Kanye West speaking about homophobia in 2005 proves he does speak sense sometimes
Kanye West speaking about homophobia in 2005 proves he does speak sense sometimes
You might not remember, but there was a time when Kanye West spoke with a lot of sense. Well, okay, not a lot of sense - but he could get through a sentence without launching into a self-aggrandising meltdown or sending the Twittersphere into baffled mania.
And young Kanye was always most affecting and elequent when talking about political and social issues. His best moment, perhaps, came when talking about his own experiences of homophobia at high school.
Speaking to MTV back in 2005, Ye revealed how classmates would pick on him for the way he walked, saying: "Everybody at high school would say "Hey, you a fag" [...] you see something, and you don't want to be that because it has a negative connotation. You try to separate yourself from it so much that it made me homophobic."
He also talked about how, despite hip-hop's wider role as a rebellion against racial bigotry and a celebration of the black US experience, is still a genre that discriminates against gay people.
He finishes with a plea. "That's exactly what they did to black people. I'm just trying to tell people to stop all that."
Given the tragic events of the past weekend's homophobic terror attack in Orlando, the rapper's words are louder than ever.
