Facing higher stakes than ever to prove his place in music, he set up camp in Hawaii with a roster of all-star artists to create what he intended to be his magnum opus. In 2009, Kanye left the country, going into self-imposed exile to regroup far away from the paparazzi and the critics. He's literally on record saying that he felt his life depended on the success of this album,” Cuchna explains.

“I think this mixture of peak talent, emotional vulnerability, and the feeling that this album had to be so good the public had no choice but to accept him back pushed Kanye's creative threshold to another level of excellence. He would need a blessing, an irrefutable persuasion to make any sort of redemptive comeback. Whatever mix of emotions led him to that moment, the court of public opinion was still firmly set against him. In an interview following the VMA incident, Kanye issued a tearful apology, admitting to needing some time off to emotionally recover. The album, in Cuchna’s words, is “Hip-hop's Palace of Versailles.”īefore his VMA interruption put his career in jeopardy, Kanye was still reeling from the recent death of his mother, Donda West. Through the serialized music podcast, Cuchna goes in-depth on hip-hop’s most radical bodies of work – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the series' pièces de résistance. “Though it wasn't a term back then, he was essentially ‘canceled,’ at least for the time being,” said Cole Cuchna, the host of Spotify’s Dissect. In perhaps one of the most cringe-worthy moments in pop-culture – which made the phrase “Imma let you finish” legendary – Kanye took to the stage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video, snatched the microphone from the stunned singer, and proceeded to tell the audience that Beyoncé had “one of the best videos of all-time.” It was the moment that spawned a million memes and almost destroyed Kanye’s career.

However, things suddenly and radically changed with one disastrous outburst at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards that we all saw unfold.

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