Kanye West has spent his 2026 touring the world and releasing new music after apologizing for his antisemitism and squashing some beefs. Ye squashed even more of them during his homecoming shows in Chicago this weekend, and continues to go on a "redemption arc." But this is very soon after not just the Nazi alignment, but also (and not limited to) controversies regarding the Black community, sexual assault and harassment allegations, and much more. As such, much of hip-hop fandom and media is split on all these factors, as clashing perspectives from Joe Budden, DJ Akademiks, and Peter Rosenberg prove.
Rosenberg took a highly critical stance on folks forgiving Ye despite his bigotries. He said he was referring to fans rather than guest artists at shows, criticizing selective memory.
In response on Twitter, Akademiks told Rosenberg to "shut [his] punk a** up" and said he won't get people to hate Ye. Ak said he doesn't dictate how and when to forgive someone as legendary as the Chicago artist and told him to "stay outta family business." In another tweet, he said folks don't have to explain their Kanye West stance to people like Rosenberg, defending unconditional love and saying Kanye "held himself accountable" after a "time out."
Kanye West's Beefs
On the other end of these discussions is Joe Budden and his self-titled podcast, which focused more on Kanye West and his squashed and active beefs than the sociopolitical controversies. Budden said what he hates the most about Ye is how he "flips on the people that have always been for him, and whenever he feels like it, he just gets back with them," as caught by CY Chels on Twitter. He called it "the corniest s**t in the world." The context of the conversation was Kanye reuniting with Big Sean after disrespecting him publicly in recent years.
The JBP's cohosts said other folks do similar behavior, especially narcissists. Ice said we might not have the full context to properly assess the forgiveness, but Joe said this has happened way too much with Ye. Still, he admitted he liked seeing it go down, but couldn't get over this take.
Joe Budden also claimed some of Kanye West's other foes refuse to speak ill about him due to their previous friendship, specifically Pusha T. Fans questioned this, though, as Push has made his fracture with Ye very clear over the years.
In any case, these questions will not get any easier to come to a middle ground on. The question is instead where fans and their money draw the line.
