Lil Dicky says he doesn’t think “in his heart Kanye dislikes Jewish people.” Instead, the DAVE co-creator and star theorized in a recent interview, he misguidedly “leaned in” after initially being called out over anti-Semitic remarks in 2022.
The Ye-centered insight comes just over two hours into Dicky’s appearance on the FLAGRANT podcast earlier this week. As we’ve reported, Dave Burd, a.k.a. Lil Dicky, has been on a promo run as of late in support of his recently released Penith project. The 22-track album serves as the soundtrack for DAVE, which wrapped its third acclaimed season in May of last year with a Drake and Brad Pitt-featuring finale.
"Look, all I can tell you is my experience with Kanye West which was in 2017," Dicky said when asked about "this whole anti-Semitism thing" on the show. "I ended up getting involved in his basketball run. I literally met him on the basketball court. First time meeting Kanye, by the way. Full court three-on-three, me guarding Kanye."
Dicky said Ye was a “good shooter” with some “weirdly good” moves on the court. Over the course of a year, Dicky says, Ye was “nothing but nice” to him and even invited him to hear new music and see what he was working on in the clothing space at the time.
“Truly was, like, one of the nicest,” Dicky said “And this is my hero. I told him to his face. I don’t know if I would have the self-belief if my formative years weren’t listening to this other person having this insane self-belief and that being the soundtrack to my life. I believe that. I owe a lot to his art.”
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While Dicky says he and Ye “had a great relationship,” they ultimately lost touch after a number change and a team shift.
“I obviously see all the things,” Dicky said of Ye’s more recent headlines. “I was, like, surprised. Because I don’t think in his heart Kanye dislikes Jewish people. I know he knows I’m Jewish. I know he likes me. You know what I mean? In my heart, I feel like he probably said something and it was the wrong thing. I’m not denying that he’ll say the wrong thing often. I think he might have said the wrong thing, people got outraged. I think the thing that he can’t stand the most is when people tell him what he can or cannot say. He leaned into it. And that’s the reality. Now, I don’t think you should be leaning into it.”
Last month, Ye issued a statement to Instagram saying he was "starting with myself and learning from this experience to ensure greater sensitivity and understanding in the future." In the same statement, which was met with skepticism and speculation, he also apologized "to the Jewish community for any unintended outburst caused by my words or actions."
In his FLAGRANT interview, Dicky noted that his thoughts on Ye were merely him “theorizing” on the larger situation.
“He really is always ahead of the curve in a lot of things. That being said, you know, my mother is outraged by his comments. And rightfully so,” Dicky said. “But I think, at his core, I really believe he’s a good guy.”
From there, Dicky looked back on a studio session he had with Ye, also around 2017, in which Drake made a surprise appearance. Presented with the opportunity to let his two favorite artists know how integral they had been to his own work, Dicky seized the moment.
“I’m in there with both of them and I took the opportunity to be like, ‘Fellas, let me just tell both of you while you’re here that you guys are so by far my favorite two artists of all time that whoever is third, what a sizable gap there is between you two and the third [person],’” he recalled of the chance encounter with the “Summer Games” sequel denier alongside the artist formerly known as Kanye West.
Dicky followed up the aforementioned Penith with the rollout of his new "HAHAHA I LOVE MYSELF" short film, directed by Phillip R. Lopez and featuring Dicky's DAVE co-star GaTa.
