Kanye West vs. Alice Merton | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 This is from digital music, news.com Kanye West. We haven't heard much from him lately. Uh, probably just as well, but it says here, it's a new story here. Uh, Kanye West tries to remove pages of his extreme antisemitism from a copyright court battle. Federal judge shuts him down. Yeah. You're not going to outrun that stuff, dude. Uh, it says here, a federal judge has rejected, uh, Kanye's attempt to strike references to his past antisemitic statements, uh, from Alice Merton's copyright lawsuit against him.

0:29 Now, I didn't even know about this copyright lawsuit against him, so sounds like there's a lot to this as I take a gulp of my water. My throat is in rough shape. Might have to go play some more music. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see how we do. Kanye West, the disgraced rapper. Again, this is from Digital Music News. The disgraced rapper attempted to strike references... to his past anti-Semitic statements and behavior, as well as German artist Alice Merton's family connections to the Holocaust.

1:07 See, I didn't know about this. From the copyright lawsuit she filed against him last year. I mean, I knew about the anti-Semitic stuff. I didn't know about this, the Alice Merton thing specifically. But on Thursday, a federal judge rejected those efforts, ruling that that the references are relevant and explain why Merton denied the clearance request in the first place. Merton sued Kanye West in March last year for allegedly using an uncleared sample of her song blind side in his track gun to my head.

1:43 She had explicitly denied clearance because she is a descendant of Holocaust survivors and Kanye West has a very well documented history of antisemitism. Judge Fernando L. Anil Rocha, I'm sure I butchered that, my apologies, your honor, wrote this, quote, The court finds that the allegations concerning Merton's background of Kanye West's alleged remarks are not unduly prejudicial and may have some bearing on the litigation, including potentially at trial to explain plaintiffs' rationale for denying defendants' use of plaintiffs' songs.

2:25 The rapper's career took a nosedive following his rampant descent into anti-Semitism beginning in 2022. He engaged in years of public hate speech, both in interviews and posts on social media, sold swastika merchandise on his website, praised Hitler, and proclaimed himself a Nazi. West's attempt to erase his years of hateful statements and actions by issuing a lengthy full-page apology in the Wall Street Journal hasn't had the effect he intended. It's a lot to come back from, dude. He blamed his behavior on his bipolar disorder and the brain damage he allegedly suffered from a 2002 car crash.

3:03 Nevertheless, he has been denied entry into several countries and venues while promoting his album, Bully. We did talk about that on the show too, some of the issues he was having in terms of touring internationally because of that. He wrote, I guess this was from his apology, quote, However, He has still played to massive crowds in a run of stadium shows this year, including Englewood's SoFi Stadium, San Antonio's Alamo Dome, and Tampa's Raymond James Stadium. I'm actually surprised by that, that he's even able to do that, because who would want to work with the guy?

4:02 Because if you accept his apology at face value, and I'm not even saying that you shouldn't, Or that you should. But I'm just saying, even if you do, from a business perspective, do you want to risk that he's just going to go right back to that and then just blame his bipolar disorder or something? By the way, I have known other people. I've certainly had people in my life with bipolar disorder. I don't know of any of them suddenly deciding that they were Nazis. Maybe that's a thing. I don't know.

4:39 I mean, to hear him tell it, it is, I'm just saying, I personally haven't seen that. Um, there can be challenges, uh, certainly when dealing with someone who, uh, is bipolar, but, uh, you know, not like, uh, what we saw with this guy, just an observation. Again, you do, you, you know, take his apology, how you want to take it. But, uh, And apparently some people in the music industry took it as legitimate, I guess. They were willing to do business with him. I'm just surprised that, you know, you don't just get to go play a stadium without making the people you're doing business with at every level feel like you're okay and that you're contrite, I guess, right?

5:29 So I'm actually surprised. I didn't know. I mean, I knew he'd been active. I didn't know he'd been doing these massive shows.