Lana del Rey talks Kanye West, Donald Trump & how shes a political centrist
Lana del Rey has a new album – Norman F–king Rockwell – which is already out, and it already has two singles. I’ve listened to the singles and I’m not into them right now, but I usually have to listen to her stuff a few times before it grows on me. I like Lana more as time passes – I think it’s good to have someone in the music scene who’s a little bit affected, witchy and vintage-y. She cracks me up, honestly. Anyway, in one of her new singles (“The Greatest”), Lana has this lyric: “Kanye West is blonde and gone.” This is a reference to last year’s MAGA mess with Kanye, where it got so bad that even celebrities like Lana and Chris Evans were challenging Kanye’s MAGA delusions during a particularly bad break with reality (for Ye). At the time, Lana wrote to Kanye: “Trump becoming our president was a loss for the country but your support of him is a loss for the culture.” In a new interview with the New York Times (via High Snobiety), Lana talks about the lyric.
Whether she’s heard from Kanye: “No. Gratefully, no. Here’s the thing: I don’t want to elicit a response. You never feel better for having written something like that. But Kanye just means so much to us. And by the way, I’m grateful to be in a country where everyone can have their own political views. I’m really not more of a liberal than I am a Republican — I’m in the middle. But it was more like the mood and the vibe around, Yo, this man is the greatest! Really? The greatest? It hurt me. Did I have to say anything? No. But it’s more just a line that represents a lot of things.”
On Trump and Obama: “I was there when Obama got elected in Union Square. Under that administration, it felt like a dream had come true-ish and we could focus on the arts and it was a time of reprieve and we didn’t have to talk about certain things. But of course there was a lot going on. One portion of the dots that people are connecting is: ‘Is it possible that this presidency is engendering this idea that it’s O.K. to be more violent?’ And a lot of people are saying yes. Someone who says ‘grab ’em by the p–sy,’ that does make someone else feel a little bit more entitled to bring his rifle to school. If there wasn’t a time for protest music, there absolutely is now.”
“…It was a time of reprieve and we didn’t have to talk about certain things…” I agree with that – during the Obama administration, there wasn’t a toxic blend of celebrity/political news in which gossip blogs like this one felt the need to join the f–king Resistance. We could just gossip and talk about fashion and celebrities and not how the government is putting babies in cages. She’s sort of right about how Trump has led to a more violent culture too, but it’s not just about “grab ‘em by the p-ssy,” it’s about the toxic masculinity that permeates our culture and political world, and Trump representing that and feeding off that, and feeding INTO it too.
As for what she says about Kanye… what’s clear is that she was a fan of his art and it drives her crazy that he’s MAGA.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and WENN.
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