Back in 2009, Kanye West was riding high. 808s & Heartbreak – his fourth studio album and a departure from his soul-based, hip-hop sound – proved a resounding critical and commercial triumph. A foray into clothing design had culminated in a Paris fashion week sneaker show with Louis Vuitton and a pioneering shoe line with Nike, marking a groundbreaking move for non-athletes.

No longer was West the dorky producer turned rapper agitating to break out of Jay-Z’s shadow. He had become something even bigger: a true star. The only person who could stop West was Kanye – or as he’s preferred to be known of late.

Now West's empire lies in a smoldering heap in the wake of the 45-year-old artist’s October media blitz. According to West himself, he lost $2bn in a single day this week.

Where West’s rise beat the odds, his downfall beggars belief. First there was a widely publicized smear campaign against his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, then a controversial statement related to White Lives Matter during Paris Fashion Week, then his transformation into a figure associated with alt-right sentiments. And it crescendoed with a series of spontaneous antisemitic comments from West, starting with a controversial interview with Tucker Carlson in early October where he targeted the Kushner family, that cost West the support of his diverse business partners.

Several major partners, including Gap, JP Morgan, and Creative Artists Agency, swiftly terminated their relationships with Kanye. All the while West dug in, claiming on a podcast appearance that Adidas – his collaborator post-Nike – would never leave him, regardless of how many more antisemitic assertions he made.

But a week later, Adidas went their own way too, a move the company reckons cost them $246m in potential fourth-quarter earnings. Overall, the Yeezy line, which had accounted for as much as 8% of Adidas’s bottom line, became a liability. No wonder it took them a week to break up with him.

We’re far removed from the days when a new Kanye release was a different phenomenon altogether, a deeply immersive sound collage from the vanguard of pop music’s new wave. After years of being typecast as a producer, although instrumental in Jay-Z's influential Blueprint album, West crossed over into emceeing in 2003 with The College Dropout – a release that set him apart from the gangsta rappers of his time, but made preppy style and nerd idolatry cool. Two years later, he consolidated that break with Late Registration, a Billboard blockbuster that marked a sea change in pop music.

West wasn't necessarily gangsta in the 50 Cent mold, but he had his own unique toughness. He had his own near-death moment – a 2002 car crash that shattered his jaw. During an emergency surgery, surgeons inserted a metal plate in his chin and wired his jaw shut – an outcome that could have hindered a budding rapper's career. But West transformed the experience rapping about it over a sped-up Chaka Khan hit. That single, Through the Wire, became the lead single of The College Dropout and solidified West as a talent who could not be deterred.

Before long, West was an icon in culture – bigger than the rapper Common in Chicago, bigger than Russell Simmons at the Def Jam label, bigger than Diddy in business, bigger still than the late designer Virgil Abloh, a complicated relationship that inspired a South Park parody. And once West’s ego grew to size, well, satisfying it became an impossible task. Interrupting Taylor Swift’s winning moment at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, marrying Kardashian, a relationship he often likened to Walt Disney and Marilyn Monroe, aligning himself with Donald Trump, and making controversial statements about slavery being a voluntary decision – these actions appeased Kanye. Kanye has spoken publicly about having bipolar disorder. Experts in the medical field have emphasized that mental health struggles and bigotry should be addressed as distinct issues.



And yet, astonishingly: he nearly survived every controversy until Adidas changed their number and things came to a head this month. Now, with just about all his collaborators gone, Kanye isn’t just off Forbes’ billionaires list. He’s a toxic asset. Not even Candace Owens, Owens will have West on her show now – despite West reportedly planned to buy the right-wing social network Parler from Owens' chief executive husband. Loyal fans who took Kanye's antics as judo moves to get out of his apparel brand deals undoubtedly must feel let down after hearing West made an unsolicited visit to Skechers’ LA offices and was shooed away. "I don’t think a board of directors in a million months of Sundays would ever allow a business to touch him again," says Matt Baker, the chief strategy officer at the brand management firm Deutsch NY.

Where West’s rise beat the odds, his downfall beggars belief. No American icon has ever self-destructed so spectacularly – not the actors (Mel Gibson, Isaiah Washington), TV creepers (Matt Lauer, Bill O’Reilly), sports heroes (Michael Vick, Joe Paterno), or even the tabloid targets (Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan). Even Roseanne Barr, who once dressed as Hitler and

was finally written off her own TV reboot after a racist one-liner about former White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, didn’t have her fingers in as many pies as West – not only desperate for new partners, but a new divorce attorney, too. Camille Vasquez, the attorney who redeemed Johnny Depp, won’t touch Kanye, either.

It’s only in recent days that West has tried an apology during an appearance on Lex Fridman's podcast, another unoriginal version of the "if I offended" word salad. If you have any issues about where by and how to use kanye west poster, you can get in touch with us at our site. But it didn’t make things better for the students of his briefly shuttered Donda Academy, or vindicate his tarnishing of George Floyd, or prevent him from making further offensive comments. But with Kanye's billions reduced to millions and JP Morgan no longer willing to grant him loans against his net worth or otherwise engage the classic rich guy tax avoidance game, Kanye might soon find himself at odds with the IRS. For them, Heartless is more than a West anthem.

Kanye West seemed to have everything – wealth, power, status, and freedom. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. No one foresaw such a dramatic downfall. And yet, the future remains uncertain how much farther he could fall.