A brand new album release, a sold out fashion show in Madison Square Garden, a live performance on Saturday Night Live and the whole world waiting on his next move. You would think that Kanye West had it all, right? Yes and no. Kanye West, self-proclaimed creative genius, has had a rash of ups and downs over the course of a few weeks and it all really started on January 1 of this year.
Upon ringing in the New Year, West released a brand new song to add to the celebration. West similarly started off 2015 the same way so it was not the most unexpected move on his part. His presence on Twitter, however, is what is unexpected. Over the last month and a half, Kanye took to Twitter with one rant after the other. Kim Kardashian also came into the mix announcing that Kanye would again be starting to reveal a new song every Friday, a marketing strategy created a few years ago called “G.O.O.D. Fridays.” After two Fridays of releasing new music, the trend began to fall short and new songs were not released. The Twitter world was confused and irritated, but not all that surprised.
In the midst of ranting on Twitter, Kanye announced that he would be holding an album release party at Madison Square Garden to unveil his new clothing line and his seventh studio album, “The Life of Pablo.” Around the world, organizations took part in this show and opened up venues for live streaming of the event. The Madison Square Garden show sold out almost instantly. The entire show, “Yeezy Season 3,” was also available for streaming to users who own a subscription to Tidal, a wireless streaming app, which is where I viewed the show. The stream started at 4 PM and went on for a little over two hours. The “show” portion of the event consisted of models standing on a stage wearing apparel from the line. Kanye stood on the floor with his closest friends and coworkers and played his album from start to finish via his computer. Once the album finished, Kanye thanked his fans for coming out, showed a brief video of a video game that he is creating and then passed around the auxiliary cord for friends to show off their songs. The whole show seemed to be put together in a sloppy manner, but in the end, fans were happy to finally hear his album.
West, who many say has lost his mind, said some very interesting things on this album. The most touched upon was his remark about Taylor Swift. Since the two have had negative encounters in the past, there was already some “bad blood” between them. There was a period of time when the media reported that Kanye and Taylor made up and hoped to work on music together one day. My guess is that it is not going to happen anytime soon.
Aside from the controversial Taylor Swift line, “The Life of Pablo,” previously named Swish, Waves and So Help Me God, and is still being taken in by critics and music fans from around the world. The album was intended to be released to the whole world through Spotify and Apple on February 20th, but did not make its appearance. On February 22nd, a brand new video leaked that was produced by Steve McQueen. The video has since been taken down from every website it made it on to.
People who have previously worked on music with Kanye, such as Rhymefest, are taking to social media to discuss his mental state. Rhymefest posted on Twitter that he was not helping Kanye with this album until he felt they were on the same page. Kanye has mentioned in a couple songs now that he uses the antidepressant Lexapro. Other reports claim that Kanye may have stopped taking whatever medication he was on, and more news has appeared that discussed a speech Kanye gave during a music video shooting that he once contemplated suicide.
From here on out, it is anyone’s guess as to what will happen next in the life of Kanye West. Whether you are a fan of his, or you absolutely cannot stand him, there are a few things you must remember. He will continue to do exactly what he wants. He will continue to say whatever pops into his head. And he will continue to do everything in his power to show off his creativity. I will argue that Kanye is still one of the most talented hip-hop musicians alive and that aside from all of his bad publicity, he is a marketing genius. Whether you are on his side or not, in the end it is just Kanye being Kanye.