Kayne West is a mainstream artist who recently broke away from the genre of hip hop with a religious album “Jesus is King” in 2019. Even more publically at the beginning of this year, West decided to announce on Twitter that he would be running for president of the United States. This move shows that though he is not necessarily creating art, his actions have lead to questions by his audience of if he was worth still listening to.
Being an artist traditionally means being a person who creates art to show creativity of their own mind. Today a limit has been set towards the creativity in the 21st century of being culturally appropriate or sticking to a common moral code of what is appropriate. Kanye West sparked conversation in 2016 when he made a music video for “Famous” which included lyrics that suggest that Kanye West made singer Taylor Swift famous. These lyrics sent the internet into a frenzy when Taylor Swift said that her naked image in the music video, and the idea that Kayne made her famous were incorrect and disrespectful to her as an artist. Kayne West described the video to be inspired by Matthew Barney with his own twist.
So I ask, what does it mean to have creative freedom in art that is deemed acceptable? Art is supposed to challenge the mind of the viewer. However with controversial things, such as the famous music video, sparks the idea of what art can do. As stated before the goal of art is to make the viewer think about the work, and to show a new way of viewing an idea. Kanye West does this successfully on multiple occasions from the famous video to his new sunday church service that merges art and religion. Kanye is a conversational artist however it is up to you as the viewer to deem his art worthy of viewing.