crackdown on student protests against Israel’s genocide, supposedly in the name of disposing of unwanted “antisemitic” views.
West’s vile outburst reveals the cynical and lying character of these claims. Trump has yet to issue a condemnation of West’s behavior. Publicly, Trump has referred to West as “a really nice guy” with a “good heart.” Trump has met with West at his resort in Florida alongside Holocaust deniers, such as Nick Fuentes.
On May 5, news outlets reported Trump had met with Proud Boys leader and January 6 coup participant Enrique Tarrio at his Mar-a-Lago resort. According to the New York Times:
Tarrio said he told Mr. Trump that he had saved his life by including him in a blanket grant of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Proud Boys are tied to a “series of racist and antisemitic incidents” such as Holocaust denial, screaming racial epithets in altercations and sporting apparel that calls for the murder of Jews.
These forces exemplify what the World Socialist Web Site has termed “the political underworld in power.” They have come to dominate the modern Republican Party.
Few news sources have commented on the rapper’s use of racial politics in his music video.
The video is an obvious homage to the film Black Panther. The superhero effort has been praised for its depiction of blacks “in positions of power.” In fact, it is as sophomoric as the rest of the flood of comic book films. In our review, the WSWS pointed out that
the use of race as the basis for evaluating a film, or any other creative work is artistically bankrupt and politically reactionary.
We added:
The pedigree for such conceptions can be found in the theory and practice of Aryan art, which flourished under the Nazis.
Indeed, it took less than a month for the film’s promoters to register their shock when Black Panther, depicting a fictional African nation shielded from the outside world and unwelcoming to foreigners, began drawing praise from white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
In West’s latest obscenity, the promotion of racialism has reached its logical conclusion, proving the latter to be what it always has been: a transmission belt for extreme right-wing conceptions.
The Socialist Equality Party is organizing the working class in the fight for socialism: the reorganization of all of economic life to serve social needs, not private profit.
Rapper Kanye West releases pro-Nazi song “Heil Hitler” – World Socialist Web Site
