I love Kanye West. He is the best musician to have ever held a microphone. There, I said it. But I’m also quitting his music.

The first time I sat down and truly listened to Kanye’s music was on a 15-hour trans-Atlantic flight. The first line from the opening track of his debut album, The College Dropout, told me what to expect: “If this is your first time hearin’ this / You are about to experience something so cold.”

I was instantly hooked. From his  introspective,  autotune-filled tracks on 808s & Heartbreak to his  emotional  storytelling  on Late Registration, I devoured it all, including all 547 seconds of “Runaway.”

Kanye was the first artist whose lyrics elicited genuine emotional responses  in  my  brain.  His production,  sampling  everyone from Daft Punk to Chaka Khan, creates soulful beats of an unrivaled quality. Every single album in his discography (pre-2021) is filled with unskippable tracks. Each lifts me to a different world.

Dear Reader, I want you to notice how up until this point, I’ve referred to the GOAT as “Kanye.” But since Kanye changed his name to “Ye” in 2021, he has begun a descent into something I can only describe as lunacy.

Ye  had  always  been  erratic and  problematic.  He  infamously stormed Taylor Swift’s 2009 VMA’s speech (which made her famous, btw),  prompting  then-President Obama to call him “a jackass.” He once claimed that slavery “was a choice.” His history of anti-semetic comments has led partners like Adidas to drop him.

For a long time, I hid behind excuses. I threw around defenses like “Separate the art from the artist,” “He’s just pretending to be crazy,” and even “He made Graduation”—a defense used by millions of TikTok commenters yearly.

I asked critics to suppose, “Do you think Ye would have taken a turn for the worse if the rock of his life, his mom, didn’t die?” I blamed everything but Ye himself for his actions and excused him because I thought he was a “difficult genius.”

The tipping point for me began at the 2025 Grammys. Ye, who was not invited to the event, crashed the red carpet with his wife, Bianca Censori, who was wearing a completely see- through “dress.” I will never gain the courage to look at the unblurred photo. Whether it was a desperate attempt to gain attention or an egoistic “power move” over his wife, I lost every ounce of respect I had for Ye (and wanted to lose my eyes, too).

Less than a week later, his Super Bowl ad directed fans to his online store, which was selling only one item: a white t-shirt with a black swastika. This came days after he declared himself a Nazi on  his X account  and  professed  his admiration for Hitler.

I’m drawing the line here. On the one hand, I feel that I have to stop supporting Kanye completely. After all, complacency  is  complicity. By listening to his music, I am not only financially but emotionally   supporting someone who is racist and anti-semitic.

On the other hand, me listening to Ye, quite frankly, changes nothing. My 14,768 minutes  (top  0.05%  on Spotify) in 2024 probably made him less than $20. I’ve never bought his merch or concert tickets, and my biggest contribution to his success is liking TikTok edits of him.

I’ve even refused to listen to his new albums. While Ye fans are expectantly waiting for “Bully” to drop on June 15, I am conflicted.

Here’s the moral conundrum: Is it less morally wrong to support an evil person if the support is small? $20 is a miniscule contribution to Kanye’s $400 million net worth (according to Forbes). But fundamentally, you “separate the art from the artist” simply because “everyone else is doing  it  more.”  Your  categorical imperatives must bind you to reject actions that do not adhere to your moral code.

As a temporary solution, I will be illegally downloading Ye’s music, so he no longer profits off my streams. Eventually, my moral code will force me to confront this issue once and for all. But for now, I can only hope that Ye finds peace or God or something that will end his madness.