Next to me, my boyfriend, who does not share this somewhat neurotic inclination, gave his own review of the record, which he had listened to in bits and pieces during our time in Paris: “Kanye’s washed.” I do not listen to any songs from a newly released album until I can devote the time to hear said album in its entirety, twice. While barreling through Belgium on my high-speed train, I began a ritual that I developed years ago. The album offers a peek into the mind of this incredibly influential man, who increasingly embodies the phrase he coined years ago in his song “Feedback”: “Name one genius that ain’t crazy.” An introspective ode to his own fear, depression and sense of being lost, “ye” was released at Kanye’s most controversial moment in the public eye, exactly one month after his in- famous claim that hundreds of years of African-American slavery in the United States “sounds like a choice” (Rolling Stone, “Kanye West Says 400 Years of Slavery ‘Sounds Like a Choice,’” ). Light rain over the Euro- pean countryside created the perfect backdrop for perhaps the most beautifully melancholy-while also terrifyingly angry-Kanye record to date. The first time I listened to Kanye West’s eighth studio album, “ye” (2018), I was on a train from Paris to Amsterdam.
