Should We Still Listen To Their Music? | Kenji Reacts

Ajouté : 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Can you truly separate the art from the artist?

[00:00:03]>> Is the title of this video? Make sure to go like, comment, subscribe on original video, original creators video, all this David stuff happening, so I wanted to watch this video. With the recent allegations against David, his streams have shot up with him having his biggest streaming day ever with 12 million streams. This has prompted a response from many people who are saying things like, "If you're still listening to David's music, you're a piece of shit."

[00:00:23]The entire discourse has reignited the >> Oh my god, I forgot about the video, dude. the symbolism, the imagery of this [ __ ] it's like so in your face that it's almost like it's so damning old debate of can you separate the art from the artist. And I'm finally here to settle this argument. I'm just kidding.

[00:00:40]This is an extremely nuanced, subjective, and complicated subject. So, this is just kind of my opinions. I'm making this video because of the recent David allegations. If you don't know, David is an artist who blew up a few years ago from his song Romantic Homicide. I did a whole video on him already about all the allegations. We reacted to that, but so far now David is arrested.

[00:00:59]>> And if you want his whole story, you can check that out. But originally, the song's meaning could be interpreted as a song about the relationship being dead with lyrics like, "In the back of my mind, you died." And David made a lot of these darker love songs that many fans really enjoyed. But recently, he's been accused of having a relationship with a 14-year-old girl with their relationship allegedly beginning years before then.

[00:01:19]Then allegedly, he killed her, dismembered her body, and left it in the trunk of his Tesla. David is 20 years old, by the way. So, basically, he's being accused of being a and a murderer.

[00:01:30]Like I said, after all of these allegations, his streams shot up, which prompted a lot of anger from people with people saying things like, "Stop streaming this weirdo, and y'all are ignorant and disgusting." In response, I've seen people saying, "You can still separate the art from the artist." And I'm here to say in this particular instance, I really don't think that's possible. Not at all, bro. Listen to the lyrics. Listen to look at the the music video. It's like almost engraved. if it didn't inspire the music, which honestly I feel like it might have, you feel me?

[00:01:58]Like, what the are we talking about?

[00:01:59]Because most of David's songs are about love, darker subject matter, and things along those lines. Someone even said, "Making part of your whole discoraphy a literal confession tape in the most elaborate of ways is beyond disgusting and quite literally insane." So clearly, people are interpreting his music as having some sort of relationship with his actual crimes. If you heard this news and then went to listen to his music, I doubt the allegations of him being in a relationship with a child and then killing her will be able to escape your brain. It sure won't for me. And I'm someone who has listened to his music beforehand, but going back and actually hearing these songs again or looking at the lyrics, it's pretty hard to differentiate that from what he's been accused of. Pretty much all of his lyrics can be interpreted in a weird way following these allegations. Like on here with me when he says, "And if it's right, I don't care how long it takes."

[00:02:45]which could refer to the big age gap on ghost when he says he might have you but I've got your ghost even has a song called right now where he says we can worry about the consequences later now we doing things I can't even say in a song it feels so right but it feels so wrong and of course then there's the lyrics on >> it's borderline confessions dude like what are we doing >> romantic homicide which literally just sounds kind of like what the situation is I mean it's truly hard to read through these lyrics or listen to these songs without ascribing any sort of weird association with what he's been accused of also his personas and all that going on as well with like his music videos. Because of this, when it comes to a lot of his music, I think it's pretty much impossible to separate the art from the artist. Especially because based on what he's accused of, it seems like his twisted thoughts bled into his art. The only song that I've heard from David that isn't a weird one like the other ones that I showed is his song Feel It from Invincible. And when I hear this song, it's an upbeat love song that my mind associates with the scene from the TV show, which I'm bringing up now, but I'm going to touch on it a little bit later. In my opinion, when we are talking about bad people who make good music, or really any form of art, there are two main camps they tend to fall into. David is a good example of someone who makes music that is closely associated with his alleged crimes. The subject matter of a lot of his music is pretty hard, if not impossible, to separate. You know what? Real quick, YouTube, let me know. You [ __ ] Kanye.

[00:04:06]Hey, y'all. Connie, go ahead. Unpack it for me, bro. Go ahead. Don't be shy. Let me know in the comments below. Let's see. Just don't don't just type and hit enter. We going to see from the artist itself. Whereas there are artists where the songs or art is quite different from what the artist is accused of doing wrong. And I think the best example of this is Kanye West.

[00:04:23]>> I'M SO y >> Kanye West has had an extremely controversial career. But most recently, he's been getting flak over these last few years for being anti-semitic. He even said just straight up that he's a Nazi. He was selling t-shirts that had swas on them. Kicking it with Alex.

[00:04:39]>> Dude, he had a whole He had a whole song Jones. He had a bunch of ex employees file a ton of lawsuits against him with a bunch of crazy stuff in them. Back in the day, he was saying slavery was a choice and a whole lot more. But he made graduation. That's a that's a joke. Some of Kanye's recent music, similar to David's, is quite on the nose and directly ties in his controversies to his art. Like on his song Vultures when he said, "How can I be anti-Semitic? I just the Jewish bit." Or the extreme version of that with his song Hail Hitler. Yeah. Where the chorus is just him repeating that phrase over and over and over again. These similar to David's songs probably aren't easy.

[00:05:20]>> Which by the way, [ __ ] it. I'm going to admit it. When that song first came out, I heard it on Twitter. The beat got stuck in my head. And did every time I would go live for like the first like 3 days it was just like dude I'm telling you for people to listen to. You literally in my opinion in those instances cannot separate the art from the artist because it's super conjoined. I mean he even said that this next album got that anti-semitic sound.

[00:05:45]But Kanye Kenji what bro? I wasn't singing along that beat. I'm telling you you want to get cancelled. No I don't want to get can I'm being honest. What the [ __ ] Have you heard that [ __ ] beat? Boom boom boom has also made dozens of classics throughout his career.

[00:05:59]>> You humming it though? Yeah. I feel like humming a beat and then saying the lyrics are two completely different things. Especially when the lyrics are talking about hit like what the you talking about, bro.

[00:06:07]>> That have nothing to do with anti reaching like a mother beliefs. Power stronger bound to father stretch my hands. Runaway ghost town. Devil in a new dress on site. All falls down.

[00:06:19]Champion. These are some of my favorite Kanye songs and they have nothing to do with the crazy stuff that he's talking about. Now, obviously, I'm not defending Kanye's actions at all, but I don't think because 10 years later, he started going off the rails means that these songs are now void. And I think they're well enough removed from any crazy ideologies. This is a big contrast from David, whose biggest and best songs can and probably do have a direct correlation with the things he's been accused of lately. It may be hard to listen to new Kanye songs, but old ones are pretty far removed from all the recent controversy. However, there's arguably someone that's in the middle of these two a little bit. Probably leaning more towards David, and that would be R.

[00:06:56]Kelly. R. Kelly. Kelly. No, that mother is awesome.

[00:07:01]>> Songs. Some like I believe I can fly in my opinion are completely removed from his crimes. However, a lot of his music is love songs, which can make them hard to listen to when he's been accused of terrible things. not accused. He He's also been convicted, but he's been accused of more. You know what I mean?

[00:07:18]If you aren't aware, R. Kelly was a massive R&B star who has a rap sheet full of >> Diddy, too. I don't think I ever listened to a Diddy song, to be honest with you.

[00:07:26]>> Crimes. First of all, he married Aaliyah when she was 15 and he was 27. That's not even an accusation. That's just a fact, which is insane. Then over the years, multiple women came out and accused him of assaulting them with a bunch of them being underage. Police also charged him with 21 counts of making child sexual videos involving various acts.

[00:07:44]>> Is that motheruck free right now?

[00:07:46]>> And there was way more over the years, many of which he was found guilty of.

[00:07:49]So, as you can imagine, after hearing or knowing all of this about R. Kelly, it can be pretty hard to go back and listen to these love.

[00:07:57]>> No, he's in jail.

[00:07:58]>> Since it very possibly could be lingering in the back of your head that these songs could be about kids, fans have said things like, "I don't listen to his music anymore." With everything I now know about him, hearing his music makes me really uncomfortable. I don't think I could separate the art from the artist, even if I wanted to. Someone else said, "I find it harder because some of his songs, he's practically bragging about it." The infamous Aaliyah album cover, AJ ain't nothing but a number, and he's standing in the background. But R. Kelly having such massive hits in big songs before these accusations actually came out starts to raise another problem. A lot of people probably developed an emotional connection to these songs before knowing any of this stuff about R. Kelly even happened. Personally, I didn't. I'm I was a kid back then, so I wasn't going to listen to R. Kelly. And this might not be the best example of someone for what I'm about to say. I think Kanye's probably a better example, but I that I just had to transition there. So, don't take that too seriously. One of the hardest parts about separating the art from the artist is sometimes you already have a deep connection to the song before anything comes out about the artist. A lot of casual listeners, for example, will throw on the radio, find a song they like, listen to that one song from a random artist without ever doing the extra work of finding out who the artist is or more about them. Most of us probably have a handful of singles that we associate with a time or a place or a season in our lives without thinking too hard on maybe what it's about or the artists themselves. And Digging the Great made a video on this topic and brought up a great point. And here's what I figured out about why music more than other mediums is so hard to separate from the artist. It's because music is a time machine. There are some songs that when you hear them instantly transport you back to the moment you heard it.

[00:09:36]>> For me, when I hear Jump by Crisscross, I'm transported back to elementary school. Me and my friends are trying to wear our clothes backwards cuz that's what Crisscross does. And life is so simple and I'm just trying to work on spelling and math and sit with my friends at lunchtime.

[00:09:54]>> And here's the thing, they aren't just memories. You can describe these things in vivid detail and that's one thing.

[00:10:01]But when you hear the music you were listening to at the time, the feeling comes back. It's a musical feeling time machine. This is why it's so hard to separate the art from the artist, especially the older.

[00:10:16]>> But also, I feel like the music itself is just like different. Like, I don't know. I don't know what you guys listen to, but when I'm listening to music, it's usually like I don't know. It's It's normal [ __ ] I feel like if you're listening to David, you're you know what you're getting. It's like some love song, some weird fantasy, dark fantasy type [ __ ] When were you listening to that to be transported back into a like what like what the were you doing? You know what I mean? I don't know what I just said. I just felt like I tried to say it smartly and I just woke up so it sound dumb. Hi YouTube. How are you YouTube? You doing good? I love you guys watching. Thank you. Like, comment, subscribe. I don't know. Yeah, >> you get. It's not as easy as just saying, "I'm not going to listen to their music anymore." Because in some cases, the music is so tied up with your memories. You're effectively saying, "I'm not going to go visit that specific memory in my emotional time machine anymore."

[00:11:03]>> If you watched Invincible and King Vaughn isn't talked about enough, what do you mean? all with separating his music from the stuff heard the song feel it but nothing else from David. You would probably be fine listening to that song again because you have a different emotional connection to it rather than those who are big fans of the rest of his catalog. A lot of my high school memories are tied to artists coming up in the Soundcloud era. And if Uzi went crazy and started killing people or saying crazy things, it would be pretty tough for me not to go back and listen to those old hits. The new stuff I could easily skip. That's fine. But I'd be missing out on nostalgic memories that my mind is associating with these songs.

[00:11:36]There are a bunch of songs that you can put on and that will instantly transport me back to a time where also like Uzi is like upbeat fun. His songs are like stupid like I got more money than you.

[00:11:47]I'm dancing. I got like it's fun. I feel like with David is completely different.

[00:11:53]It's so like n I don't know. And I'm sure you guys have similar songs as well. There's even songs I was listening to while I was like playing video games like old night with my friends that I can remember exactly where I was on each map. There are probably songs you associate closely with relationships, important memories, friends, grief, things along those lines. When you're listening to these songs, you're not thinking about the artist or what they did. This is a scientific thing, too, with like studies on it. I'm not just making this up. The only case I could see in which you forsake these super important songs is if what the artist did was so heinous that you just could not listen to it at all anymore. Like R.

[00:12:29]Kelly, for example, and what the Redditor was saying earlier, who said they just can't bring themselves to listen to it anymore. There was also this guy Ian Watkins from a band called Lost Profits, and I never personally listened to them, but he was accused of some awful feel crimes that I couldn't explain how bad they were in work. So, if I was a fan of them beforehand, there's just no chance I'd ever listen to their music, and I bet it's hard for a lot of fans to do that as well.

[00:12:51]Regardless, music is a lot more than just the artist or the song. Music is the soundtrack to different parts of your life. And oh my god, Kick Hut.

[00:12:58]simply cut that out because Kanye did a bunch of terrible things 10 or 15 years after the fact isn't as easy for some as it may be for you. Again, another clarification. I'm not defending any of these artists and I'm not saying that you should for sure listen to their music. I'm not trying to say that we should always separate the artist.

[00:13:14]>> He's just saying it's hard to and he understands it's hard to because the sh I'm just saying in some instances it's a lot harder than it might be in others. I think one of the strong >> like obvious like let's say um Justin Bieber or some [ __ ] right? Like if Justin Bieber, a lot of people grew up with Justin Bieber. I didn't. I was never on some Justin Bieber wave and [ __ ] But did you see him at Coachella by the way? People were hating on the performance. That mother sing when he switched up his voice and started singing that crazy. Very talented.

[00:13:40]People that grew up with him and then there was like controversy around him with him saying you know what I'm talking about. That that one video one less lonely. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. A lot of people they're like, "Fuck that dog. It's just a a mistake." And then some people that never listen to him are like, "Man, you know what I and that's all they needed.

[00:13:58]But for the people that grew up with him, it might be a little bit harder.

[00:14:01]You see what I'm saying? That's what he's trying to say. Not me though. So don't be mad at me. I'm not saying it.

[00:14:05]I'm just watching a video of him saying it. By the way, YouTube, wow, you look so good.

[00:14:09]>> Biggest arguments I've heard for separating the art from the artist is the fact that it isn't just one artist making these songs. Kanye, for example, has tons of people who work on his music. And popular music in general typically has producers, writers, the singers themselves, engineers, and more who make this music. I saw a conversation about this on Reddit where someone said, "To me, great art is great art." If I heard a great song on the radio and don't know who it is, and think, "Man, what a great song." I'm not thinking about the artist at all. If I later hear that the person that wrote that song was a total piece of [ __ ] does that make the song less great? What if I never learned anything about the artist? Is it still a great song? What if the piece of [ __ ] was the producer or drummer or lyricist or person who made the album cover? Where does it stop?

[00:14:50]Someone responded saying, "I bet at least half of all music was made by someone who is shitty some way. Not to mention the songs that involve like 10 plus people working on them. There's a small chance every one of them is a great person. And I think a great example for this point is Dr. Luke. Dr. Luke is a producer and songwriter who is behind a ton of popular music, but he's also been accused by Kesha of and emotionally as well as keeping her in a bad deal, which is why many fans and artists are no longer fans of him and have practically boycotted him. For example, when Katy Perry worked with him on her latest album, there was a ton of backlash. However, I'm going to guess that most of you don't know this or aren't very familiar with Dr. Luke, but I'm willing to bet you've heard some of his songs, such as California Girls by Katy Perry, Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus, Dark Horse by Katy Perry, Tik Tok by Kesha, Dynamite, Roar, Timber, Since You've Been Gone, Sugar, Good Feeling, I Kissed a Girl, and many more. So, are we just going to stop listening to all of these songs? And what about the other artists who worked on them? Should they share in this boycott? I'm not necessarily saying that we shouldn't boycott these. Sometimes it feels performative. You know, sometimes it feels like, "Oh my god, you listen to that?" No. Oh my. Did you hear what he do? But then sometimes it's so tied into the music that it's like like if you're a true fan of the person and you find out what they did, you're almost disgusted like [ __ ] dude. This song is about murder. You know what I mean? And like you see what I'm saying? So I feel like it really depends. That fake Karen is so annoying. Yeah. A lot of people don't care and and that's the sad reality of it. That's why you have like content creators for example. A lot of content creators have a bunch of controversy behind them but like they'll still watch because people are entertained and they get their laughs and that's all they want at the end of the day. Some people like see a little deeper than that. You feel but like I don't songs but I am saying there's >> I think like it's it's different. It's so different, especially with music.

[00:16:39]Because if I was, let's say I committed murder, every live stream I'm talking about, every game we're playing is about murdering and hiding a body, and every topic I'm talking about is murdering and hiding a body. You know what I mean?

[00:16:50]Allegedly, of course. I'm just saying allegedly. More pieces to the puzzle.

[00:16:54]Another good example of this is Phil Spectre, a producer who revolutionized production.

[00:16:58]>> What is his chin? Back in the 60s, he worked on songs with artists like, The Crystals, Ike and Tina Turner, The Righteous Brothers, The Beatles, and more. He inspired a lot of the sounds we hear in pop music today. But then he killed someone in 2003 and spent the rest of his life in prison. The music he produced didn't really have anything to do with his crimes. Steve Vanzant said Spectre was the ultimate example of the art always being better than the artist.

[00:17:22]He made some of the greatest records in history based on the salvation of love while remaining incapable of giving or receiving love his whole life. And a lot of his collaborators didn't do anything wrong either except for John Lennin and Ringo. John Lennin and Ringo actually hit their wives. I think John only hit his wife once and Ringo was worse. But I don't know. Both of it is very bad and clearly wrong. But should you boycott the Beatles because two of them did terrible things. What about the other two?

[00:17:46]>> Man, I've been boycotting them my whole life. Never listened to a single album.

[00:17:48]What the [ __ ] >> And their royalties. What about your personal memories with those songs? I don't think it's as black and white as some people make it out to be. Howard Murphy, a writer for Rolling Stone, said, "I believe that art is made by its audience's perception and interpretation. It is the audience who imposes the art's meaning and merit. The creator of the art is detached from it the moment the figurative pen lid clicks shut, which I do like this sentiment, but I will say he's not 100% right.

[00:18:13]Because at the end of the day, when you're listening to these songs, you are financially supporting through royalties the artist who made it. If you listen Oh, I didn't even THINK ABOUT THAT. OH, I DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT. IF YOU LISTEN TO IT, you getting them paid. I didn't think about that.

[00:18:27]>> Listen to a song, watch a movie, read a book, or consume.

[00:18:30]>> That's like chat. That's like, okay, if I murdered someone, whatever, and I'm I'm always talking about murder and playing games about murder and all that, and y'all actively being a tier three sub to me.

[00:18:40]Now, what happens if you bootleg the the music? If you listen to that through like a third party and you download it illegally, like you pirate it. Any sort of art from an artist who's done something terrible, you are technically financially supporting them unless they are dead. And I think this is what makes part of the conversation so tricky.

[00:18:57]Listening to old Kanye gives the new Kanye more money. Listening to David will give him money for lawyers, too, if they ever arrest him. Listening to those >> Well, they did >> old pop hits support Dr. Luke. John Lennin and Phil Spectre are dead, though, so I guess listening to their stuff is fine. But this is definitely the hardest part about separating the art from the artist. At the end of the day, separating the art from the artist has to be up to you, the individual.

[00:19:19]Where do you draw the line when it comes to no longer wanting to support an artist financially? If you've already cleared the song and its meaning and its interpretation for you, you are still supporting them financially. So technically in that sense, I do think it's impossible to fully separate the art from the artist. Personally, I'm still probably going to listen to a lot of old Kanye songs cuz those mean a lot to me. However, I'm probably not going to listen to David anymore cuz I wasn't really a fan in the first place and those songs have a closer association with his crimes. And if I I really I'm I'm kind of curious now. Do we have any David fans? And YouTube, let me know if you're a David fan. What would you do going forward? Don't worry, I'm not going to cancel you. The comments might be on your ass, but I'm just kind of curious. Like, be honest. You feel me?

[00:19:58]make a fake fake account and then comment if you're scared of like backlash. And I'm I'm just kind of curious. If you really want to listen to music but can't bring yourself to support the artist financially, there are ways around it. Of course, you can just download the songs and then upload them to your phone or whatever. Like I said, we all obviously have our own moral ethics. So, I really think it's up to you to draw the line of when you can no longer listen to an artist music.

[00:20:21]There are some more objective cases like R. Kelly or Ian Watkins who did things so bad it's probably tough for most of us to still listen to those songs.

[00:20:29]However, others can be a lot more difficult especially clear because I don't want this to get misconstrued. I'm not saying that good art or good music is an excuse or completely gets rid and nulls the wrongdoings of the people who made it.

[00:20:42]Of course, that's not the case. I'm not trying to defend anyone at all in this video. I'm just trying to give different arguments and perspectives for separating the art from the artist. Like I said, personally, I'll probably still listen to some Kanye, but you're not going to catch me listening to R. Kelly or David or Ian Watkins. And in some instances, I'll buy a physical copy of the music so that way I don't have to worry about financially supporting them.

[00:21:04]Third party though, that's key. Third party. Let me know in the comments if you guys agree or disagree or what your thoughts are on this. I mean, it's a it's a nice subject to talk about, you feel me? YouTube, let me know in the comments as well. Links in the description for the original video.

[00:21:15]Here's the link chat. Make sure to go like, comment, subscribe on our original creator.