When did it all go wrong? Kanye West
A graphic with Kanye West’s albums (Wyett Pinney/The Puma Prensa)
By William Winkelman and Wyett Pinney, Website and Photo editors
“I miss the old Kanye, straight from the 'Go Kanye, Chop up the soul Kanye, set on his goals Kanye, I hate the new Kanye, the bad mood Kanye, The always rude Kanye, spaz in the news Kanye.” These lyrics come from the song “I Love Kanye” off his 2016 album The Life of Pablo, ironically released before his biggest controversies.
In 2025, Kanye comes to mind as a ranting antisemite and a husk of his former self, but when did it all fall down? What separates his small setbacks from the PR disasters, like nazism and promoting slavery, that have stained his career? Where did everything change, from being a small Chicago producer making his way in the music industry, to preaching Nazism on Twitter?
At an early age, Kanye only lived with his mom, Donda, and the two moved from Chicago to Nanjing, China. He would then live there and attend school, slowly developing his love for music while also building a cultural connection to Asian countries. Once he turned 20, he moved back to Chicago to attend college, but soon after, he dropped out to pursue his career in music, working as a producer for other artists. Most notably, Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint” and “The Dynasty" both reached number one for three weeks and ten weeks respectively and had huge audiences. This style of music he developed would be called “Chipmunk Soul,” which uses sped up samples in production. This style would separate Kanye from most of the rap music of the time, building a bridge to hip-hop and garnering a larger audience. From here he would work on developing his own songs like “All Falls Down” and “Jesus Walks” which he would eventually win a Grammy for before his debut album even came out. Finally, after going around to many different production studios, he was signed by Roc-A-Fella Records, a well respected record studio for rap music. This allowed him to go all out and work on his first album, The College Dropout.
This album would be released in 2004, winning ten Grammys in total and putting a noticeable foot in the door for his music career. West explores many different styles of both rap and hip-hop, using various samples and featured artists to produce his music. Many of his songs took note of a car accident he was in, speeding asleep at the wheel in a near fatal crash. Later he would work for a year, even going into debt to develop his second album, Late Registration. This album won even more awards and involved many more artists like Adam Levine and Jamie Foxx, making hits like “Gold Digger” and “Touch the Sky.” This album garnered three Grammys, with hits like “Gold Digger” going number 1 song for 10 weeks straight. Also around this time, he began the growth of his career in fashion, working on his own brand, Yeezy.
Finally, Graduation, one of his most well known music works, was released in 2007, with recognizable songs like “Flashing Lights” and “Stronger”; it won three Grammys as well. This album would also cement West as a rapper and his style as this album was a competition with 50 Cent’s album called “Curtis.” At the time 50 Cent was regarded as one of the best rappers of the time, with him saying he would retire from solo gangster rap toward West’s style if he lost in album sales. West ended up winning by 300,000 sales at the time, outclassing his rival by at least four million sales. This win would mark a high in Kanye’s life as everything was going well and he was known for being a great artist and producer. From here, he would plan on releasing a new album called Good Ass Job, but his plans would be interrupted by unfortunate circumstances.
On Nov. 10, 2007, Kanye’s mother, Donda West, passed away from a heart attack. Then in 2008, his fiance, Alexis Phifer, broke up with him, leaving him feeling very heartbroken and disconnected from his previous era of music and style. From here, West would go on to develop the album 808’s and Heartbreak, referring to the musical drum style of an 808 and the heartbreak he was living through. On this album is his most played song “Heartless,” with one point eight billion listens on Spotify, as it just came out and also the song would go trending on social media causing large streaming of the song. His album was different, ironically in the sense that his songs all had very similar qualities to them through this autotune, as he developed autotune and expressed emotion in music, specifically to convey more heavy feelings. This musical development in autotune would influence artists like Drake, The Weeknd, and many others.
He carried this new style and emotion into his 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which stands out for hits like “All of the Lights,” “POWER,” “Devil In a New Dress,” and his magnus opus “Runaway.” He made the album while staying in Hawaii, after stepping away from the music industry because of public backlash from the 2009 VMA awards. where he interrupted Taylor Swift's speech after she won the VMA award for “Best Female Video”. This album has a more perfected use of autotune from his more experimental albums and explores different topics from his previous works, like decadence, fame and hedonism. The most notable part of the album is its list of features, including Kid Cudi, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Rick Ross, John Legend, Pusha T, Nicki Minaj, Alicia Keys, Elly Jackson and Elton John, among others, all of which come together to create some of the strongest songs on Kanye’s entire discography.
His next album was a collab album with Jay-Z called Watch The Throne; released in 2011, its most notable song was “N— — in Paris.” His following full studio album was Yeezus made in 2013, which was by far one of his most experimental albums in his entire discography. It managed to become one his most divisive albums because of how unique it was sonically. At the same time as he was making Yeezus, he faced criticism from the American Defamation League, or ADL, for several antisemetic remarks in interviews. This was roughly the start of his open antisemetic rants that remain the biggest stain on his career.
His next major solo studio album was The Life of Pablo, which focused on themes of religion, media backlash, and mental health. In his song “Famous,” he addresses his conflict with Taylor Swift at the VMA that had sent him into his exile back in 2009, which then sparked more media backlash. Other notable songs on the album include “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” and “No More Parties In LA.” Around this time he also faced scrutiny for going on rants on politics and other celebrities during the tour for The Life of Pablo. These rants continued to damage his image; especially with the discrepancy from the once go-lucky happy Chicago producer, to the antisemite who rants about his political beliefs.
Ye would be his next production, a shorter six song album that came out seven days before his collab album with Kid Cudi called Kids See Ghosts; both were released in June 2018. Thematically, both albums touch topics of mental health, depression, and loneliness, but Ye delves deeper into Kanye’s regrets and suicidal thoughts, which comes through more on the songs “Violent Crimes” and “I thought about killing you.” This period of production also saw one of Kanye’s most controversial statements yet, when he said that he believed slavery was a choice. When combined with statements against abortion and welfare, 2018 saw the most media scrutiny towards him in his career at that point, though not enough to hurt the success of his albums.
He focused his next production on his religion in the album Jesus is King, released in 2019. However, at the same time he was producing this album, issues arose from unfair use of samples earlier in his career that led to his involvement in several lawsuits. This combined with his doubling down on his position on welfare, abortion, and the jail system cemented his fall from grace in the eyes of the public.
This fall from grace ushered in a new era for Kanye’s music, the Donda (2021) and Vultures 1 & 2 (2024) era. While Donda did see a fair bit of commercial success with a few hits, Vultures 1 and Vultures 2 were both generally considered his worst works in his entire career. This period also saw Kanye’s divorce from Kim Kardashian and his release from his contract with Adidas, both at least partially attributed to his public comments. This was only the prelude to the constant series of consequences resulting from the ton of comments he had made and controversies he was a part of, damaging the commercial success of his albums. This culminated in a lengthy series of antisemetic Nazi rants on X, formerly known as Twitter, that took place over months in early to mid-2025.
Kanye’s highs and lows in life have been grand and very extreme, as observed from his early works for Jay-Z to modern works like Donda 2. His fall off has been very tragic, as his influence with his work in autotune and influence of soul music has impacted the rap space in many ways, affecting most large artists today. A recovery is hopeful as of December 2025, as he has started to make apologies and improve himself, though results are yet to be seen. Apologizing after saying such hateful things isn't good enough, and he needs to make amends and show genuine change. From here, it is important to recognize his early works for their genius and influence while also keeping his modern hate speech and antisemitism in mind, as he isn't the same person he used to be. With his newest album “Bully” supposedly on the way for January 30, only time will tell how he turns out, and hopefully, it's more of the old Kanye and not the new.