Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, has been directing abusive and inappropriate behavior at his ex-wife Kim Kardashian and her new partner Pete Davidson.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

You don't have to be obsessed with pop culture to know that something is going on with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West. Recently divorced from the reality show star and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian, just yesterday, he was banned from performing at the upcoming Grammy Awards. Before that, he was suspended from Instagram for a day after making racist comments directed at "The Daily Show" host and upcoming Grammys host Trevor Noah after Noah raised concerns about Ye's conduct. That conduct includes relentlessly trolling his former wife and her current beau, the comedian Pete Davidson, and releasing a disturbing music video that shows a Claymation figure with a remarkable resemblance to Ye kidnapping and gruesomely dismembering a Claymation figure that bears a remarkable resemblance to Davidson. All of this Ye has claimed in an effort to win back his former wife and reunite their family.

You might say, why talk about this? They're celebrities. It's all part of the show. What does it have to do with anybody else? Well, one reason is that all three have a remarkably large cultural footprint. Kardashian has an astonishing 290 million followers on Instagram, who have watched her through her reality show days and now support her booming makeup and clothing businesses. Ye has worked with and influenced a generation of artists in music, architecture, video and fashion, not to mention his 30 million Twitter followers. But Ye also has a history of erratic behavior, which he and family members have openly attributed to mental illness. And Davidson, a cast member on "Saturday Night Live," has gained a following of his own because of his comedy and also because of his openness about his own mental health challenges and his efforts to address them.

So what does this mean? This is all playing out in the open, on social media, in artistic works and, apparently, in real life. We called Aisha Harris of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour to ask her to help us consider how to think about this. Aisha, hi. Thanks so much for taking this on.

AISHA HARRIS, BYLINE: Thank you. It's great to be here.

MARTIN: So I get the feeling that this is something that critics, people who write about and talk about culture for a living, have been struggling with. Would that be accurate? And I'm not talking here about people who capture people's worst moments for, you know, just because that's what they do. I mean people who write seriously about music and art, who normally write about whatever an artist of this stature does. So is my feeling about this correct, that people are struggling with this? And why is that?

HARRIS: Oh, yeah. I mean, where do you even begin? (Laughter) It's like, as you already said, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are two of the most influential people of the last 20 years. Kanye, obviously, he is an artist who has been acclaimed for most of his career, has gotten all the accolades, won Grammys. People love him. He's been declared a genius by any number of prominent critics. And then when you have this sort of decline, both in his public persona and also in, some would argue, his music, there's this weird conundrum that they're facing in terms of like, how do we separate the art from the artist? It's like that age-old question, right?

And then with Kim, it's like she is someone who has been criticized. She's not really someone who we consider to have a sort of talent of any sort, unless, like, being a businessperson or a salesperson is considered a talent. And so she hasn't always had a lot of public goodwill in terms of the way she's appropriated other cultures, the fact that she's had a very, some would say, negative impact on beauty standards over the last 15, 20 years. And so it's hard to feel bad for her, or some would say it would be hard to feel bad for her when this is all happening. And so those are the sort of problems and issues that are arising when we talk about both of these people.

MARTIN: That is something that Trevor Noah spoke to. Let me just play a little bit of what he said. This was a nearly 10-minute monologue the other night on his show. I'll just play a little bit.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH")

TREVOR NOAH: Two things can be true. Kim likes publicity. Kim is also being harassed. What she's going through is terrifying to watch, and it shines a spotlight on what so many women go through when they choose to leave. One of the most powerful, one of the richest women in the world - unable to get her ex to stop texting her, to stop chasing after her.

MARTIN: So two points that he made here - one, in any other context other than Hollywood, people would see this as harassment. And he also made the point that people can look at this and take clues about what is considered acceptable. What do you think?

HARRIS: Well, I definitely think that it's true that we can see this pattern of what's happening to Kim Kardashian happens to women all the time. And I hope that we can sort of take the lesson that this is not just an isolated case. This is something that happens to women every day. And, yes, it's important to pay attention to this happening to Kim Kardashian, but it's also something that needs to trickle down into reality and into the real world for the rest of the women who don't have those resources and don't have that power.

MARTIN: So the argument - just looking at this from another vantage point, the argument that Ye's supporters have made - like, you saw this in comments posted to that disturbing video we mentioned earlier for that single, "Eazy" - is that this is art. And therefore, it's all performance art, and therefore, it's off-limits to critique on other-than-artistic terms. Now, this is something that - here's Trevor Noah again from that monologue. He spoke about this.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH")

NOAH: I do understand that art can be therapy, but I also understand that therapy can be therapy. And what's weird about the situation is Kanye West has told us that he struggles with his mental health. So I get it. You want to have art as therapy. But here's what's weird that Kanye doesn't understand is, like, what we're seeing, it makes you uncomfortable. With Kanye, we don't know how to feel. We don't know how to worry. And I think Kanye doesn't seem to understand that he goes, leave me to create my art. Yeah, but, Kanye, you told us you have problems. Now when we worry about that, you say we shouldn't worry because it's not problems. Or it is problems. Which is it?

MARTIN: You know, he said a lot there - so engaging both the question of Kanye has disclosed and others close to him have disclosed that he does have mental health issues, but other people have mental health issues and don't harass people, right? So - gosh, I - really, I just have to throw it back to you and say, what do you think? - because I'm really - I'm kind of wondering, does the audience have some role in this? And if so, what is it?

HARRIS: Yeah. I mean, the thing about it is that Kanye, from the beginning of his career, has made himself part of the art. He's not Banksy. He's not like a performance artist who you only know who he is based on his voice; you don't know his personality. Like, that's not him. And if you listen to the lyrics in "Eazy," a lot of those lyrics are actually reflecting things that he's said on social media and in interviews. He mentions, you know, no more counseling. I don't negotiate with therapists. He's been open about not taking the medications that he's been prescribed. And so when that's happening and it's all coming together in the art, you can't just say you have to separate the art from the artist because it's playing out right in front of us.

MARTIN: Aisha Harris is a host on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, and she's currently at work on a book of essays titled "Wannabe: Figuring Out A Life Through Pop Culture." Aisha Harris, thank you so much for talking with us about this.

HARRIS: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF VINCE STAPLES SONG, "GET PAID (FEAT. DESI MO)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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