Kanye West at a Slovak Music Festival: Can Rap Be Separated from Politics? - Sudety Raport

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Kanye West at a Slovak Music Festival: Can Rap Be Separated from Politics?

Rubicon Festival, “the biggest rap festival in Slovakia,” has announced the lineup for this year’s edition. Visitors can expect a star-studded show featuring artists like Ufo365, Offset, and Ken Carson. The headliner of the festival is none other than Ye, aka Kanye West, one of the most well-known and influential rappers of all time, whose career has been marked by numerous controversies. This is an unprecedented event and the only announced Kanye West concert in Europe this year. A petition has been launched against his performance, and several journalists—including Anna Koucká from Pagenotfound—have discussed the problematic nature of the event. We would like to approach the issue from the perspective of rap as an art form and respond to arguments like “don’t bring politics into rap” and “separate the art from politics.” Kanye as a headliner at Rubicon is not a win for culture; on the contrary, it’s a denial of the very essence of the genre and a consequence of its misunderstanding, which stems from privilege.

Kanye West has been surrounded by controversy since the beginning of his career—from the incident with Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs to his support for Donald Trump and his statement that slavery “sounds like a choice.” After his divorce from Kim Kardashian, Ye began publicly harassing her partner, Pete Davidson. In 2022, he followed up with a series of openly antisemitic remarks that led to the loss of several brand partnerships (e.g., Adidas, Balenciaga). Between 2023 and 2025, Ye has been in a relationship with model Bianca Censori, who is frequently presented in extremely revealing outfits. This has sparked criticism over Ye’s objectification of women and alleged manipulative control of her public image. Today, the artist openly speaks about Hitler as an icon, sells merchandise featuring the swastika, appeared in an interview wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood, and even released a track titled HH. This Nazi-themed content, hatred, and hate speech are not radical or visionary—they are pathetic, dangerous, and alarming. It has real-world consequences. A 2022 report showed that Kanye’s statements directly contributed to vandalism, violence, and hate. So how should we approach his performance? Is the festival bringing in a misunderstood genius?
Should rap be political? And is it truly possible to separate the artist from the work?

“I’m a person of color, bitch, I dont get depressed, I- all my problems come from systemic reasons, you know what I’m sayin’? So, all my problems are due to oppression. I’m not depressed, I’m oppressed.” And I don’t need to Lexopro, I don’t need no Zoloft. I need none of that shit. What I need is freedom.“

From VILLAIN IN YOUR STORY (STILL UA) (2024) by Sideshow

The discussion around Kanye West and his upcoming festival performance in Slovakia is unique in that it is rooted in a specifically European context and is largely shaped by white voices (including the author of this piece), who are, within hip-hop culture, merely guests. As J. C. Hall emphasizes in his article The Right to Rap: How Hip Hop Helps Students Heal from Trauma, in the face of systemic neglect of low-income urban neighborhoods, rap is far more than just entertainment: it is a countercultural upheaval that embodies lives intertwined with community action and social change.

Rap has become a space for expressing African American struggles, and the notion of separating art from politics is a luxury reserved for those who carry certain privileges. Unnithan and Beighey (2012), in their book Political Rap: The Music of Oppositional Resistance, argue that music—like other cultural products—reflects the power dynamics of society. Marginalized groups create culture that conveys loneliness, exclusion, and injustice. Through the analysis of music, we gain a deeper understanding of the world—both its overt and hidden structures. African Americans, marginalized within capitalist society, have developed a network of symbols and a language used across music, dance, and speech to resist the powerful, express anger, and build communities of resistance. Rap serves as a tool of so-called “infopolitics”—resistance within the boundaries of the possible. In post-industrial America, political rap has become the voice of African Americans confronting institutional discrimination. Rappers often deliberately use the language of the excluded and present themselves as representatives of the oppressed.

Rap tropes—drugs, violence, gangs, making it from nothing, trap life, police brutality, and anti-system narratives—are direct consequences of specific policies. They are responses to American systemic racism and imperialism. When many people hear the word “politics,” they imagine political parties, campaigns, or work within formal institutions. When they hear “political art” or “political rap,” they expect explicitly political songs targeting specific public figures. But this is an illusion—an illusion rooted in privilege. For example, a white heterosexual man in Europe does not experience the policies of the state he lives in as a matter of survival; these policies often don’t deeply affect his life. At most, they influence his comfort. As a result, he can afford to treat the concept of politics as separate from daily life.

“We shouldn’t politicize a music festival.” Statements like these suggest that politics exists in its own separate space. Stephen Pimpare, in his book Politics for Social Workers: A Practical Guide to Effecting Change (2021), explicitly challenges this notion, stating: “Everything is political: politics is how we draw attention to problems, present ideas in the public sphere, create frameworks for thinking about issues and their relative importance, structure policy debates, articulate defenses of justice, fairness, and equality, and build consensus for change. Politics is how we improve the lives of our families, our friends, and our communities.”

Rap is often referred to as “street poetry.” In his book A Poet’s Glossary (2014), author Edward Hirsch describes political poetry as “poetry of social concern and conscience, politically engaged poetry that responds vehemently to social injustice.” Political poetry can be imagined as a space open to dialogue about social injustice—where the poet (in our case, the rapper) voices their views on the inequalities faced by a particular social group.

The adoration of Kanye West is especially ironic in these turbulent times, when extremism, hatred, and fascism are on the rise worldwide, great powers wage wars, and we witness multiple simultaneous genocides—including the one in Gaza. In such times, true heroism and defense of free speech should be understood as resisting empires, opposing wars, defending human rights, and advocating for social change—these are the radical tendencies we should celebrate in rap. People protesting with the simple wish to end the killing of innocent lives are being arrested. Policies under Donald Trump have led to the detention of people without criminal records, separating them from their families, and significantly worsening the quality of life for minorities, which was already dire. A rap visionary and defender of free speech should stand against such injustice; after all, rap has always stood on the side of the oppressed. Kanye West represents the role of a highly influential, wealthy, and untouchable man whose behavior harms others but who can get away with it because of his privileges. To adore such an artist under the guise of a legendary rap show tramples all empathy and the effort to understand marginalized people—those whom rap has helped uplift throughout its entire existence.

We should express admiration for brave artists who take a stand against genocide—artists whose lyrics are unapologetically activist, community-driven, and enlightening—as well as for courageous organizations and protesters. Not for a man with a god complex who uses people around him as tools. Right now, an incredible amount of radical and visionary music is emerging in rap culture. billy woods, E L U C I D, Jay Cinema, Sunmundi, shemar, Sideshow, MIKE, Navy Blue, August Fanon, Kemp Dupri, Blackchai, Nappy Nina, Amalgama, MILLENIUM, and hundreds more—these are the heroes who care about the freedom of others and whose art we should celebrate. There is no courage in hatred—Kanye has become a weapon stabbing at the very heart of rap culture.

„It’s a shared struggle that we all go through

Don’t be the weapon they use to harm you“

From Bread, Wine, Body, Blood (2024) by Ka (Rest in Peace)

A playlist was released alongside the article, which we recommend listening to from start to finish, exactly as it was curated.

Sources:

  • Hirsch, E. (2014). A poet’s glossary. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
  • Pimpare, S. (2021). Politics for social workers: A practical guide to effecting change. Columbia University Press.