Will rapper Kanye West finally be cancelled after finding himself at centre of controversy once again?

He was one of the first rappers to become a billionaire thanks to his lucrative collaboration with Adidas, but the footwear powerhouse has become the latest high-profile brand to cut ties with Kanye West who appears to be losing it all in a brazen, very public and ultimately sad act of self-destruction. The once-beloved musician has been in a downward spiral since earlier this month following his controversial YZY fashion show at Paris Fashion Week where the models wore “White Lives Matters” tops. Instead of apologising, West doubled down publicly claiming the Black Lives Matter movement was a scam, shaming famous women, including his estranged wife Kim Kardashian, and said he wanted to go “death con “ on Jewish people. With almost two decades in the public eye, many have become immune to West’s bizarre and controversial statements. But it appears his latest rants are beyond the pale even for his staunchest defenders. The Chicago native is no stranger to controversy. In 2005 when celebrities joined together to help Hurricane Katrina victims, West went off script and declared: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” The former US president said West’s outburst was “one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency”. Throughout his earlier years, West knew how to cause controversy — whether it be a rant directed towards an award show when he lost or his “Jesus” Rolling Stone magazine cover, where he was photographed in a crown of thorns — the rapper was never afraid to make headlines and push boundaries. But more recently it appears his peers in the entertainment industry have grown weary of West and his antics. So how did the acclaimed artist go from one of the greatest and most influential hip-hop musicians of all time to a pariah? West began his career as a celebrated music producer, working for artists such as Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson and Ludacris. Although no one ever took him seriously as a rapper, he pushed past the doubters and proved through his debut album, The College Dropout, that he had enough talent to compete with the big dogs. The album debuted at No.2 and earned West 10 Grammy nominations in 2005. Over the course of the next four years, West went on to release three more albums, each one of them smash hits. West redefined what it meant to be a rapper by experimenting with sounds and style, chiefly by incorporating electronic music into hip-hop. But as his fame and success grew, so did his ego. In 2009 he made MTV history, but for all the wrong reasons. During the MTV Video Music Awards, the rapper stormed the stage and denounced a then 19-year-old Taylor Swift’s win of the Video Music Award stating that “Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time” for her hit Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it). The moment turned him from famous to infamous. The consequences were swift, with a tour with Lady Gaga cancelled, President Barrack Obama calling him a “jackass” and Donald Trump (who would later become an ally) calling for a boycott. But it wasn’t career-ending. West did what many celebrities do when they find themselves at the centre of a scandal: he hid. When he later returned, he apologised for his bad behaviour and like a phoenix rising from the ashes, West’s career became bigger than ever when he released what many believe is his best album to date, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The world, Hollywood and fans forgot all about his VMA moment and forgave the star. After all, all he did was interrupt someone. It wasn’t like he had made any discriminatory comments. After being friends for years, in 2012 Kim Kardashian and West began dating. The rapper has previously stated he knew he wanted to be with Kardashian when he first saw paparazzi photos of her and Paris Hilton at Bondi Beach in 2006. When Kim and West got together, Kardashian had been a reality star who was famous for being famous. She had just divorced her husband of 72 days, basketball player Kris Humphries. Many thought this would be the end of the Kardashians, with some believing her marriage to Humphries was a scam just for TV ratings. But the union between Kardashian and West took Kim from a trashy reality star to a pop culture icon. They became the biggest celebrity couple of this generation. The pair were engaged in October 2013, four months after they welcomed their eldest child North, and married at an over-the-top $12 million wedding in Italy. Throughout this period, West had transformed himself from rap star to a fashion icon. Everything West touched appeared to turn to gold thanks to his mass following and dedicated fans. In 2015, West and Adidas debuted their collaboration Yeezy Season 1. For almost a decade, it’s estimated the Yeezy partnership brought in $US1.8 billion ($A2.8b) in annual revenue for Adidas. West legally changed his name to Ye in 2018 — a shortened version of Kanye and also the most commonly used word in the bible, he claimed. Though the antics of West, now Ye, were dialled down during the earlier years of his marriage to Kardashian, the cracks began to appear in 2020. During his failed presidential campaign in 2020, the rapper revealed private details of Kardashian’s first pregnancy and publicly declared that he wanted to abort his eldest child North. “I almost killed my daughter ... she (Kardashian) brought North into the world, even when I didn’t want to. She stood up, and she protected that child,” he said through tears. What soon followed was a Twitter rant from West where he slammed Kardashian’s family. The pair would soon reunite but the writing was on the wall. Six months later, Kardashian filed for divorce, which is still to be finalised. But it wasn’t just his wife Ye had alienated. Many of his peers began to turn their backs on the rapper around 2016 when he began using his Saint Pablo tour dates as a platform for his political rants. During a series of shows, Ye criticised Hillary Clinton, voiced his support for Donald Trump and slammed his once close friend Jay Z. In 2017, West was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. During a three-hour interview with Podcast Drink Champs in November last year West talked about people calling him “crazy”. The rapper likened “a phobia of things with mental health” to racism, sexism and homophobia. He said the “crazy” card was often used to shut down potentially discomforting conversations. “Y’all not gonna diminish what I’m doing, and what God is doing with me in the future, by trying to cut my legs off or cut my influence off by calling me crazy,” he said. Many experts doubt Ye’s recent comments have anything to do with his disorder. In 2018 he shocked the African-American community by claiming he believed slavery was a choice. Once an idol for young black Americans to aspire to, he had become the nation’s most infamous Uncle Tom. “When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years?! That sounds like a choice. You was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all,” he said in May 2018. “It’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word ‘prison’ because ‘slavery’ goes too direct to the idea of blacks. Slavery is to blacks as the Holocaust is to Jews. Prison is something that unites as one race, blacks and whites, that we’re the human race.” It was during this year that Ye became extremely close with President Trump. Their budding friendship saw Ye publicly supporting Trump, who emboldened the white nationalism movement through his words and deeds. Many of Ye’s famous friends, including John Legend, Jay Z, Beyonce, Drake and Justin Timberlake, were no longer supporting the star. Ye’s musical impact in recent years has been overshadowed by his self-aggrandising and bizarre actions. Even the death threat tweets he made towards Kardashian’s former boyfriend Pete Davidson earlier this year didn’t result in the fallout witnessed over the past two weeks. Ye felt bulletproof and must have been confident nothing could really “cancel” him completely. But Ye underestimated how costly the fallout would be when he debuted the latest collection of his brand, Yeezy at Paris Fashion Week. The surprise show had the likes of Naomi Campbell, designer Riccardo Tisci, and Anna Wintour, but the high-profile crowd accustomed to boundary-pushing fashion was gobsmacked when models walked the runway with White Lives Matter T-shirts. The phrase is one that was adopted by neo-nazi and white supremacist groups in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Many called out Ye for his harmful behaviour, including Will Smith’s son Jaden, who walked out of the show. However, it was African-American fashion critic Gabriella Karefa-Johnson that Ye targeted in a series of Instagram posts. Although the pair appeared to squash their beef, Ye then went on to target a number of other high-profile women who supported Karefa-Johnson, including Gigi Hadid, Hailey Bieber, and sister-in-law Khloe Kardashian. Ye’s response to the criticism was more fuel on the fire. “Everyone knows that Black Lives Matter was a scam now it’s over you’re welcome,” he said. He then did a sit-down interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson to defend his actions. During the interview, he said: “I do certain things from a feeling ... the answer as to why I wrote white lives matter on an interview is because they do.” After claiming on Instagram that Sean “Diddy” Combs was being controlled by “the Jewish people”, Ye returned to Twitter after being booted from Instagram for the first time since 2020 and tweeted that he’s “going death con 3 on Jewish people”. “You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda,” he tweeted on October 8. Ye claimed his comments can’t be anti-Semitic because “black people are actually Jew”. His social media accounts were all suspended, but that didn’t stop Ye from voicing his opinions. He continued to defend his tweets and continued to express his anti-Semitic ideologies. “The Jewish media blocked me out,” he told podcast Drink Champs. During the same interview, West claimed George Floyd, an African American man whose death sparked the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, died of fentanyl. “They hit him with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that,” Ye claimed. Floyd, however, died from a lack of oxygen caused by the knee on his neck, according to medical experts at his killer’s trial. Revolt TV, which distributes Drink Champs, has since removed the three-hour interview from their platform and apologised to Floyd’s family, who are considering suing Ye for his comments. On October 19, Ye sat down for another interview, this time with Piers Morgan, where he doubled down on his anti-Semitic comments and his White Lives Matter tees. “It’s not racism, I was in a position where I was hurt and this was the way I had the right to express myself,” he said. Despite being given multiple opportunities to show some kind of remorse, Ye failed to take apologise. The floodgates began to open earlier this week when Adidas and GAP both announce the end of their partnerships with Ye, effective immediately. GAP had already announced the end of its partnership in September, but it took a further step by removing all his products from its stores. Adidas ended its nearly 10-year partnership with the rapper and ceased production of all Yeezy products, as well as payments to Ye and his respective companies. A week before Adidas’ announcement, Ye taunted the company telling the Drinks Champ podcast: “The thing about it being Adidas — I can say anti-Semitic things and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what?”. The sportswear company added that the move to end their partnership with Ye would cost it $US246m in profit, but it also stripped Ye of his billionaire status. Forbes reports his net worth went from $US1.5b to $US400m following Adidas’ decision to cut him. Vogue has also distanced itself, Creative Artists Agency has dropped Ye, and a documentary about the rapper will also never see the light of day. Even his once-championing companion, his estranged wife Kim Kardashian, took a stand. “Hate speech is never OK or excusable. I stand together with the Jewish community and call on the terrible violence and hateful rhetoric towards them to come to an immediate end,” she tweeted. On Wednesday, Ye showed up unannounced at footwear brand Skechers’ HQ in Los Angeles, where he was escorted out of the building. Music streaming service Spotify has condemned his comments and said it is up to Ye’s record label if they want to pull his music from the platform. It’s believed his music streams have declined since his rant. West/Ye was a music visionary, but will go down in history as a reactionary figure remembered for his incendiary comments, not his chart-topping tunes.