"Yeezys Back Alright" Ye's Return to the Public Eye
A year of Saudi Arabian seclusion, Ye's back in the states whipping together last-minute listening parties for his album, Vultures. Podcast with Kanyeposts & Shane Cashman dissecting the chaos
Podcast with
aka Green Girl from Kanye’s Posts and author and writer, the last person who interviewed Ye before he went off the grid last December to catch up on everything that’s been happening with Ye since his triumphant return to the states.
LISTEN HERE:
“I haven’t had time to keep up on it, but I need to know EVERYTHING,” - Jessica
Written by Emilie Hagen of @kanyesposts
Ye's period of Saudi Arabian seclusion is officially over. A black and white video popped up on our social media feeds a few weeks ago, showing Ye walking away from the camera barefoot while a remix to America's favorite 2000s middle school dance tune, "Everybody," played in the background.
A Backstreet Boys sample was the last thing anyone expected on Ye's comeback album Vultures with Ty Dolla $ign, including the Backstreet Boys, who claim they never cleared the sample (although it was later reported that they don't have the rights to the song anyway).
It's hard to believe a whole year has passed since the public heard from Ye, who has been hiding out overseas in luxury resorts around the world with his gorgeous spandex-clad wife, Bianca. Many wondered if Bianca was his Yoko Ono and if their coupling would be the end of his musical career. But the last couple of weeks prove that Ye chose the boy band's sample for a reason- to let everyone know- Yeezy's back alright.
“It’s like a weather pattern. He kinda walks into the culture, throws a grenade, dips out and he comes back with an amazing record” — Shane Cashman
Shane Cashman bought a one-way ticket to Miami on a whim after rumors broke that Ye was planning to throw a pop-up listening party for the Vultures album. Accustomed to Ye's predictably unpredictable album rollouts, Shane refreshed Instagram all day waiting for event details and finally snagged a $200 ticket when the official announcement came just four hours before the event was expected to start. He headed over to the open-aired venue at Wynwood Market and stood behind a packed crowd of young screaming fans restlessly waiting hours for Ye to take the stage.
Naturally, Ye was on Gemini time and showed up four hours late, making his fans wait until 2:00 AM to watch him debut almost-finished tracks with his latest squad of "cancelled" avengers and his kids, North and Saint West.
All the TikTok practice clearly paid off for North, who didn't express an ounce of stage fright, wildly comfortable alongside her father and the rest of the Vultures crew- Chris Brown, Offset, Freddie Gibbs, Lil Durk, and Kodak Black.
“All artists are vultures… we’re all vultures. We all dig through the dead to make something new.” — Shane Cashman
The crowd erupted when she started lip-syncing her very own verse, "It's your bestie. Miss, Miss Westie. Don't try to test me, it's gonna get messy. It's gonna get messy. Just, just bless me," a song that's been stuck in everyone's head all week. North jumped up and down in baggy black overalls and an oversized leather jacket, a much more fitting look for her than the constricted tweed blazers the Kardashians stuff her into.
Ye's never looked prouder, admiring North as she performed her verse, but immediately used his dangling head scarf to cover his smile before the crowd caught this rare moment of vulnerability. A proud, smiling father is not on brand with Vultures.
Kudos to Kim for letting the kids perform with their Dad in the middle of the night. Immediately, I pictured Kris Jenner beaming at the thought of North West becoming the next Nicki Minaj, although Ye later claimed North had to "rip up the motherf**kng couches" to come to the show.
Besides North West's debut, the media has been solely focused on reporting the elements of the Vultures show they received as "negative" and "controversial," seemingly to drive more clicks to their sites while keeping Ye's villainous image alive to those who only read headlines. TMZ made Ye's headpiece the center of their headlines, describing it as a "KKK-type hood." Any longtime fan of Ye knows this same imagery was used in his 2013 music video for "Black Skinhead," but TMZ only reveals that bit of information deep into the article, which triggered the uninformed, who began commenting angrily on posts accusing Ye of supporting the KKK. If Ye wore this to get a reaction, he got what he was looking for.
"Kanye's has displayed this imagery before ... back in 2013 for the music video of "Black Skinhead" -- which was seen as artsy/edgy back then, but is viewed in a different context now, obviously" - TMZ
(That typo above "Kanye's has" is still uncorrected on the TMZ site)
The lyric, "How am I antisemitic? I just f**** a J***sh b***h," did not free him of his antisemitic reputation he earned in 2022. It just gave folks more ammunition to continue calling him antisemitic rather than analyzing the "why?" Ye fans online have hypothesized that Ye purposely wrote that lyric to point out the hypocrisy in the music industry, an industry that allows rappers to speak freely and negatively about women from other races.
“When he said George Bush hates black people, it was beloved by the left because he was going after the right. Now that he’s saying things they don’t like, it’s problematic.” - Shane Cashman
Since Ye's public return, he has launched an independent news site "Yews," run by Milo Yiannopoulos, reactivated his Instagram account, started tweeting, and made headlines for a seemingly drunken 6:00 AM Vegas rant, where he finally condemned Balenciaga. The moment we've all been waiting for.
“Demna, F*** you. F*** Balenciaga.”
The rest of his 14-minute speech, recorded on an Instagram livestream, included many repetitive grievances that have become his signature talking points. Evidently, a beautiful new wife and a year of tranquil isolation were still not enough to dissolve his longstanding frustrations with Adidas, Kim, and… a certain group of people.
Someone interrupted Ye mid-speech and said, “you aint god!” He responded, “Be quiet before you get ex’ed out!”( although the internet is captioning this sound bite as “exiled” because it’s much funnier that way).
On the bright side, this rant ended the "Ye is a clone" rumors.
The photo of him hugging his daughter is beautiful and captures who he really is. You see it in his eyes, but I also see pain and suffering behind those eyes…and I believe his distress, sadness and mental illness has been brought on by MK Ultra programming. So sad. I‘m not really familiar with his music but I am interested in him as a human being and what they have done to him.
This was beautiful, I think Kanye represents the part of us that loves chaos, the part of us that gets bored in the presence of stability, have you ever wondered why it was fun to throw stones in a lake and get ripples in return. I think that's the best way to understand kanye and his fans, true art is authentic expression and if everyone expresses themselves authentically, then you'll see that kanye isn't a bad guy afterall...