Kanye West, father of four biracial children, comments on Trevor Noah’s race

Rapper and all-around creative Kanye West has once again caused controversy regarding some statements he made publicly about a range of things, most notably about comedian Trevor Noah and his race. 

Speaking during a recent interview on the notorious Drink Champs podcast hosted by Noreaga and DJ ELF, West jumped from topic to topic, much to the confusion of some viewers.

At some point, he spoke about needing his “four stadiums” back after denying being anti-Semitic. 

“First of all, we’re all Semite, we’re Jew, so I can’t be anti-Semitic. First of all, I need my four stadiums back. The 78 media outlets that called me [an] abuser… when I was trying to get that heroin addict away from my kids, that was tattooing my kids’ names on him… Skete… Pete Davidson… They’re popping up, you know what I’m saying. It’s like… Trevor Noah, not even from America! He just looks black, right. Gonna say ‘yo, Kim, it’s going to get dangerous’ so he’s putting all that ‘he’s so crazy, he’s so OJ’” he ranted before stating that he just wants his family back together.

Why Kanye West hates Trevor Noah

West has had it out for Trevor Noah ever since the host of The Daily Show spoke about how he (west) was treating his wife in the early days of their official separation.

After weeks of increasingly erratic public behaviour and commentary about his wife, Noah spoke about the headlines surrounding the couple, relating it to the experience his own mother, Patricia Noah, had with her husband when Noah was a child.

Speaking on an episode of The Daily Show, Noah recalled when his mother was shot in the head by her abusive husband, an ordeal that she miraculously survived.

This story was also included in his best-selling autobiography, Born A Crime.

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The one-drop rule

It was in this same autobiography that he once again explained that he was the product of an interracial and (at the time) illegal relationship. The relationship was illegal due to the fact that his parents were romantically involved during the time South Africa was under the rule of an apartheid regime. 

West’s own children are a product of an interracial relationship and are considered black in some parts of America where many people advocate for the long-observed “one drop” rule. This rule maintains that anyone with even “one drop” of black blood is considered black.

According to the Wikipedia entry explaining the origins of the rule, it is a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry (“one drop” of “black blood”) is considered black (Negro or coloured in historical terms). 

It is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups. 

Noreaga apologises

One-half of the Drink Champs hosting duo, American rapper Noreaga (Victor James Santiago, also known as N.O.R.E), has since gone on an apology tour for his decision to interview Kanye West after the interview received widespread backlash.

The interview had been shared on the Revolt TV YouTube page on Monday evening but had been taken down at the time of writing on Tuesday morning.

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