After nearly three years, Kanye West (or “Yee”) released his latest album, Eagles 1, a collaboration with Ty Dolla $ign as part of a planned trilogy. One might expect that, given the end of several business relationships due to his past anti-Semitic statements, this album might have underperformed. But it reached number one spot in at least 100 countries on the Apple and iTunes charts, although it was independently produced and initially unavailable on Spotify and YouTube.
The implication here is that the West has gained a level of success and popularity that cannot be erased or reversed. Kanye is, so to speak, irrevocable. still he have Tens of millions of daily listeners and streams on Spotify alone. This was before his last album.
Eagles 1 He already proved controversial with his original album artistic work Accused of having Nazi connotations. On the lyrical front, Kanye raps, referring to the artists convicted and accused of sexual assault respectively, saying, “I'm a yee-kili bitch… now, I'm a puff daddy rich (ha), this is #MeToo me” rich (ha …” In reference to accusations of anti-Semitism, another Western lyric says: “I'm not an anti-Semite, I just fucked a Jewish whore.”
While these lyrics aren't the most shocking of the genre, they do indicate the level of confidence West holds regarding his place in popular culture. In fact, since the rapper is now so famous, he can take more hits (and cancellation attempts) than most other artists. Take Azealia Banks, for example, who had a promising start to her music career. It quickly sparked controversy Use anti-gay slurs, Stinging trans women, support Donald Trump and made erratic social media posts that damaged her mainstream reputation and career prospects. Eventually, Banks was sidelined from major shows and festivals, leading to declining sales. The same, as the success of his latest album shows, can't be said about West.
But more broadly, Kanye's relative success can be attributed to the death of monoculture. Previously, most of the general public listened to the radio, watched the same television stations, read the same newspapers, and consumed the same news sources. But the growth of the Internet from the 2000s onward gradually fragmented this culture. Nowadays, more people consume news, media and music from narrower, more specialized sources. This means that a song can be a smash hit in an online community while most offline people will not be aware of it and may never hear it in their lives.
So it's possible that those who aren't chronically online or immersed in social media might not really care much, even if they are aware of his scandals, because they only see him as a talented rapper. The fact remains that Kanye was only “cancelled” like his next album. If his albums contain at least some quality music, they will be streamed and downloaded, he will be talked about and thus make more money.
True cancellation does not come from elites in the media, music, or fashion industry. Like it or not, it's coming from the bottom: West will only be truly “cancelled” when people stop listening to his music and the demand for it fades. Even then, Kanye isn't going away anytime soon.
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