What’s Going on with Kanye West?

Kanye West. Everyone has heard that name. Famous artist, one of the best and most talented of our time, and an infamous person. VERY infamous. Lately his name has been surrounded with huge controversy that has changed his life, for the worse.

2022 has been a terrible time for Kanye and his fans that are watching this man break down and lose himself. Starting in the first half of the year, Kanye made horrible Instagram posts ranting about anyone and everyone he sees, especially towards ex-wife Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend Pete Davidson, harassing them any time he can. This has gotten to the point where West was repeatedly the butt of the joke on Saturday Night Live, being restricted on Instagram/Social media plenty of times (still is), being a meme worldwide, and not even on speaking terms with Kardashian. He wasn’t even invited to his own kid’s birthday party, he snuck in. Many former people he’s collaborated/close friends with, like Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, and many other famous celebrities he was once close with.

The summer continued the same way, but to a lesser extent. Kanye has repeatedly tried controlling his kids in ways that they do not deserve (forcing them to go to his private academy school, making posts demanding them etc..) and coming back on Twitter, saying his crazy things as usual. He also lost a brother to him, Kid Cudi, due to calling him out for literally no reason. Just another crazy rant, something Ye definitely has experience of.

Couple of months passed and October 2022 will go down in the history of controversy. Many people know Kanye as an extreme money maker and a billionaire, but everything within a 2 week span changed for him.

Earlier last month Ye wore a White Lives Matter shirt causing extreme controversy, causing the backlash as usual and locking out of his accounts for the 100000th time at this point. Once again Ye gained access to his Twitter account. Twitter is already infamous for the amount of hate speech people can say, and nobody wants a troll that is publicly racist. Kanye however, did the unthinkable and tweeted some anti-semitism (racism to Jewish people) and the public outraged as they should. The aftermath of just this one statement caused the following:

-Locked out of Instagram/Twitter accounts

-Ex Wife Kardashian with a 100M follower platform and MANY other high-list celebrities taking the time to dedicate posts criticizing him

-Being invited on a talk show to discuss these controversies, when he messes up again and randomly Fat-shames artist Lizzo who was RANDOMLY brought up by him

-His own BANK cutting ties with him

-His own episode on one of the biggest podcasts in the world Drink Champs being deleted

-His main money sources, Adidas and Gap, cutting ties with him (Dropped his Net Worth from 1B to 400M, 600 MILLION DOLLARS OF REVENUE LOST)

-Balenciaga Fashion cutting ties with him

-Vogue ending association with him

-His personal  agent cutting ties with him

-A whole documentary about him that took a lot to make being shut down

-Athletic Superstars such as Jaylen Brown and Aaron Donald, 2 of some of the best at their game, cutting ties with his Donda Sports Academy

-Ye failing to make a deals with Sketchers, and being cut off before he even tried

-Goodwill/other stores not accepting nor selling any Kanye/Yeezy apparel.

Say what you want about him as a musician, but the public has not really enjoyed his last studio releases for years, and I do not think any artists should want to work with him anymore, so I believe his music is going to take a huge fall off. He has a legendary catalog, but in my opinion it is hard to listen to his music due to how bad of a person he is. I asked some friends their opinion, and they seem to agree with me. I asked my friend, Natalie, Junior here at Pitman and they say that there is zero chance he bounces back in the media. I also asked my Mom, someone who has followed Kanye throughout his whole career, and she agrees, stating that she cannot look at him the same and expects the media to feel the same way.

Overall, despite whether you think it is amazing or complete trash, it is very hard to remember Kanye as a musician instead of a madman at this point.