Inside Long Island's UBS Arena on Feb. 9, Ye commands the crowd at a massive listening event for Vultures 1. His new collab with Ty Dolla $ign is now a No. 1. album. Jason Martinez/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
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Kanye West
Noname, Chief Keef, Kanye West, and Dreezy. Collage by Jackie Lay / NPR. Daniel DeSlover / Frazer Harrison / Dimitrios Kambouris / Xavier Collin/Getty Images / AP Images hide caption
Boxes containing Yeezy shoes made by Adidas are seen at Laced Up, a sneaker resale store, in Paramus, N.J., on Oct. 25, 2022. Adidas' breakup with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West and the inability to sell his popular Yeezy line of shoes helped batter the company's earnings at the end of last year. Seth Wenig/AP hide caption
Ye attending the Balenciaga Womenswear show in October as part of Paris Fashion Week. Since then, he's made a string of increasingly brazen extremist comments. Jacopo M. Raule/Getty Images For Balenciaga hide caption
Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, speaks to former President Donald Trump on Oct. 11, 2018. Saul Leob/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, announced a content moderation council for the social media platform. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Steven Smith and Kanye West speak on stage at the "Kanye West and Steven Smith in Conversation with Mark Wilson" on Nov. 7, 2019, in New York City. Brad Barket/Getty Images for Fast Company hide caption
Kanye West holds a Yeezy shoe as he speaks on stage at the "Kanye West and Steven Smith in Conversation with Mark Wilson" at the on Nov. 7, 2019 in New York City. Brad Barket/Getty Images for Fast Company hide caption
Adidas announced on Tuesday it is severing its partnership with Ye in light of the rap superstar's anti-Semitic comments. Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images hide caption
Ye, then known as Kanye West, holds a Yeezy sneaker while speaking onstage at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in 2019. Brad Barket/Getty Images for Fast Company hide caption
Kanye West arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in February 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Evan Agostini/Invision/AP hide caption
Ye (C), formerly known as Kanye West, attends the Givenchy Spring-Summer 2023 fashion show during the Paris Womenswear Fashion Week, in Paris, on Oct. 2, 2022. Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
The family of George Floyd plans to file a $250 million lawsuit against Ye
Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has agreed to purchase the social media site Parler, the company announced on Monday. Evan Agostini/Evan Agostini/Invision/AP hide caption
Ye attending Paris Fashion Week, where he ignited controversy wearing a shirt with the slogan "White Lives Matter." Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
"Rap — this is a whole lifestyle," Pusha T tells NPR. "This is a whole culture." Amy Harris/Amy Harris/Invision/AP hide caption
Ye, also known by his birth name Kanye West, has been on a social media tear in recent months. He behavior has gotten him booted from the lineup of performers for the 2022 Grammy Awards. Amy Harris/Invision/AP hide caption
Kanye West in a sequence from Netflix's documentary series jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy. Netflix hide caption
Kanye West in Times Square. Netflix hide caption
Ye, then known as Kanye West, attends the Versace fall 2019 fashion show on Dec. 2, 2018 in New York City. Roy Rochlin/Getty Images hide caption
Kanye West is seen at a Donda listening event at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 22, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Universal Music hide caption
Kanye West, pictured at the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, California. His long-awaited album, DONDA is on NPR Music's shortlist of the best releases out on July 23. Rich Fury/VF20/Getty Images for Vanity Fair hide caption