What's Good Yeezy

    Ye, formerly known as Kanye West is a talented producer, songwriter, and rapper. Ye is a cultural icon whose influence spans all over the music scene, fashion world, and modern culture. Ye constantly pushed the boundaries of his creativity with his genre-defying and record breaking albums like The College Dropout, 808s & Heartbreaks, and Yeezus. Ye's "outspoken" personality sparked both controversy and admiration. Even today after 20 years he is still challenging norms and pushing the boundaries of music, art, and media.

(1) Kanye West for GQ Magazine (Welch)

Ye Community

    The Ye Community is one of the most loyal fan bases I have ever seen. After every single controversy Ye gets himself into his fans still stick by him no matter what. The only time the fans get mad is when Ye himself gives us fans a date for new music and he does not keep his word, but after that the fans can not stay mad. His fans are so dedicated to him they made the song Carnival from his Vultures 1 album go number one on the charts after Ye himself became blackballed by the music industry. It was a big win for both the community and Ye himself. Many of the community members participate in group buys. Group buys are where fans can raise money to buy a grail in Ye's music vault. Ye has such a deep vault of music he will never release fans know this is the best way for some of those grails to be shown to the world. As a member of the Ye Community I have participated in group buys for some of his grails. Many of these group buys can range between hundreds to even thousands of dollars! In the community there are many accounts that share updates about Ye himself, upcoming clothing he is creating, and the most important music updates. One of the more bigger accounts in the Ye Community is YEFANATICS. One of the more latest posts from YEFANATICS that has gotten lots of traction in the community was a small snippet called "Beauty and The Beast" for Ye's new upcoming album called Bully. 

 A video on Ye's newest song teaser "Beauty and The Beast" ("BEAUTY AND THE BEAST HQ - KANYE WEST YE | BULLY - Yefanatics")

One of the more bigger places online that members of the Ye Community can share news, compilations of music they have made, and custom made cover arts is on Reddit. One of the biggest Reddit servers for Ye fans is r/GoodAssSub. In this subreddit there is a total of 114k members! Members of the subreddit as said before create custom album covers. One of my all time favorite covers made by a member was an alternate cover for an unreleased album Yeezus 2.

(3) Yeezus 2 custom cover art created by a fan (sonicbear64)

 My first experience with the reddit server was me trying to find some unreleased music by Ye. I remember searching hours and hours  I finally found something but, it was locked behind a certain code. I was devastated until while looking through the subreddit I found a decoder. It led me into a Google Drive folder containing all of the unreleased music. I found so many of my grails I was ecstatic. I immediately downloaded the albums Yandhi, LOVE EVERYONE, and TurboGrafx16. The majority of the people in the subreddit are some of the nicest people I discussed with and always try to help new members get around the subreddit. Some members even taught me how to upload these albums to my Spotify account and after that I just kept downloading and downloading and my whole Spotify is just filled with unreleased music from Ye. I even showed some of my friends how to download the albums because as me, they were huge fans of Ye. Overall many people in the community are the most diehard fans I have ever seen, more than me. Some of these fans were so dedicated to the art from Ye they attended all 3 LP's he had to promote the 2021 album Donda. Many members of the fandom attended the LP's just to hear some snippets and teasers of the upcoming music he was working on. For each of the 3 different LP's that were held they were packed to the brim. Each LP was weeks apart and it still did not affect ticket sales at all. Each night was sold out. The greatest part Ye barely promoted these events, and still each LP was sold out completely. That showed how dedicated the fans were. On the other  hand all 3 LP's 

(4) Image captured from 2nd LP (Waller) 

were also livestreamed online that garnered over millions of live viewers from all around the world. 

After the LP's many fans split the livestreams into separate parts so that fans can go and re-watch and re-listen to their favorite songs from the LP. I remember watching the first two listening parties in awe. I was mostly in awe with the visuals he had paired with the music he was showing the fans. Many members of the Ye Community were also shocked from the visuals Ye had. All of the members of the Ye Community can agree on that the visual of Ye floating to the top of the Mercedes Benz Arena was one of the greatest things they have seen. What made it even better that it was paired with the instrumentals in the background from the song "Moon". 

Fashion

    Second to music, fashion and clothing is the next big thing to Ye and the Ye Community. Many members take inspiration to the bold clothing choices Ye has been making in the past recent months.
Ye is always years ahead for fashion. Even people who are not really fans of Ye take inspiration from his outfits to the way he layers his clothing to the colors he is mixing and matching to make a great look. Back in 2016 during the making of his 7th critically acclaimed album The Life Of Pablo this is when his fashion brand YEEZY blew up. During his listening party in MSG for his 7th studio album he held a fashion show before the show started and it caught the eyes of everyone. The thing that really caught the eyes were the shoes the models were wearing.

(6) My Yeezy 350 V2 Mono Cinder (Fernandez)

They were wearing Yeezy 350s. After that show so many people were beginning to buy and resale every color way of the Yeezy 350s. The people who were really eating up the shoes were the fans of Ye. They were the majority of people who bought up all the stock of his shoes and his newest clothing pieces he also dropped around that time. After seeing all of the hype with the 350s I had to get myself a pair. As you can see in the photo of my 350s they have some wear and tear on them. I was so proud of these shoes that I wore them as much as I could. I always wanted to match my outfits with the shoes. Sometimes while walking around with them on people always noticed them because they were all Ye fans. I had great conversations with members of the Ye Community just because of the shoes I was wearing. Every fan I met were always very respectful and super cool.

My Contributions to the Ye Community

    I have been a fan of Ye and apart of the community since I was in middle school. My most vivid memory was during his album rollout of his 2021 album Donda. He was doing listening parties for it and teasing new music and I was hooked from the first song he previewed. I was so excited to listen to the full album after the listening party. Sadly, I was met with disappointment when I saw he did not release it after the LP. He had another LP to preview more songs and after staying up all night waiting for the album to drop, yet again met with disappointment. I was so fed up after staying up countless nights after he announced a third LP I decided not to tune in and rather get some sleep. Unexpectedly, I woke up and saw he dropped the album. It was like an early Christmas for me, I remember texting all of my friends excitingly that he dropped the album. But before all of that I was a die hard fan. I also have a pair of 350s I got after saving up all my money from working all summer. Finally, newest to my collection was a

(7) My Hypebeast Magazine Issue #33 (Fernandez)

Hypebeast magazine that had Ye on the cover and had a whole 15 pages dedicated to him talking about his creative process and his newest album at the time the magazine came out Vultures 1. I am and will most likely be a fan for life. I even created some compilations of unreleased music to share with some of my close friends that enjoyed Ye's music just as me. For Halloween I dressed up as him, dawning the huge rubber boots, baggy black jeans, thick leather jacket, and the final piece the bright white hockey mask. I wish I took a picture of it but I forgot to. Ye's music has always struck a chord with me. I know Ye is one of the biggest names in hip hop today, yet surprisingly I still meet people who really have not dived into his full discography so I always recommend in my opinion his 3 most captivating albums.

1. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)

2. Ye (2018)

3. Yeezus (2013)

Continuing on my collection of items that I have of Ye. My more personal collection is all of the vinyl's I have collected over the years of his music. 

(8) My Ye Vinyl Collection (Fernandez)

It mixes two of my more favorite things. Most of these vinyl's were bought with my money from working over the summer but my most valued vinyl is of The College Dropout. It was a gift for my 16th birthday from one of my closest friends that I have known since elementary. 

Parting Thoughts

    As a long time member of the Ye Community it is an amazing thing to see so many people still have so much passion for Ye and the community itself. Day in and day out I am seeing so many fan accounts being made all over social media to show their love to an artist that most likely changed their lives. It is also great to see so many new fans become interested in the community and wanting to learn more about their favorite artist. Even during really bad times in the community when Ye says something wildly controversial people still show their support to him. In my opinion it is a good thing, yet also a bad thing. The good part of all of that it shows all of the solidarity between the members of the Ye Community. 

Works Cited

(1) Will Welch, T. M. (2020, April 16). Inside Kanye West’s vision for the future. GQ. https://www.gq.com/story/inside-kanye-west-vision-for-the-future-cover-may-2020

(2) Yefanatics. (2024, October 15). “BEAUTY AND THE BEAST HQ - KANYE WEST YE | BULLY”. Youtube, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5si_9JPWFd8

(3) sonicbear64. (2024, April 3). “My fan made yeezus 2 cover art ( Ft. Yeezus 2 skeleton)”. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/GoodAssSub/comments/1bylw8w/my_fan_made_yeezus_2_cover_art_ft_yeezus_2/

(4) Waller, T. (2021, August 6). On the scene: Kanye West unveils his most personal album, “Donda,” with epic listening party. WWD. https://wwd.com/eye/parties/kanye-west-unveils-donda-kim-kardaashian-demna-gvasalia-1234894089/

(5) talkoftheculture1504. (2021, August 6). “Kanye West floating @ DONDA listening party”. Youtube, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ld97IqneeXg

(6) Fernandez, Samuel. Yeezy 350 Shoes. 2024

(7) Fernandez, Samuel. Hypebeast Magazine Issue #33. 2024

(8) Fernandez, Samuel. Ye Vinyl Collection. 2024

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