Why Is Kanye West Controversial

Kanye West, The Walking Controversy

Since 2005, the rapper/producer known as Kanye West has been one of the most influential and successful artists around to this day, winning various prestigious awards. But, that’s not all he’s gained through his career. Kanye has also cemented himself in the image of controversy due to his cockiness, ego, and his tendency to overreact and go on massive unadulterated rants at random. So, how have these controversies affected Mr. West? And most importantly, does shunning someone work in the long run?

Kanye West first came into the spotlight in early 2005, with the release of his debut album “The College Dropout”. The album, which many critics argue was the best album debut of a rapper ever, was an instant hit

Kanye took the stage for one of the early performances on his “Life of Pablo” tour to celebrate the release of his newest album that shares the same title, and performed two songs completely before going into a monumental forty minute rant. The rant touched on Kanye’s opinions on politics, specifically him supporting Donald Trump, and on music politics in general. He was very upset over how radio stations operated, and publicly slandered multiple stations for overplaying certain music and even revealed underlying issues between him and close friends that was at that point unknown, Kanye also touched on how he’s tired of being judged and talked about over everything he does. At the end of the rant, Kanye’s words weren’t making sense and many fans were leaving the stadium in protest to Kanye holding the concert up so long. In response, Kanye grabbed the mic and announced that the show was over and walked off the stage. Even after this, it continued to spiral more out of control with Kanye posting over 100 random images on his social media account, and cancelled his entire tour. Later it was found out that Kanye was acting so unbalanced that he was forced to be sent to a hospital for mental evaluation. The doctors found Kanye’s erratic behavior was caused by stress, sleep deprivation, and drug abuse all at the same time (Kaufman). Many also saw this as a result of the stress put on him over many years due to constant

The effects depend on the mental strength of the person being subjected to the shunning, and the benefits of using it. In the case for Hester Prynne, she had a strong character and as such, the punishment didn’t break her completely. Of course anyone who is isolated forcefully will have some negative side effects, but throughout the book Hester keeps her basic morals and character traits in check. On top of this the benefit of shunning her was a way to give their community a walking example of sin and the punishment, so the community surrounding her had a great benefit to shun her. In the case of Kanye West, he was shunned heavily for his actions, but all of this negative attention pushed him to act out even more as a form of protest and poking the hornet's nest. Kanye also saw the benefit of the constant controversy surrounding him, as it helped boost his record sales and get much more attention and publicity. Critics also saw a mutual benefit to this, and exploited it to gain more attention and money just like Kanye. Throughout all of this, Kanye has kept his character and values the same, just like Prynne. The only exception is that Kanye’s shunning did eventually hurt him mentally causing breakdowns, but he has always bounced back and continued to further succeed in the music industry. This shows that shunning doesn’t always work. It’s all dependent on the mental traits/strengths of the