Should Kanye West Really Be the One Telling Everyone How to Use the Word ‘Gay’?

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Though Kanye West credits homos for his style inspiration, the straight (and one-time admitted homophobe) isn’t exactly the guy who should be telling us whether phrases like “that’s so gay” should be considered a compliment. Especially coming from a guy who remains too reserved to, say, step foot into a gay bar — “nor do I ever plan to.” Hearing Kanye instruct society on how to properly use the term “gay” is like a white guy telling Kanye how to throw around the word “black.”

Kanye tells Details:

“Titles are very important. I like to embody titles, y’know, or words that have negative connotations, and explain why that’s good,” he says. “Take the word gay—like, in hip-hop, that’s a negative thing, right? But in the past two, three years, all the gay people I’ve encountered have been, like, really, really, extremely dope. Y’know, I haven’t, like, gone to a gay bar, nor do I ever plan to. But where I would talk to a gay person—the conversation would be mostly around, like, art or design—it’d be really dope. From a design standpoint, kids’ll say, ‘Dude, those pants are gay.’ But if it’s, like, good, good, good fashion-level, design-level stuff, where it’s on a higher level than the average commercial design stuff, it’s, like, gay people that do that. I think that should be said as a compliment. Like, ‘Dude, that’s so good it’s almost . . . gay.'”

West’s friends and professional adjuncts, who quietly pass in and out of his loft throughout the day, start cracking up, and he leaves his chair for a bit of stand-up: “‘Dude, that’s so good it’s almost gay!’ ‘Dude, you pay real attention to detail—that’s almost, like, gay!’ ‘You had a whole conversation with that girl without bringing up sex? That was, like, gay!'”

So, when a black guy comes out with a decent suit, we should compliment him by saying “that’s so black”? I’m sure Sean Combs would love that. Or maybe when an Asian kid scores a perfect SAT score, we should congratulate him on “a job well Asian-ed.” Do white guys who get into an Ivy League school get kudos for “getting their white on”?

Other choice Kanye quotes:

• On his self-professed cultural icon status: “Someone could be a better rapper, dance better. But culturally impacting? When you look back at these four and a half years, who’s the icon at the end of the day? Who broke down color barriers? What other black guy would a white person use as a fashion reference?”

• On his self-professed king of music status: “There’s nothing more to be said about music. I’m the fucking end-all, be-all of music. I know what I’m doing. I did 808s in three weeks. I got it. It’s on cruise control.”

• On his self-professed core of all creativity: “One of the problems with being a bubbling source of creativity—it’s like I’m bubbling in a laboratory, and if you don’t put a cap on it, at one point it will, like, break the glass. If I can hone that . . . then I have, like, nuclear power, like a superhero, like Cyclops when he puts his glasses on.”

Photo: Fame Pictures

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