Ye or nay? Students weigh in on Ye and his recent controversy

Ye’s recent antisemitic comments and other provocations have caused many of the companies he’s partnered with to drop him from their brand including Adidas, Balenciaga, Foot Locker, and the Gap among others. Are his recent remarks the final straw, or do USC students still see this as “Ye just being Ye.”

Olivia Nazari: “I think how he’s constructed himself recently is abnormal and it definitely shows.”

That was freshman Olivia Nazari who thinks that even with these comments he’ll be able to come back from this.

Olivia Nazari: “It just depends on how he goes about it because it’s also stupid to say that, like, he’s never going to get back in, like he’s going to get canceled because he’s kind of been canceled before.”

This once again brings up the constant debate of if you can separate the art from the artist. Linguistics major Chrystal Nhan shares her perspective on that.

Chrystal Nhan: “I think it again, like, it really just depends on the person. Um, if listening to his music is something that you like to do, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you like him as a person. I just think that they’re that they can be defined as two different things.”

Ye is no stranger to controversy, infamously saying that “slavery was a choice” on TMZ in 2018, and more recently wearing a White Lives Matter shirt during a Paris fashion show. Sophomore Ethan Kaiser is unsure if he will be granted an opportunity to make up for what he’s done.

Ethan Kaiser: ”I’d say there’s a lot of unknown. I think any decent person should be able to apologize or should be able to come clean about it. So I would say, yes, he should have that opportunity, too. Will he be forgiven necessarily? I’m not sure. But he should at least try and make an effort to come back from this.”

Today Ye doubled down on his statements in an Instagram post insisting that what he says is “love speech” and regardless of the monetary loss will continue to say what he’s been saying.