You can’t get rid of Kanye West

Amid the hullaballoo that surrounded Charlie Kirk’s memorial service last weekend, seemingly virtually every figure associated in any way with the MAGA movement appeared – yes, even Elon Musk, who was filmed shaking hands with President Trump in one of the more unexpected rapprochements of the year. But one man who many might have expected to be present was nowhere to be seen. The rapper, producer and professional controversialist Kanye “Ye” West, who might have added a certain grim luster to the predominantly Christian music played at the memorial, was absent, and so the potential for the carefully choreographed event being thrown into chaos was avoided.

It might sound unlikely that West would ever have been invited, but a new documentary about him, In Whose Name?, features an unexpected cameo by Kirk, depicting a 2018 meeting that took place between him and Candace Owens. The brief appearance by the late activist was far from his rabble-rousing public image: he sits quietly while West and Owens talk about how difficult they find being African American figures who don’t fit into the stereotypes expected of them. Yet in the case of West, it is impossible to think of any demographic or group that he does fit into. The 48-year-old has, at various times, been described as one of the greatest musicians in the history of America, a social and cultural pioneer who outstrips virtually every other peer he has, and a self-described Nazi, Jew-hater and Holocaust-denier. Will the real Kanye West please stand up?

It is likely that West no longer has a clear idea who he is. Since he first came to prominence in the mid-2000s with The College Dropout and Late Registration, he has consistently upended expectations. He was never afraid of controversy, publicly stating in 2006 that he should have won Best Music Video for ‘Touch The Sky” because it “cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. I was jumping across canyons.” That this might have been intended as a profoundly tasteless but very funny joke seemed not to occur to anyone, and West was compelled by no-doubt-furious management to make a public apology, which he did from the typically low-key surroundings of his U2 support slot in Brisbane. Then there was a lot more controversy, and Taylor Swift, Drake and Jay-Z, to name but three, are unlikely to be on his contacts list.

In Whose Name? does not deal with the early years of Ye but instead begins in 2019. Typically, it does not have a big-name director behind it, but a (very) young filmmaker Nico Ballesteros, who was a mere 18 years old at the start of filming. He followed West around with an iPhone or a small camera, taking hundreds of hours of footage, which he edited down into the film’s 104-minute length. And, obviously, he got gold. The film follows everything from West’s unsuccessful presidential bid in 2020 to the breakdown of his marriage to Kim Kardashian, and shows everything in unsparing and grim detail. There are cameos expected (Trump, Musk, Kris Jenner) and unexpected (Anna Wintour) alike. It will make people who think that West is an underappreciated musical and satirical genius feel even more secure in their belief, and those who detest him will dislike him even more.

It is fair to say that West no longer cares what people think about him. He is a remarkably unusual figure in the entertainment industry in that he has the fuck-you money that means that he can do precisely what he likes artistically and creatively, including participating in a documentary like this. For anyone else, it would be career-ending, but for its protagonist, it’s just another day at the coalface of offense. West apparently told Ballesteros that the experience of watching the film was “Very deep. It was like being dead and looking back on my life.”

He remains the most unlikely major star living today, and whether you love or hate his work – his public statements are rather harder to defend, even from the perspective that they’re supposed to be funny – he remains captivating and profoundly unpredictable. At this point, if you told me that West would become president or end his days in a high-security jail, I would think that the two were about as likely as one another, and that, surely, is more than can be said of, say, Pharrell. Is this a good thing? Probably not. But does this offensive, often vile and contradictory figure remain a vital part of American public life? You bet.