What is going on with Kanye?

For the past few months, Kanye's fans have been speculating about his health and the state of his music. These doubts were fueled by statements from former Chief of Staff at Yeezy, Milo Yiannopoulos, who accused Ye of developing a nitrous oxide addiction, a gas used in medicine as an anesthetic, which the rapper allegedly tried after getting his new titanium grills installed. The conspiracy theory “Ye-I” (a play on words with AI) has been circulating for months on social media and among die-hard fan groups, suggesting that Ye's persona has essentially been replaced by artificial intelligence. This theory isn't entirely baseless, as Kanye himself confirmed in an interview that some of his recent lyrics are written by a ghostwriter. Similarly, in the recent collaboration with Skepta for the soundtrack of the Mains fashion show at London Fashion Week, fans were surprised by the quality of the production, particularly by Kanye's tone of voice, which reminded them of an earlier phase of his career. The final straw came with a revelation on the artist's dedicated subreddit (r/GoodAssSub), where a fan allegedly discovered the software that Kanye, or his management, has been using for recent productions. Another user compared a leaked version of the track “Forever,” where Kanye’s voice sounded slow and hoarse, with the final, much clearer version. The leaked versions were later processed with the Weights software, and the results were virtually identical.

The use of AI in music has become a hot topic in the creative industry, both among fans and producers. Recently, a study by musicMagpie revealed that AI-generated versions of songs are becoming a threat to record labels. The study highlighted that the most covered artist in AI versions is the K-pop group Blackpink, known for releasing new albums only once every two years. Songs created by fans using artificial intelligence have become so popular that, if converted into official streams, they would have generated over 414,000 dollars. However, the music giants don’t seem too concerned about AI. In fact, Lucian Grainge, the CEO of Universal Music Group, stated: «With the right balance, I believe AI will enhance human imagination and enrich musical creativity in extraordinary new ways».