The Kanye Comeback: Can Kanye’s New Album Mark a Start to His Return?

Note:  Even though he legally changed his name to Ye in 2021, I will refer to him by his prior name, Kanye West, in this post, as his music is frequently released and credited to this name.

At this point, I imagine it is safe to assume that most people reading this know the controversy that Kanye West has caused over the past 14-months regarding many statements that have been classified as anti-Semitic; while I will not go into the statements here, there were many that I found at least shocking, with many being extremely offensive.  He lost several endorsement deals and faced massive criticism, with it being easy to declare him “cancelled”.  It is worth noting that he still has a significant number of streams on various streaming services, where his music still remains.  That said, while several people acted like there was no way he could come back from this, I thought he could since he was big enough in both pop culture and music history.  Now that he has a collaborative album coming out with Ty Dolla $ign, I would like to not only evaluate if I think he could reclaim the spotlight, but also a few other approaches that he appeared to embrace over the past year.

The first approach that I would like to discuss is what I will call the Travis Scott approach.  After the 2021 Astroworld Festival crowd rush which resulted in 10 deaths and hundreds of injuries, Scott took an approach not usually taken by many celebrities after apologizing:  he largely stayed quiet.  He cancelled his tour dates scheduled immediately following the festival and postponed the release of Utopia, and nobody really heard from him until April 22, 2022, when he was featured in "Hold That Heat", by Southside and Future.  From there, he performed at the Billboard Music Awards, a show in London, and at a Vegas residency.  While I had previously predicted on a podcast I recorded with my sister/our legal expert, Meaghan, discussing the festival, that he would make a comeback and be touring within a year of Astroworld (something Meaghan had found both improbable and unsettling), I honestly expected that the first performance would be through a livestream rather than an awards show.  From there, he has gone on a massive tour with not as many hiccups (though one assault investigation without charges filed came about) and released Utopia, which was a massive commercial hit while receiving a Grammy nomination.  While he likely won’t be able to fully reclaim the success that he had prior to Astroworld, when I had considered him one of the most marketable hip hop artists ever, he has successfully come back to acclaim.  While Kanye was never going to go quietly, he wasn’t quite as in everybody’s face after being suspended from multiple social media platforms.  That said, I think part of that was due to being suspended from platforms and also going onto platforms that leaned more right-wing and potentially extreme (which might demonstrate a bit of my political leanings that I’ve largely heard nothing from him).  Even with these, he appears to not be striving for international fame in every medium possible, which is something that he tried prior to his comments.  That said, I think there is another approach he has taken more.

The approach that I would have bet on Kanye taking would have been what I will call the DaBaby approach.  On July 25, 2021, DaBaby made several comments that were considered by many to be homophobic (they were also really strange remarks, which is something I don’t think enough people discuss due to the offensive nature of them) while performing at Rolling Loud Miami.  Immediately after, he was dropped from several festivals, including the Lollapalooza set he was going to perform just 6 days later.  He then generated more controversy with an apology that was weird and then one that was deleted.  He has also gone from starting to headline arenas to performing mostly theater shows, with a tour starting just a few months after the incident.  As for his releases, he went from having several massive hits to just 3 top-100 hits since the incident, and from having his albums top the charts to having a collaboration album reach number 10 and his most recent solo album peak at 34.  All the while, he has taken the approach of embracing being cancelled and bragging about it at points.  By continuing to do interviews with far-right and conservative hosts (I don’t know if all of them are considered far-right, but many he has interviewed with have a more conservative fanbase) and continuing to make anti-Semitic comments, he is diving into the thing that supposedly cancelled him in the process.  He had years of controversial statements and actions about a variety of things, but this was the one that appeared to do him in at this time, which makes the fact that he is sticking to it kind of surprising.

Earlier this year, I was considering writing a post about how I thought Kanye could make a comeback, which was through the way he started his career in producing.  Prior to the release of his debut album The College Dropout, Kanye made his name as a producer.  While he is most known for being one of the main producers of Jay-Z’s The Blueprint (and often being credited for Jay-Z’s resurgence), he also produced music for several notable names, including Alicia Keys, Monica, Ludacris, Jermaine Dupri, Lil’ Kim, T.I., and Nas, among several others.  Some of the notable singles he produced prior to his debut album include top-10 hits “Slow Jamz” (Twista featuring Jamie Foxx and Kanye), “Stand Up” (Ludcaris featuring Shawnna), “03 Bonnie & Clyde” (Jay-Z featuring Beyonce), “You Don’t Know My Name” (Alicia Keys), and “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” (Jay-Z), as well as other notable singles by artists such as Scarface, Monica, Talib Kweli, and Trina; he continued to produce for a variety of notable artists since, as well as his own releases.  After he released his statements, he made a bit of a comeback in production, as he produced songs for Tyler, the Creator, and Travis Scott (Kanye’s influence was clear throughout his album Utopia).  I thought this was a safer approach for him to make a comeback due to the fact that there isn’t as much focus on the producer even when receiving praise.  While there were very different circumstances that led to the controversy, Dr. Luke has reemerged in the production world after facing a lawsuit against Kesha, producing for several artists in smaller doses, as well as consistently producing for Doja Cat, Kim Petras, and Lil Durk.  The only time there were any concerns about Dr. Luke’s comeback was the first time he was nominated for a Grammy for producing for Doja Cat, but the response was muted by the time her next album (and he) received even more.

That said, Kanye appears to have a different approach to return to the mainstream and is trying to do so as a performer.  It was announced in October that he was creating a collaborative album with Ty Dolla $ign, titled Vultures.  I was admittedly surprised by it since I’m not sure what Ty Dolla $ign has to gain from this; even though he isn’t a household name outside of hip hop, he is generally respected in hip hop/R&B and has become one of the more common featured artists in the genre.  While some were likely excited about the project initially, it has been marred by issues, false promises, and controversies.  They promised a listening party initially, but that never materialized, and they never really addressed it.  After announcing the album, they shopped it among record labels, but nobody wanted to touch it, so they planned to self-release it.  After announcing the cover, there was immediate backlash regarding anti-Semitism, as the cover was by an artist admired by Hitler and is reminiscent to an album cover by Burzum, whose main member, Varg Vikernes, has notably been linked to Nazism, even describing himself as one at points in his life (for those arguing that Kanye might not be familiar with the project, he was previously featured on a Gucci Mane track that sampled a Burzum song).  They released the first single, “Vultures”, but it was Kanye’s worst charting lead single in his career (unless you count Sunday Service Choir’s album, which didn’t release any singles).  The biggest issue with the planned release has come from the fact that they can’t get it out; it has already been delayed at least 4 times due to issues clearing songs, features, and samples, most notably having difficulties with getting approval from Nicki Minaj and Backstreet Boys.  Ultimately, there is a case to be made that there is no motivation for either to grant permission.

Currently, if I had to predict, I wouldn’t bet on this album being a massive success because the anti-Semetic comments were so recent and artist is going to be under a different name instead of Kanye & Ty Dolla $ign, being called ¥$ (for a comparison, think of when Beyonce and Jay-Z released their album under the name The Carters and it peaked at number 2 in the US, though part of that may have been since it was initially released on Tidal).  While Kanye found some success as a producer in the past year, I think it would have made the most sense to continue going that route.  I think a major thing that is also worth noting is that he has yet to feature in a song since 2022, so I think that artists (and more so record labels) are still a little nervous about bringing him on.  While I think it will chart on the Billboard 200, it’s entirely possible that it misses the top-40, which would be a massive flop for Kanye.