Kanye West: The life of Yeezy has become uneasy viewing

The very public decline of Kanye West - now called Ye - is the tragic consequence of mega-celebrity meeting mental illness.

US rapper Kanye West, centre, attends the Givenchy Spring-Summer 2023 fashion show during the Paris Womenswear Fashion Week, in Paris, on October 2. Picture: AFP

He might not be “Shakespeare in the flesh” as he once claimed, but for many Kanye West is a genius - one of the great music artists of our time, the David Bowie of hip-hop, relentlessly innovative, unique. Many allow their dislike of Kanye the man to colour their view of his creative talent. Others have so much admiration that they’ve been willing to excuse his behaviour, as we have with obnoxious artists going all the way back to the troublemaker Caravaggio. It’s also no secret that West is ill. He has spent time in a psychiatric hospital and, in 2016, was diagnosed as bipolar.

But even tolerance for an unwell genius has its limits. In the past fortnight it feels as if a tipping point has been reached. How has it come to this? The West story is an unholy collision between the unchecked power of mega-celebrity, the dangers of unfiltered social media and a genius with serious mental health problems in need of help.

West, who is now known as Ye, has made antisemitic jibes in the past but a garbled Twitter rant last Sunday crossed a dangerous line. “I’m a bit sleepy tonight (Sunday) but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” he wrote. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

Even ardent Kanye fans have expressed a kind of numb horror as these events have unfolded. As the rapper turned fashion mogul falls deeper into disarray, big brands from Gap to JP Morgan have also cut their ties.

Kanye West and Candace Owens attend the The Greatest Lie Ever Sold Premiere Screening on October 12. Picture: Getty

West, 45, has made almost as many inflammatory statements on race and politics as Donald Trump over the years but a stunt earlier this month - wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt at Paris Fashion Week - felt somehow empty; controversy for its own sake. During a long interview with the Fox News host Tucker Carlson last week, he seemed confused, incoherent and strayed once more into antisemitism. It was difficult to watch. Because not only are these dreary garden variety conspiracy theories toxic and racist, they’re also - and this would probably upset West more - dull and entirely predictable. The Jews stole all my money? Come on. Next he’ll be telling us King Charles is a lizard.

Many people trace the root of West’s decline to losing his beloved mother Donda to a heart attack in 2007. Donda, a professor of English literature, raised West as a single mother in the suburbs of Chicago. She was his guidance counsellor, moral compass and even commercial manager. “You know I love you so, I never let you go,” he rapped in Hey Mama, a 2005 tribute song.

“He has not recovered from the loss of his mother,” said Ulysses Blakely, an ex-boyfriend of Donda’s, in a recent interview. “They had such a close bond. She was a very forceful person who sought to fortify him for the real world.”

In 2009, West ambushed Taylor Swift on stage at the Video Music Awards in New York, interrupting her acceptance speech to declare that the award for video of the year should have gone to Beyonce instead. This outrage set the tone for much that followed.

In Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy, a fascinating three-part Netflix documentary on West that came out earlier this year, the post-Donda decline is immediately apparent. “It was like the bigger he got, the more he needed her around,” is the view of Clarence “Coodie” Simmons, a longtime friend of West who spent years filming him for the documentary.

As it did to so many others in America, the Trump era appeared to destabilise West further. He shocked the world by coming out as a Trump fan, donning a red Maga (Make America Great Again) cap and sitting down with the president for an Oval Office meeting in 2018. “When I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman,” he said, attacking those who assume that entertainers must have “a monolithic voice that’s forced to be a specific party”.

His Trumpian dalliance made him a hero to some American conservatives, who have long wanted an A-list entertainment figure to call their own. It also brought him into the orbit of Candace Owens, a controversial black Trump supporter who appeared on stage with him during his Paris Fashion Week stunt and has defended his recent outbursts.

The Trump-Kanye summit in 2018 didn’t win West many other friends. His fellow rapper T.I. called the meeting “repulsive”, adding: “I’m ashamed to have ever been associated with you.”

West underwent a religious revival at this point too, touring America with his “Sunday Service” performances with a live band and gospel choir. At times one wondered whether he was worshipping Jesus or imitating him.

In July 2020, West announced that he was running for president under the banner of the “Birthday Party” ("Because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday,” he told Forbes magazine). He received a mere 66,000 votes in 12 states, but Republican operatives poured money into his campaign, hoping he might split the black vote in key states and hand Trump victory.

The star’s latest decline appears to have been driven in part by his divorce from Kim Kardashian after six years of marriage. “Kimye” were the biggest thing on the planet for a while, a supercouple capable of breaking the internet at will. The couple had four children - North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm - but in February last year Kardashian filed for divorce saying West created “emotional distress”.

The star’s latest decline appears to have been driven in part by his divorce from Kim Kardashian. Picture: Instagram

West’s response to the split has been characteristically dark. He has claimed that the Kardashian family wanted to “lock him up”, and made a music video for his song Eazy in which he buried a “claymation” head with a resemblance to Kardashian’s new boyfriend, the comedian Pete Davidson. Speaking about her ex-husband’s recent social media attacks, her response was that she’d had enough.

Perhaps the most revealing line in the almost five-hour Jeen-yuhs documentary is when West describes his emotions about his meeting with Trump. “I felt this freedom doing something that everybody tells you not to do,” he reflects.

Such is West’s wealth and fame, no one can really stop him doing pretty much whatever he wants, no matter how unwell he seems, and no matter the cost to his reputation and those close to him. But almost everyone else is feeling more like Kardashian at this point. They’ve had enough.

The Sunday Times