Kanye West
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Source: Lyvans Boolaky / Getty / Kanye West
Kanye West is a very paranoid guy who allegedly dabbles in conspiracy theory land.
Spotted on Variety, a former “director of intelligence” claims that Ye, the artist formally known as Kanye West, sued his former boss on Thursday, claiming the rapper gave him the job of investigating his ex-ex-wife, Kim Kardashian’s family of alleged sex trafficking.
The man, who goes by the name John Doe, also claims that he had to hire private investigators to tail his soon-to-be ex-wife, allegedly Bianca Censori, while she was visiting her family in Australia.
The unnamed former director of intelligence also says that the “Jesus Walks” crafter “blew up” at him after he shared a report of alleged child abuse going on at West’s not-shuttered school, the Donda Academy, with leaders.
“You’re fucking dead to me!” West allegedly said and then played a “recording of scary voices” threatening to inflict harm upon him.
More Details On The Lawsuit Per Variety:
The lawsuit alleges retaliation and infliction of emotional distress. The man claims that the experience affected his mental health, triggering his PTSD from his military service and causing panic attacks and anxiety. He also claims he is owed unpaid wages from the last several pay periods of his employment.
“John Doe was also tasked by Ye with investigating the Kardashian family and supposed various criminal links Ye believed they had with criminal enterprises, including alleged sex trafficking,” the lawsuit states.
According to the suit, the plaintiff would also handle various other problems that came up, such as seeking to retrieve items that were lost or stolen.
“It was common for Ye to lose expensive cars or fail to pay people for services rendered at Ye’s direction,” the suit states.
John Doe alleges he was hired in December 2022 by West to be his “deputy campaign director and was later moved to director of intelligence. According to the complaint, his job in the summer of 2023 was “brainstorming ideas to keep Ye in the news.”
If that was his job, he did a fine job because Ye stayed in the news.
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CLOSE
Source: WWD / Getty
Grand opening, grand closing. Kanye West and his wife Bianca Censori are reportedly on the way to getting a divorce.
TMZ reports that the couple is calling it quits after a smooth, almost 2 years of marriage. They were married in December 2022 (but didn’t let the world know for about a month), allegedly. According to their source, they broke up a few weeks, and Censori, and architect by trade, high-tailed down to Australia to spend time with her family.
In recent weeks, Kanye West had been spotted out and about town—particularly while he was galavanting about Tokyo—but without Censori by his side.
Prior to that, you couldn’t see one without the other, with Kanye rocking his sometimes questionable fits and the relatively voluptuous Censori often rocking clothes that left little to the imagination. As you might know, Ye was previously married to Kim Kardashian, with whom he shares four children.
We assembled some photos of Kanye and Bianca during happier times, either in Los Angeles or in Europse, in the gallery. You care.
1. Celebrity Sightings In Los Angeles – May 13, 2023
Source:Getty
LOS ANGELES, CA – MAY 13: Kanye West and Bianca Censori are seen on May 13, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rachpoot/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
2. Prototypes: Front Row – Paris Fashion Week – Menswear Spring/Summer 2025
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PARIS, FRANCE – JUNE 19: (L-R) Bianca Censori and Kanye West attend the Prototypes Menswear Spring/Summer 2025 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 19, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Lyvans Boolaky/Getty Images) vertical,color image,photography,celebrities,people,france,arts culture and entertainment,attending,paris – france,three people,18-19 years,fashion,fashion show,spring summer collection,paris fashion week,front row,june,menswear,paris menswear fashion week,ye – musician,2025,2024,bianca censori
3. Marni – Front Row – Milan Fashion Week – Womenswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025
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MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 23: Kanye West and Bianca Censori attends the Marni fashion show during the Milan Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 on February 23, 2024 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images)
4. Kanye West and Bianca Censori Arrive In Tokyo
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NARITA, JAPAN – JUNE 09: Bianca Censori and Kanye West are seen upon arrival at Narita International Airport on June 09, 2024 in Narita, Japan. (Photo by Jun Sato/WireImage)
5. Prototypes: Front Row – Paris Fashion Week – Menswear Spring/Summer 2025
Source:Getty
PARIS, FRANCE – JUNE 19: (L-R) Kanye West and Bianca Censori attend the Prototypes Menswear Spring/Summer 2025 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 19, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Peter White/Getty Images)
6. Prototypes: Front Row – Paris Fashion Week – Menswear Spring/Summer 2025
Source:Getty
PARIS, FRANCE – JUNE 19: (L-R) Kanye West and Bianca Censori attend the Prototypes Menswear Spring/Summer 2025 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 19, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Lyvans Boolaky/Getty Images)
7. Celebrity Sightings In Paris – February 28, 2024
Source:Getty
PARIS, FRANCE – FEBRUARY 28: Kanye West and Bianca Censori are seen leaving their hotel on February 28, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by MEGA/GC Images)
8. FC Internazionale v Atletico Madrid: Round of 16 First Leg – UEFA Champions League 2023/24
Source:Getty
MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 20: Bianca Censori and Kanye West are seen during the UEFA Champions League 2023/24 round of 16 first leg match between FC Internazionale and Atletico Madrid at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on February 20, 2024 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Mattia Ozbot – Inter/Inter via Getty Images)
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Source: China News Service / Getty
Kanye West has been surprisingly quiet during this election year and while he seems to be keeping to himself as of late, the polarizing artist is making some noise thanks to a surprising announcement he made at a recent show in China. A new album called Bully.
Over the weekend, news broke that Yeezy is prepping to drop a brand new album. He told a crowd at the Wuyuan River Stadium in Haikou, China, that “I got a new album coming out.”
With cheers erupting at the big reveal, Ye continued, “The album is called Bully, and this song is called “Beauty And The Beast.” Going into a soft and smooth melody, Kanye gets into his 808s & Heartbreak mode and begins singing, “It’s been a long time coming/fresh new ties, I’m still runnin’/It’s a few things I’m overcoming…”
We’re not gonna lie, the song sounds pretty good.
With this being Kanye’s first solo album in a while, we wonder if he’ll once again try to get this project up and running exclusively on the ill-fated Stem Player that seemingly crashed and burned just a few years ago.
Interestingly enough, HipHopNMore reports that Ye’s long-time collaborator, Mike Dean, left a comment saying that the track is actually a leftover from Ye’s 2022 album, Donda.
Still, pretty good song.
Check out Kanye’s announcement and “new” song below, and let us know if you’re looking forward to Bully in the comments section.
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Source: Jason Davis / Getty
Candace Owens shared that her YouTube channel has been suspended due to antisemitic comments made by Ye aka Kanye West last month.
On Monday (September 9), conservative media personality Candace Owens shared that YouTube shut down her channel for seven days. She stated that an appearance by Ye aka Kanye West on her show in August was the reason for it. “There will be no show today, or at all this week. That’s because @YouTube has issued me a strike and a one-week suspension for my sit-down with Kanye. They also removed the interview as “hate speech”, as it was mass reported by Zionists. Their tactics never change,” she wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. She also shared screenshots of the messages she received from YouTube.
https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1833550415171932214
The comment in question was Ye claiming that Jewish people control the media.” Owens felt that a recent discussion that she had with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on Piers Morgan’s show led to the suspension and demonetization of her channel. The channel currently has 2.4 million followers. “The world knows why I am being targeted and frankly, I have never felt more confident that I am the right person for this to happen,” she added in another post on X.
“Thus far, I have had zero strikes on my @YouTubeCreators account,” she said, continuing: “I have now been inundated with 3 back-to-back content hits within minutes, plus an email that I am now fully demonetized. We all know exactly who is behind this and why.” The suspension is a blow to Owens, who was fired by The Daily Wire after a public feud with co-founder Ben Shapiro over Israel and antisemitism.
A spokesperson for YouTube confirmed the suspension to the New York Post. “We’ve suspended channels associated with Candace Owens from the YouTube Partner Program following repeated violations of our policies, including our Advertiser-Friendly Guidelines and Community Guidelines,” Jack Malon said in a statement. The statement went on to say that she would no longer be able to make money from the platform, but creators would be able to reapply in 90 days.
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Source: Brad Barket / Getty / Steven Smith / Kanye West
If Kanye West hopes to continue dropping hot footwear, he will be doing so without his longtime collaborator and YZY designer Steven Smith.
Steven Smith is letting the chopper spray on his former boss, Kanye West after the embattled multihyphenate fired him. Speaking with Fast Company, Smith says, “He’s lost his mind. The whole of Yeezy is circling the drain, and this is just part of it. He has surrounded himself with toxic, C-grade losers.”
Ouch.
Smith’s comments are damming because he was described by the website as a “sensitive defender of Ye and, in particular, the treatment of his mental health.”
Now, not so much.
West gave Smith the boot in August and showed how petty he was by blocking Smith on Instagram. Smith has worked with the problematic rapper since 2016 and was one of the instrumental figures in the company’s success following the deal with adidas, which has since been terminated.
Despite losing his gig with YZY, Smith remains optimistic about his future, saying on the website, “I’m in a very happy place with it all. I will certainly be a priceless asset to whoever I work with next. It’s all his loss and the result of his foolishness.”
Smith did reveal the reasoning for his termination, but, according to Fast Company, “reached a breaking point” afterword on the street said the “saved” rapper wanted to launch his own porn company but scrapped the idea.
Bruh.
Other Wild Allegations
Smith is just the latest former high-profile employee to drop some serious but wild allegations against the “Monster” crafter.
West’s former chief of staff and far-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos claimed in an affidavit that the Chicago rapper is addicted to nitrous oxide thanks to celebrity dentist Thomas Connelly, who got Ye hooked on the poisonous gas.
According to Yiannopoulos, West spends up to $50,000 per month on nitrous oxide and underwent scans proving that he has suffered permanent brain damage from his abuse of the poisonous gas.
Connelly has denied the allegations, but in a video he sent to troubled boxer Robert Garcia, he can be seen using an oxygen mask, so he’s making it hard to beat the allegations.
When Nico Baran was 10, he discovered the popular digital audio workstation FL Studio during a class presentation and started making dance tracks. “That helped me build up my skills for making loops,” says Baran, who soon transitioned to R&B and trap productions.
Seven years later, in 2020, the Houston-born, Madrid-based producer started DM’ing loops to members of the producer collective and record label Internet Money. One member, oktanner, played the beats for CEO Taz Taylor, who brought Baran onto the team that year. Taylor asked Baran to send him ideas ahead of his session with The Kid LAROI, which led to Baran scoring his first major placement on LAROI’s debut mixtape, F*ck Love, co-writing and co-producing “Tragic” featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again.
He has since compiled a genre-spanning résumé — and an impressive original loop library, which he often shares as sounds on TikTok — producing songs for rappers like Lil Tecca, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie and Shy Glizzy, as well as Latin artists like Bad Bunny with Young Miko, Eladio Carrión and Fuerza Regida. In June, when Baran posted a now-viral snippet titled “Love Is Gone” — a moody instrumental that has since amassed 1.8 million TikTok plays and 4.3 million official on-demand global streams, according to Luminate — Drake caught wind of the hype. “He reached out to me through Instagram,” Baran says. “I’m still sending him stuff to this day.”
Trending on Billboard
Wallace Joseph, SVP of A&R at Warner Chappell Music, calls the producer a “genius,” saying his talent is “purely natural. What he’s doing is next level; whether he’s playing keyboards, producing, or anything else, everything he touches goes viral.”
Ahead, Baran is hoping to make time for his own music as well, saying he “definitely” wants to release an album of his own — “kind of like Metro Boomin and DJ Khaled,” he says, “where I can bring artists into my own sound.”
¥$ (with Lil Wayne), “Lifestyle”
Last November, Baran wrote, “POV: Ty Dolla $ign & Kanye need beats for their next album,” over a TikTok featuring one of his loops. In December, when Ye previewed “Lifestyle” during an Instagram Live filmed at a private Las Vegas party teasing Vultures 2 (despite Vultures 1 not having dropped), Baran noticed a familiar beat: The song sampled “Love Is Gone.” As Baran recalls, “People were sending me screen recordings through Instagram like, ‘Kanye sampled you!’ ” One of the song’s producers, Australian duo FNZ, had sent Ty “Love Is Gone.” Baran says, “He liked it a lot. He showed it to Kanye, and Kanye loved it. It still feels unbelievable.”
Ice Spice & Central Cee, “Did It First”
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In 2023, songwriter-producer Lily Kaplan sent Baran a Dropbox link and asked him to tinker with her vocal tracks. He built a loop around one of them by chopping up the line “Baby, do you understand?” and adding synths before sending it to RIOTUSA, Ice Spice’s go-to producer. RIOT ultimately used it for Ice and Central Cee’s “Did It First,” one of the buzzier singles from her debut album, Y2K!, that dropped in July. “Ice Spice really loved that one loop, and it kind of went crazy,” says Baran of the track, which hit No. 10 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
The Kid LAROI, TBA
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Four years after “Tragic,” one of LAROI’s producers reached out to Baran about sampling a loop that he had posted on TikTok to use on a track from the Australian artist’s forthcoming second album. (His debut, The First Time, arrived last November.) “That’s mainly what I’m focusing on right now,” Baran reveals. “I’m sending a lot of ideas to LAROI’s producers. Aside from that one song, hopefully more [will] come about.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the August 31, 2024 issue of Billboard.
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Source: Brad Barket / Getty
There are more shake up’s at YZY headquarters. Kanye West has reportedly fired longtime footwear designer Steven Smith.
As reported by Nice Kicks the rapper has reportedly asked the veteran creative to exit from his company DONDA. This week Fast Magazine caught up with Smith and confirmed the rumors about his exit back in August. While Steve has historically been supportive of West throughout all of his ups and downs it seems his patience for YE has run out. “He’s lost his mind,” he said in an exclusive statement to the magazine. “The whole of Yeezy is circling the drain and this is just part of it. He has surrounded himself with toxic, C-grade losers.”
While Smith did not touch on any of the recent Kanye happenings including wanting to launch his own adult content channel or is possibly addicted to nitrous oxide he did make it clear he is excited about his next chapter. “I’m in a very happy place with it all,” Smith reveals. “I will certainly be a priceless asset to whoever I work with next. It’s all his loss and the result of his foolishness.”
Steven Smith is a pioneer in the sneaker industry for his work on several iconic releases including the Reebok Instapump Fury, the New Balance 574 and the Yeezy Boost 700. YE has yet to publicly comment on the matter. Back in May Milo Yiannopoulos resigned as Chief of Staff for YZY.
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Source: Matthias Nareyek / Getty
Now that Drake has become arguably one of the most ostracized men in the Hip-Hop game (he can thank Kendrick Lamar for that), he seems to have found an unlikely ally in another rap star-turned-social pariah, Kanye West, respectfully.
Over the weekend, Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign were out in South Korea rocking the crowd at the Goyang Stadium in Seoul when Ye decided to dedicate one of his performances to Drake. As “I Wonder” came on the loudspeakers Yeezy said, “This one for Drake.” Having been engaged in a weird feud with the King of the North for the past few years, we can only wonder if Kanye is extending an olive branch to the embattled Canadian crooner, or if this is somehow another subliminal that only he and Kanye can understand.
You never know with these guys.
On the other hand, Kanye did take the time to remind everyone that he’s still not happy with how his relationship with adidas turned out and led the crowd in a “F*ck Adidas!” chant as their termination of Yeezy led to Kanye going from a billionaire to a millionaire overnight.
For a country who’s main language is Korean, they really knew how to say “F*ck adidas” very well. Just sayin’.
While we know adidas won’t respond to any Kanye slander anytime soon, we do wonder if Drake will be reaching out to Kanye (or vice versa) following this latest turn of events. Will Drake and Kanye be reuniting at some point in the near future? Is Kanye trying to officially bury the hatchet with his sometimes rival? Does Drake even care to repair his relationship with Kanye at this point?
We don’t know, but best believe the whole Hip-Hop world is watching and interested to see how this ultimately plays out.
We’re sure adidas couldn’t care less though.
What do y’all think Kanye’s angle is in his shouting out of Drake? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Source: Matthias Nareyek / Getty
It seems Kanye West has one less legal issue to worry about. The rapper is no longer liable in a lawsuit over a Boogie Down Productions sample.
As spotted on Digital Music News, Kanye has apparently come to an agreement over his song “Life Of The Party.” The track, which was recorded for the original version of Donda but saw daylight on the deluxe version, featured what seemed to be elements from Boogie Down Productions’ classic single “South Bronx.” Back in 2022, Phase One Network claimed that “Life Of The Party” featured an “exact reproduction” of horn parts, drums and a melody from BDP’s 1987 anthem. “This appears to be an ongoing practice of Mr. West, using other people’s music without paying for it,” Phase One’s attorney Gary Adelman of Adelman Matz said at the time. “Using music without permission violates the copyright law and hurts artists.”
In June, Kanye West’s legal team requested the artist be removed from the lawsuit citing that Ye was “creating the track and experimenting with it, with the intent to contact the license holder for approval as evidence by such act, is undoubtedly fair use.” On Monday, Aug. 19, Reuters reported that Kanye West and Phase One Network had agreed to dismiss him from the filing but will still pursue Kano Computing, the maker of the Stem Player.
You can listen to “Life Of The Party” below.
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Source: @ali.aam.06 / TikTok
In case you were wondering, Kanye West is still Team Donald Trump. Ye and his wife Bianca Censori were spotted hitting up a Trump rally in Beverly Hills on Saturday (August 17).
Reportedly, the couple who has never seen a camera they won’t pose for pulled in a Tesla Cybertruck (probably a promo gift from Phony Stark, allegedly).
Reports TMZ:
Ye and Bianca rolled up Saturday in Bev Hills, where supporters of the former president were waving American flags and “Make America Great Again” banners. They just stopped on the side of the road, but that was enough to fire up the crowd.
Check out the video … a group swarms the Tesla, not realizing at first it’s Kanye behind the wheel, but when they spot him, they go nuts and start chanting his name!
Ye loves the attention. Democracy, not so much—just saying.
Bianca on the other hand, didn’t seem too enthused to be there.