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On Kanye West's New Song, "Heil Hitler"

Portfolio Armor's Photo
by Portfolio Armor
Thursday, May 15, 2025 - 7:36
Screen capture from the Kanye West video for "Heil Hitler"
Screen capture from the Kanye West video for "Heil Hitler"

Transgressive Or Jumping The Shark?

You probably haven't heard it on the radio or any streaming services because of its title and lyrics, but the rapper/producer Kanye West released a new song called "Heil Hitler" earlier this month. It prompted some interesting comments. I'll share those with you, along with the song itself below, but before we get to that, I have a quick follow up about yesterday's post ("Be Fearful When Others Have FOMO")

A Follow Up For FOMO

In that post, I mentioned a couple of Portfolio Armor top ten names from last month that have been on a tear, Robinhood Markets (HOOD) and Palantir (PLTR). Another one of our top names went on a tear right after I wrote that, the nuclear energy company Oklo (OKLO) spiked more than 15% yesterday. The trade my subscribers and I placed on it back in December is now on track for a ~400% gain. 

If you want a heads up when I post this week's top ten names tonight, you can subscribe to the PA trading Substack/occasional email list below. 

And you can get my system's top ten names every night via the Portfolio Armor iPhone app, which you can download below by aiming your iPhone camera at the QR code below (or by tapping here, if you're reading this on your phone). 

Now on to "Heil Hitler" 

Kanye West's "Heil Hitler" 

You can see the official video in the X post below. 

And here are the lyrics: 

Man these people took my kids from me
Then they post my bank account
I got so much anger in me
Got no way to take it out

Think I'm stuck in the matrix
Where the f*ck's my nitrous
Yes I am a cuck I like
When people f*ck on my bitch

The shit that I'm posting on twitter
They telling me hey don't say that
How niggas can't see me in public
I'm driving an all-chrome Maybach

With all of the money and fame
I still can't get my kids back
With all of the money and fame
I still don't get to see my children

Niggas see my twitter
But they don't see how I be feeling
So I became a nazi
Yeah bitch I'm the villain

Nigga Heil Hitler, nigga Heil Hitler
They don't understand the things I say on twitter
Nigga Heil Hitler
They don't understand the things I say on twitter

All my niggas Nazis, nigga Heil Hitler
Nigga Heil Hitler, nigga Heil Hitler
All my niggas Nazis, nigga Heil Hitler

Nigga Heil Hitler

Nigga Heil Hitler

Nigga Heil Hitler, nigga Heil Hitlerhei
All my niggas nazis, nigga Heil Hitler
Nigga Heil Hitler, nigga Heil hitler
All my niggas nazis, nigga Heil Hitler

Commentary On Kanye's Song

One comment a number of observers made is that Kanye's song was another example of Hitler and Nazi iconography becoming adopted by nonwhites in recent years. 

But perhaps the most insightful commentary on the song was in the long X post below. 

Authored by Malmesburyman on X

"Heil Hitler" And Black Fatigue

Now that ‘nigga heil Hitler’ is over I’ll share my take. Black music has always existed as a popular genre for the purpose of shocking and titillating whites. Jazz, Little Richard, ghetto rap, all of them found the lines of white social propriety and tried to step over them in an amusing way. This created a dynamic where black culture was simultaneously in protest of white culture and economically and artistically reliant on it.

Standards of decency are constantly evolving, in no small measure because of this process where whites seek excitement and blacks deliver it. So there’s a continual need to find new lines to cross and the means of doing so amusingly and disarmingly.

The fact that Hitler is now that line where propriety and titillation meet, and cuck jokes are the means of crossing it, could be viewed as an end point for this process. Hitler, we know, is the Ultimate Evil. As some pointed out, “Heil Hitler” still has the capacity to shock while even “Hail Satan” just seems cringe.

By going to the Ultimate Evil and using it for this purpose of transgressive amusement, the question naturally arises: what next? And if we accept that this song is indicative of an exhaustion at the heart of this dynamic, we could readily see in it a certain exhaustion within American liberalism itself. The old taboos on racism, antisemitism, genocide etc. are breaking down. The willingness of whites to be entertained by that sort of transgression reveals that these taboos no longer exert the force they once did. Again, one could argue this case. I think it remains to be seen.

What is immediately clear to me is that this dynamic within black culture of protest and boundary crossing, with simultaneous reliance and dependency on white support, is nearing some kind of end point. The need to ‘go there’ and praise Hitler to get attention is, I would argue, more than anything else a product of whites’ increasing black fatigue.

Blacks’ old act is stale and increasingly viewed by whites not as exciting boundary-pushing, but simply sordid and gross. Witness the Diddy ‘freak off’ trial. We also see it in the political realm where the ‘civil rights’ culture of black grievance and protest is being met no longer with white supplication, but rather increasingly with skepticism and even outright withdrawal of support.

And that fact - black fatigue among whites - has far more immediate implications for the evolution of American civilization than anything relating to Hitler or Nazis, which are ultimately nowhere near as relevant to American culture and society as the dynamic between whites and blacks.

Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors.
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