Put It Back On
Ye's 'Heil Hitler' forces you to lean in and really listen to what's going on, despite calls for blanket banning
“…We can certainly decide not to engage with music that glorifies the Third Reich, as this track obviously does. But observing this sort of cultural boycott is not the same as arguing that such music can’t be compelling—on the contrary, if a song like ‘Heil Hitler’ weren’t in some way compelling, there would be no urgent argument to ignore it….” — “Kanye Gave Twitter an Exclusive Hit Single” by Kelefa Sanneh, May 15, 2025, The New Yorker
THE CONTROVERSY
Ye’s done it again.
His two-minute, 43-second single manages to offend just about everybody, from blacks to Jews to audiophiles waiting for a Clapton solo.
Predictably, the same people — right-wing conservative Trumpers — preaching free speech during the Biden era are now calling for blanket censorship, right along with the liberal party fronted by fact-checking Big Tech…a cause both sides can stupidly get behind.
Kanye West has a knack for grabbing your attention, good or bad. He humiliated Taylor Swift mid-VMA speech in 2009, declared that President George W. Bush hated black people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, begged Jay-Z not to have him killed (“…’cause y’all been lied to…”) at one of his concerts in Sacramento nine years ago in a rant against the elites before walking off the stage.
Recently, it seems he’s intentionally trying to torch his career with the kind of shock value that can get you committed (again) or arrested, taking disturbing the peace to a whole other Ye level.
But the man sells records, and his music, yes music, speaks for itself, paying tribute to the improvisational feel and hustle of the best jazz, R&B blues, and rap (urban storytelling).
The social media uproar surrounding “Heil Hitler” didn’t quite match the actual song in my experience. The song, as Joe Rogan noted on one of his podcasts, is quite catchy…quite deceptive.
Unlike most of the dance tracks coming out of the k-pop/EDM rave scene, “Heil Hitler” — for all its taboo buzz words — steers far from the boring, lazy four-on-the floor rhythm that serves more as background noise to fucking than actual music with lyrics, a chorus, a beautiful, thoughtful bridge stringing all those pearls together.
Nevertheless, I had no intention of paying attention to the noise — until Ye’s defiant, brave, honest and true and funny May 5th X post:
“I’m being told there’s an issue with me performing Heil Hitler
I am doing Heil Hitler at all my shows”
Then, I checked all the listening platforms to hear what the fuss was about.
Where’s the goddamned song??
I couldn’t find “Heil Hitler” in any of the usual spots, not YouTube, Spotify, or Apple…just a lot of offended netizens railing against Ye for having the audacity to use bad words in public.
Predictably, Jewish groups demanded immediate censorship for his stepping out of line by daring to include such blatant, anti-semitic outbursts in a pleasant-enough cry for help.
All this controversy over words, taken out of context, with a song title other artists have composed and performed way before Ye.
Their over-the-top reaction took me back to an unprecedented pandemic, where Big Gov./Big Pharma/Big Tech/Big Media ganged up en masse against dissidents and cynics just asking questions about a novel coronavirus that they insisted sprung out of an open wet market near Wuhan.
I left WordPress and Medium, where I had several thousand readers, because of that censorship. I couldn’t even write about my personal experiences with vaccines and the cold/flu season in relation to the COVID scare, and my opinion about it all. That went against everything within me as a reporter, trained to research thoroughly and give voice to both sides, meeting somewhere in the middle — impartially.
So when I saw everybody going up against Ye over one song, I knew I had to take a listen. Luckily, people (who didn’t buy into the narrative) kept posting the video in one form or another on their X accounts. You can find more pirated versions up on YouTube now before the censors get at them.
But don’t be surprised to find the ones I posted here flagged.
WORDS & CONTEXT
“Heil Hitler” should’ve been retitled, “Nigga, Heil Hitler,” to be more accurate. I mean, if you’re gonna go there, go there.
Ye put taboo words none of us can say anymore on his latest, hit track, which is gaining steam all over the world, in spite of schoolmarms clutching their pearls.
Not only did Ye make the chorus with arguably two of the most offensive terms in the human dictionary — “Nigga” and “Heil Hitler” — but he made that chorus sound as catchy as a Wrigley’s Spearmint gum jingle. On top of that, he made it into an ear worm, one you can’t stop singing along to, long after the song ends.
Celebrities have gotten canceled for singing along to rap songs that contain the word “nigga” in it. Hannah Brown of “The Bachelor/Bachelorette” comes to mind. People can’t seem to separate the taboo from the context, or even take context into mind.
Context, especially in Ye’s “Heil Hitler,” is everything, because…
THE SONG
…the music slaps.
A person has an idea of what Ye’s “Heil Hitler” might sound like. But then you hit play and a whole other song comes up, a real song, featuring a man panting as if running for his life, followed by horns and an invisible big-band string section, bending and billowing out like innocent storm clouds.
Then, Ye’s thin, reedy voice barely above a whisper-croak, startling because of how engaging, normal, nice, and innocent it sounds. He’s telling you what he’s been through in an earnest, reasonable manner. I’m always struck by the difference between what’s expected in a rap artist as famous as him and what comes through on the airwaves.
Some of what he says is shocking, but it’s all delivered casually, as if he just ran over from next door and, after asking if your son can play catch outside with the gang, pours out his life story in a gush that grows more rhythmic…the kind of intimate, rushed, half-finished, get the gist conversation of two people waiting in a doctor’s office, or for a game to end before packing up and driving the kids back home.
Ye talks the way he writes. Ask the fans who’ve been to his concerts. Everything that comes from the guy’s mouth feels genuine, spontaneous, and strangely compelling. You know it’s wrong and it may get you both in trouble, but you can’t help but want to know more — and he’ll tell you, ready or not.
His public confessions (what he did with his cousin when they were very young) can be very hard to take. You’re not even sure if you can believe any of it, because it’s so shocking. His more sexually graphic posts are bizarre and a huge turn-off.
But this song is none of that.
It’s him pleading for his life back in his trademark rhythmic conversational rap in the lyrics that hint at themes of ownership and freedom…the misunderstood villain who feels he has no choice but to embrace the labels, yet still drops uncomfortable truth bombs under the umbrella of “This is me and this is how I came to be.”
The entire time, he’s running the catchy chorus sung by a bunch of black men (see the music video) seemingly standing in formation, in invisible chains, appearing as beasts, over the doomsday horns that turn into an almost big band infection — wanting desperately to be more than these fumbling, “reaching down in my pants, she got the world in her hands” words trying to form themselves into a glorious anthem…
You can imagine him singing the chorus to himself over and over as he’s driving, eating, scrolling, ignoring phone calls, reading the letters that keep denying him access to his children (with Kim Kardashian), coming at him in waves until he gives in and writes this song.
Yes, there’s also a sample of one of Hitler’s speeches, but this controversial song is more than picking out “nigga” here and “Heil, Hitler” there, like mental landmines.
Ye manipulates the taboo words into a catchy, infectious song, anthem, the soundtrack ending of a fantastic bio-pic as the downtrodden rise up to fight back.
Far from offensive, this song is a strangely relatable (“took my kids”) plea for understanding beneath the fuck-you bravado (“fuck on my bitch”), personally, painfully close, and in a broader, universal sense, where the system of the 1 percent rules with iron fist over the slaves, who aren’t just black.
It’s an invitation for us all to look at his life and ours, and wonder why.
And it’s all buried in a catchy, confessional rap that wants to be more, scaling, big-band horns in triumphant progress threatening to bust loose on your grandparent’s old Sony TV, with a sample of Hitler’s rousing speech to impoverished, post-WWI Germans thrown in for distorted context.
Ah, that word again…context.
Calling Ye a raving anti-semite is the easy way out. I’m not hearing that in this song at all.
Whenever he’s about to go deeper, reveal more beneath the shock-value small talk of typical Ye, the men in the chorus keep us distracted with the taboo words we’re not allowed to say or write on social media, our new shiny gods that control our every move and tell us when to care and when to break down, in private.
Ye doesn’t release songs purely for the enjoyment of them, the money and fame, or in hopes of hitting the Top 40. He aims to move you, tell a moving story, with personalized music, lyrics, and a social message, while paying passing yet respectful homage to other, multi-media genres, including jazz and slave roots. All of that sounds great. But it’s not all.
He also pokes the bear for the biggest impact, to show the rest of us what he sees and that what he sees isn’t just a figment of his sick, oversexed, paranoid Truther Gone Wild imagination, but shockingly…a part of our shared fever dream…reality.
Ye pushes boundaries to sell a record, but, in this particular case, he also wanted to see how the world would react to “Heil Hitler,” and without fail, the world proved his point — by trying to ban his entire existence. Yeah, that’s what grown-ups should do, ban things that make us uncomfortable, instead of, you know, talk about it.
On another, deeper level, it’s Ye unraveling in real time, saying, in essence, there is more to me than what you see.
It’s as catchy as “Gold digger,” Ye’s Top 40 play, but more complex, layered, alienating, and different every time you listen…a musical version of come closer, please and fuck off.
Not bad for a music artist who can’t really rap or sing, or play an instrument.
“Man, these people took my kids from me
Then they post my bank account
I got so much anger in me
Got no way to take it out
Think I’m stuck in the Matrix
Where the fuck’s my nitrous
Yes, I am a cuck
I like when people fuck on my bitch
The shit that I’m posting on Twittter
They telling me, hey don’t say that,
How niggas can’t see me in public
I’m driving an off-road Maybach
With all of the money and fame,
I still can’t get my kids back
With all of the money and fame,
I still don’t get to see my children
Niggas see my Twitter
But they don’t see how I be feeling
So I became a Nazi
Yeah, bitch, I’m the villain…”