Controversies cannot stop Kanye West: Ye returns to number 1

2024-02-20 17:58:03

Tuesday, February 20, 2024, 18:58

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There was a time when Kanye West lost his mind and had to focus on getting it back. He distanced himself from social media, alcohol and sex to focus on himself and try to overcome the megalomania that his life had become. He believed himself to be the best rapper in history (“I’m number 1, which means that anyone else who breathes is number 2”), married to the most influential (Kim Kardashian), desired by brands (Adidas, Gap, Balenciaga). ) and touched by the hand of the god of street music. All of that was broken consecutively with the separation from him and the anti-Semitic and racist comments that turned him into a pariah on the scene, a pest that no one wanted to get close to.

Until this week when, apparently redeemed, he has shown that he maintains his ascendancy over the genre that has elevated him.

Ye, as he has called himself for years, has jumped directly to number 1 on Billboard this week with ‘Vultures 1’, his first album after the controversy. Co-recorded with the singer, producer and composer Ty Dolla $ign, he has surpassed Usher in the race for the podium, whose ‘Coming Home’ came varnished by his great performance at the intermission of the most followed Superbowl in history. discovered a new generation. It is West’s eleventh consecutive album to go to No. 1 the week of its release. Despite his self-perception, another rapper, Jay-Z, has more number one hits than him (14), but it is true that no other rapper has managed to achieve them consecutively.

West performing during the 2008 Grammys.

He has not done it without controversy. ‘Vultures 1’ was released on February 10 and did not have a quiet week. His initial distributor, Fuga, canceled the project five days later, and Ye sought out another independent label that same day to continue. At the origin of the problems are the ‘samples’ that Ye has used in the compositions, some of which may cause copyright problems due to their use without permission from their original owners. One of the songs, ‘Good (Don’t Die)’ was removed from streaming platforms after the unauthorized use of excerpts from a Donna Summer single from 1977 (‘I Feel Love’), which was denounced by the Summer’s heirs. Other musicians, such as Ozzy Osbourne, directly denied him the right to sample one of her songs.

Apparently confronted with the other great artist of the moment, Taylor Swift (although these days she has insisted on emphasizing that “we are not enemies… although we are not friends either”), Ye has paid the price in recent years for her verbal incontinence and provocation. First, it was his business partners who left him aside and, with them, a good part of the industry. Companies including Balenciaga and JPMorgan Chase cut ties with him after Ye wore a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt to a Paris Fashion Week show in 2022 and posted anti-Semitic comments on social networks for which he was silenced on platforms such as Twitter. His net worth plummeted after Adidas pulled its collaboration with him on the Yeezy sneaker line that accounted for nearly 10 percent of the German firm’s annual revenue. This caused a very important problem for the brand with the three stripes, which had to create imaginative solutions to get rid of the very high stock of the Yeezy line without seeing its image penalized.

Kanye, right, during the controversial Paris fashion show.

But as in every fall to hell, there was redemption. “I sincerely apologize to the Jewish community for any ‘unintentional outbursts.’ “It was not my intention to hurt or demean, and I am deeply sorry for any pain I caused,” Ye said in the post in which she began rescheduling her career. «I am committed to starting with myself and learning from this experience to ensure greater sensitivity and understanding in the future. “Your forgiveness is important to me and I am committed to making amends and promoting unity,” he continued. A number 1 on the Billboard is a good starting point.

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