2018 was a year that played host to some truly terrible Kanye West collaborations, very few of which had anything to do with actual music. Kanye & Mark Zuckerberg, Kanye & Rick & Morty, Kanye & Donald Trump,and most especially Kanye & Twitter itself; all produced some combination of eye-rolling, deep frustration, and outright despair. But don’t worry, Ye fans: It’s not getting better any time soon.
In a move we have to see as actually sort of admirable—in so far as it set a baseline warning for admirers that 2019 will not, in fact, be any easier as a year in which to hold on to your lingering affection for Kanye West—the rapper, producer, and obstinate hat model has announced that he’ll soon be appearing on an episode of Joe Rogan’s massively popular podcast, presumably as some sort of existential “hold my beer” to sword-wielding blunt smoker Elon Musk.
One of the major appeals of The Joe Rogan Experience, after all, is that Rogan will let pretty much anybody say anything; guided by a mixture of shock jock instinct, legitimate conspiracy theorist mindset, and straight-up open-mindedness, his show is the perfect platform for embattled internet weirdos to be their truest, most vocal selves. In other words, this probably isn’t going to be the sort of interview where West shows his more thoughtful side, attempting to wrestle with the cult of celebrity around him, and his place as one of the most famous black men in America. It’s probably going to be one of those other ones, the kind he ends up having to half-apologize for, before abruptly switching to screaming at Drake for following his wife online.