Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s cover art for their collaborative album Vultures has been accused of having links to Nazism.
The artwork used for the album is a piece from the 1830s by landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich, who is known as one of Adolf Hitler’s favorite artists and whose work was used to promote Nazi ideology in the 1930s and ’40s.
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The Vultures artwork also appears to be inspired by Norwegian black metal band Burzum, with Kanye and Ty Dolla using a typography often seen on their album covers.
Burzum are also controversial due to their association with Nazism, with band founder and sole member Varg Nikernes being a noted neo-Nazi and convicted murderer.
West has associated with the group before having rapped over a sample of their music on his Gucci Mane collaboration “Pussy Print” in 2016.
The artwork featured on Kanye West & Ty Dolla Sign’s Album Cover for “Vultures” is by German painter, Caspar David Friedrich, titled “Paysage de tombes.”
The typography is a reference to Burzum, the notorious black metal band founded by neo-nazi Varg Vikernes. pic.twitter.com/vMtvNSp33C
— Cover Art Matt (@coverartmatters) December 12, 2023
It seems like Ye was inspired by Burzum, a Norwegian black metal music project founded by Varg Vikernes for the cover art of VULTURES
Ye also sampled songs from this album in the past pic.twitter.com/Qp0AsUaLQB
— Donda Times (@dondatimes) December 11, 2023
This is just the latest incident of Kanye West appearing to express ties to Nazism ever since he praised Hitler in 2022 and espoused a number of antisemitic comments and conspiracy theories.
In an infamous interview with controversial conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, West said: “There’s a lot of things that I love about Hitler — a lot of things.”
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He also said: “The Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world.”
West also denied the severity of the Holocaust, claiming that it was “factually incorrect” to say six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis.
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His appearance on the show was slammed by close collaborator Mike Dean, as well as others including Jamie Foxx and Questlove.
Since then, Kanye has been known to associate with neo-Nazi and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who denies the Holocaust happened. The two met with former president Donald Trump in November 2022.
Vultures, which marks his first album since this controversy, was debuted at a “rave” in Miami earlier this week, where Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign premiered a number of songs from the project in front of a live audience.
They were joined onstage by featured artists like Freddie Gibbs, Kodak Black, Lil Durk, Chris Brown, Offset, Bump J and Kanye’s 10-year-old daughter North West.
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Nicki Minaj, Young Thug, Future, Lil Baby, Playboi Carti, Quavo, Charlie Wilson and James Blake are also expected to appear on the album, which is scheduled to arrive on Friday (December 15).
