Ye Wants Forgiveness, Again. But How Many Times Will Fans Grant It?

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

Philip Cheung for The New York Times

Skip to content

Skip to site index

Critic’s Notebook

Ye Wants Forgiveness, Again. But How Many Times Will Fans Grant It?

Attempting a comeback after years of antisemitic statements, the artist formerly known as Kanye West is facing consequences while trying to navigate a test of his own making.

Philip Cheung for The New York Times

Credit...

Supported by

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Listen

· 8:44 min

Share full article

By

Jon Caramanica

Reporting from Inglewood, Calif.

April 13, 2026

There was Ye — the artist formerly known as Kanye West — standing in a once-familiar place: on top of the world.

At the first of a pair of sold-out 70,000-capacity

shows at SoFi Stadium

near Los Angeles earlier this month, he delivered his performance from atop a dome that was also a screen — a la the Las Vegas Sphere — which for much of the night was made to look like a globe spinning beneath him. The image was clear — all of the Earth at his feet.

From a distance, it appeared plausible. A few days prior, Ye released “Bully,” his 12th solo album, and it was on track for a chart debut at No. 2, with tens of millions of streams and tens of thousands of physical copies sold, behind only the K-pop juggernaut BTS.

Less than a year ago, Ye released a song called “Heil Hitler,” the seeming culmination of years of festering antisemitism and erratic behavior that had all but incinerated the good will of fans and business partners. And yet here he was, drawing in a crowd for whom that behavior apparently wasn’t disqualifying. You could see the shape of the beginnings of an improbable comeback, a trial balloon for a possible return to mainstream acceptance.

New obstacles loomed, though. Ye had recently been announced as the headliner of the Wireless Festival in England, and the chain of events that followed was perhaps less surprising: Major corporate sponsors pulled out, and the British government announced that it would

not allow Ye into the country

, owing to his history of antisemitic provocations. Shortly after, the festival was canceled outright.

Comebacks require landing places. For Ye, who has had a noxious few years, to mount a meaningful return, certain systems of complicity must be in place and active — a public to adore him, artistic collaborators to tolerate him, a music business to amplify his work. And implicit in all of that is some combination of forgiveness and omission. For almost his whole career, Ye has been tempting fate with a combination of alienating people and wooing them right back. But in this moment, his ability to do both at once is more brittle than ever.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and

log into

your Times account, or

subscribe

for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?

Log in

.

Want all of The Times?

Subscribe

.

Related Content

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT