Matt: Kanye’s Back

In case you missed it, Kanye has started apologizing for the event he went through. I didn’t comment on it publicly when it happened because it seemed so strange to me that such a beautiful soul, who had created so much life-changing music with so much love, could express such hate. I’ve had close friends who are bipolar, so I’m familiar with the disease, and seeing Ye’s episode was really heartbreaking, both for the things he was saying and also that it was clearly a medical issue, unfortunately, playing out in the public sphere. (I can’t imagine anything worse.) Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Who knows what’s next, but hopefully this is the start of a new generative era for Ye, who clearly has the ability to innovate across many fields. Especially with no rap songs in the Billboard 40 for the first time since 1990! It does feel like we’re living through a New Renaissance right now, there’s an explosion of creativity and access. I’m wishing Ye peace and equanimity with the challenges he’s facing, and I’m definitely going to revisit some of his early work (The College Dropout (ha!) through Cruel Summer) that was so influential on me as I was growing up.