The Life of Pablo was a turning point for Kanye West. By 2016, he had arguably become the most influential rapper in the world. By 2022, controversial actions and anti-Semitic statements made him a pariah of the music industry.
While Kanye’s reputation is something known by even the most casual of music listeners, some may not know how he got to this point. While it may not have all the answers, The Life of Pablo‘s chaotic rollout, messy lyrics, and generally bizarre structure feel like the moments leading up to a breakdown. Above all else, the record feels like the moment that Kanye entered a new, much more polarizing era.
How did Kanye get here?
Before his days of unending fame behind the mic, Kanye started out behind the scenes. His days as a producer and beatmaker are often overlooked. Nonetheless, they are essential to his story as an artist.
After spending years producing for rappers like Foxy Brown, Beanie Sigel, and most notably Jay-Z on the latter’s Roc-A-Fella Records. After producing a large chunk of Jay-Z’s career-defining 2001 album The Blueprint, Kanye shopped his rapping abilities around to various labels with minimal success. His underdog style didn’t fit with the so-called “bling era” of rap.
Eventually, Roc-A-Fella Records head Damon Dash signed Kanye as a recording artist. He debuted as a solo artist in 2004 with The College Dropout. His first full-length album was an immediate commercial and critical success. Over the following years, Kanye would release albums like Late Registration and Graduation. These albums would meet a similarly positive reception in every regard, with all of them eventually achieving classic status.
As time passed and the flames of Kanye’s fame began to burn even brighter, he became even more controversial. 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy saw him reflect on his rising influence and power. An album that features equal parts introspection and egotism, it was Kanye subtly wearing his heart on his sleeve. A similar statement could be made about the more industrial Yeezus from 2013.
The natural next step was something even more vulnerable. Rather than coming through directly in his public image or an interview, that emotional exploration of Kanye West came in the form of 2016’s The Life of Pablo.
A strange rollout
Even something as simplistic as uploading The Life of Pablo to streaming was no simple task for Kanye.
Initially, The Life of Pablo was only uploaded to the streaming service Tidal when it dropped on February 14. This caused the service to temporarily skyrocket in popularity. Longtime Spotify and Apple Music users were willing to briefly abandon their chosen platforms to tap into the new Kanye album.
“Famous” was eventually released to other streaming services as a single on March 28. The next song to come to non-Tidal digital streaming platforms was the a cappella interlude “I Love Kanye” two days later. On April 1, a slightly tweaked version of The Life of Pablo came to Spotify and Apple Music.
The changes didn’t stop there. Over the next few months, Kanye would periodically make changes to the album. This would result in The Life of Pablo being updated on streaming services at random. He began by altering minor aspects of the album. A lyric was changed here or there. Some mixes were redone. Nothing too major.
Making major changes
On March 30, Kanye had reworked almost the entirety of The Life of Pablo. Def Jam Records clarified that this was a fully remixed version of the original album. More changes were to be expected. More minor updates were made to The Life of Pablo before the final major update was uploaded on June 14, when an entirely new song entitled “Saint Pablo” was tacked onto the end of the album.
This idea of constantly updating an album post-release was innovative. Several rappers took note of this and made alterations to their albums after release in the coming years. Behind the initial veneer of artistic ambition and independence, though, is an undeniable shakiness.
This uncertain roll-out was not unlike what he would eventually do with records like Donda, which had equally shaky release schedules in the coming years. It seems like even Kanye himself was unsure of what The Life of Pablo was meant to be. Even if updates did eventually stop, it feels like that brief period where he insisted on making near-constant alterations to the record was a sign of things to come in relation to his jolt in unpredictable and oftentimes bizarre behavior in the public eye.
Kanye’s hectic songwriting
The Life of Pablo is just as much of a mess from a thematic standpoint. When the album was initially announced, Kanye cited it as being a gospel album. In a radio interview, he referred to it as a “…gospel album with a whole lot of cursing on it.” He involved famed gospel singer Kirk Franklin in the making of the record too.
If a gospel album laced with Kanye’s usual profanity sounds oxymoronic, it’s because it is. That peculiar combination is, in a sense, the core of The Life of Pablo. This is an album that makes wild tonal shifts with no remorse and a minimal number of segues.
Analyzing his songwriting
The album-opening track “Ultralight Beam” features an extensive verse from Chance the Rapper talking about his faith and connection to God (something that Kanye himself would expound upon more with 2019’s Jesus Is King). It immediately sees Kanye take up a more spiritual lyrical style than his previous records. This is immediately followed by the infamous “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” and the contentious lyrics, “Now, if I fuck this model / And she just bleached her asshole / And I get bleach on my T-shirt / I’ma feel like an asshole.”
From there, the album descends into an assortment of topics that range from church-like to raucously raunchy. From the egotistical nature of “Fame” and its notorious line about Taylor Swift (“I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? ‘Cause I made that bitch famous”) to the emotional meditation of “Wolves,” The Life of Pablo is constantly jumping from one mood to the next with no regard for the overall flow of the record.
The constant tonal whiplash and general disregard for consistency were unprecedented. While Kanye may have had his fair share of misses or otherwise odd tracks in the past, his albums always felt singular in their vision. Records like 808s and Heartbreaks and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had specific creative visions and ran with them. The Life of Pablo knows that it is a mess, and that is its vision. That state of stylistic disarray comes across as predictive of Kanye’s future musical endeavors.
Kanye’s self-awareness
There is a certain degree of self-awareness Kanye has throughout The Life of Pablo that makes it seem like even he knows that things are getting worse for him. That can be seen directly in his songwriting.
Early on in the album, Kanye dares his naysayers to “Name one genius that ain’t crazy” on “Feedback.” He bluntly cites himself as a genius while also accepting that he is not mentally stable. Even if it says it somewhat jokingly, Kanye is clearly okay with the idea of being “crazy” if it means he can continue to hold onto his self-imposed title of “genius.”
Later, Kanye uses the song “FML” to talk about his then-relationship with Kim Kardashian. In the midst of this, he states that she hasn’t “seen nothing crazier” than him when he is “off his Lexapro.” With Lexapro being one of the most common antidepressants used to treat various disorders, it seems that Kanye is admitting that he is at least semi-frequently off his medication. More than that, he is able to recognize the kind of person he becomes when he is in that state.
This feels like more than his usual post-808s and Heartbreaks introspection. There is an underlying darkness to these lines. He recognizes his declining mental state yet seemingly connects it to the quality of his art (even if sometimes in a sarcastic manner). It feels like the listener is facing a man who does not know how to get better or is otherwise unwilling to. Perhaps that is how we got the Kanye we see today.
Was The Life of Pablo the beginning of the end?
There is something to be said about the way that The Life of Pablo feels like the start of a new era for Kanye. While there is still his usual visionary artistry to be found, it feels like the beginning of a spiral.
The songs were released unfinished. It was constantly re-released and updated in a wholly unorthodox way months after it initially dropped. The songs go between introspective and totally deflective of criticism. There are several moments where Kanye seems to recognize that his mental health is deteriorating and accepts it rather than striving towards something healthier.
While the reality of Kanye’s life cannot be fully seen through The Life of Pablo, it can still feel uncomfortable. One might even be inclined to say that listening to the album bestows the listener with a sense of perversion and intrusion as it highlights some of the unhealthiest yet most morbidly fascinating aspects of how Kanye presents himself to the world.
Where is Kanye now?
In 2022, Kanye began making various anti-Semitic claims that permanently damaged his reputation. In an interview on Alex Jones’ Infowars, Kanye outright denied the Holocaust and declared himself a Nazi. By 2025, he was selling shirts with swastikas on them on his official merch store website.
This past January, Kanye made an official apology for his remarks via a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. In said statement, he remarked that his actions were caused by his Bipolar Disorder. He stated, “One of the difficult aspects of having bipolar type-1 are the disconnected moments – many of which I still cannot recall – that led to poor judgment and reckless behavior that oftentimes feels like an out-of-body-experience.”
Only time will tell if Kanye’s reputation will ever recover (or if he is even being sincere with this apology, seeing as he made another apology in 2023 before resuming making anti-Semitic comments). With many finding his apology to be too miniscule after causing so much emotional damage, it may take much more for Kanye to win over many of his former fans once more.
The Life of Pablo was meant to be many things. It was meant to be a gospel-rap fusion album that dealt with spirituality, guilt, overconfidence, and changing relationships in a uniquely Kanye way. At its core, it is all those things. However, with the following years of Kanye’s public image haunting it, The Life of Pablo feels like the last stand of the Kanye we once knew.
To paraphrase the man himself on “I Love Kanye,” we miss the old Kanye.
