Kanye West Defends Lives Matter White Shirt During Controversial Tucker Carlson Interview
“It’s obvious,” Kanye West said of the controversial “White Lives Matter” shirt from Paris Fashion Week during an appearance on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Thursday.
Kanye West amplifies his latest controversial fashion statement.
The Grammy winner, 45, defended his decision to wear the White Lives Matter t-shirt at his recent Yeezy Season 9 presentation. During Paris Fashion Week while performing at Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on Thursday.
“I do certain things with feeling, just channelling energy. It just feels right. It uses instinct, a connection to God and ordinary brilliance,” explains West of creative choices. He shared his father Ray West’s reaction to the shirt, also worn by far-right pundit Candace Owens in a backstage photo with West.
“You know my dad was an educated ex-Black Panther, also he texted me today saying ‘White Lives Matter. Ha ha ha ha,” he recalls. “And I said, ‘I thought that shirt was funny.’ I think the idea of wearing it is ridiculous. And I said, “Dad, why do you think that’s funny?” He said, “Just a black man stating the obvious.” [is] my favourite answer. Because… People are looking for explanations, saying, “Well, as an artist, you don’t have to give explanations, but as a leader, you have to.”
That’s the obvious thing,” West said.
The phrase “White Lives Matter” has been classified by the Anti-Defamation League. As a “white supremacist phrase” that emerged in 2015 after the start of the Black Lives Matter movement. As the organization states on its website, members of the Aryan Awakening Society and other white supremacists have promoted the slogan including the Ku Klux Klan.