‘You’re exactly like the other Jews’: New BBC documentary exposes Kanye West’s antisemitic abuse of colleague

Tech entrepreneur who worked with Kanye West accuses the rapper of antisemitic abuse, claims West is deliberately leaning into anti-Jewish rhetoric to promote his presidential bid.

By The Algemeiner

The former business partner of hip hop mogul Kanye West has spoken out in a television documentary about the antisemitic abuse he endured from the rapper, who lost several lucrative sponsorship contracts last year after he sprayed his social media feeds with anti-Jewish invective.

Alex Klein, a tech entrepreneur who worked with West — who now goes by the moniker “Ye” — told a UK documentary broadcast by the BBC on Wednesday night that he had been on the receiving end of an antisemitic tirade shortly after the release of the rapper’s Feb 2022 album, “Donda 2.” The outburst resulted in Klein severing their partnership, which began in 2019.

“We turned down 10 million dollars. Kanye was very angry,” Klein said in the documentary titled “The Trouble with KanYe.”

“He was saying ‘I feel like I wanna smack you’ and ‘you’re exactly like the other Jews’ – almost relishing and reveling in how offensive he could be, using these phrases hoping to hurt me”.

Klein continued: “I asked him: ‘do you really think Jews are working together to hold you back?’ and he said ‘yes, yes I do.’”

Klein asserted that West’s promotion of antisemitism was a deliberate strategy tied to his determination to be elected to the White House

“He thinks it’s his manifest destiny, his god-chosen destiny to become president,” he said. “He used these anti-Jewish statements as part of a political platform and he told me that he was attempting to do what Trump did in a more intense way.”

He stressed the importance of the public acknowledging the seriousness of West’s antisemitic statements.

“The return of Kanye is inevitable and I think it’s important to shed light on the situation,” Klein said. “This demon in the box that he’s playing with for his own benefit is irresponsible. The conversation has become ‘oh, it’s his mental health’ and ‘oh, maybe a few Jewish people screwed him over’. It’s like: no. Kanye needs to be taken seriously.”

The journalist who produced the documentary, Mobeen Azhar, said his interest had been triggered by his appreciation of West’s music.

“Like many people, I have watched his politics shift and his views shift in recent years,” Azhar told BBC News Online. “And I’ve been kind of frustrated, angry, confused by a lot of the things that he’s put out there.”

The documentary also focused on the Cornerstone Church in Los Angeles, which West is using as a base for his 2024 presidential campaign. The church is also used by his friend and collaborator Nick Fuentes, a neo-Nazi Holocaust denier who accompanied West last November to a dinner with former US President Donald Trump at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.