On the first night of Passover, Ye, the superstar rapper, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, the man who once threatened in a tweet to say “death with 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” performed to what appeared to be a packed house at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
The first of a pair of Ye concerts this week at the NFL's massive palace, Wednesday's show came two months after the 48-year-old musician apologized for his past anti-Semitic comments, attributing his behavior to injuries he suffered in a 2002 car accident.
More to the point, perhaps, the concert came on the heels of last week's release of “Bully,” Ye's first solo LP since 2022's “Donda 2,” which trade magazine Hits predicts will enter the album chart at No. 2, just behind BTS's latest.
In other words, Ye is trying to stage a comeback, and judging by the warm reception he got at SoFi, he might succeed.
Wednesday's concert, Ye's first full live performance in Los Angeles since a 2021 concert at the LA Memorial Coliseum, lasted about two hours and featured guest appearances by Don Toliver and Ye's 12-year-old daughter North.
The rapper performed on top of a huge dome installed on the stadium floor; For much of the night, a rotating globe was projected above the dome so that Ye appeared to be… well, on top of the world, that's how I might have said it.
Early in the set, Ye asked his crew to “make the Earth move slower,” which someone made happen.
Accompanied by what seemed like pre-recorded backing tracks, Ye opened with a handful of songs from “Bully,” which strikes a middle ground between the soulful, sample-heavy sound of his early work and the more somber, synthy vibe of more recent records like “Donda” and Ty Dolla Sign’s “Vultures 1” and “Vultures 2.”
After an extended version of “All the Love” from the new album, he turned to a variety of old songs, including such all-timers as “Father, Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1,” “Mercy,” “Black Skinhead” and “Can't Tell Me Nothing,” which he stopped and restarted after telling the crew to mute the music during the song's line about making your money right so he could hear the crowd join in.
He also made his collaborative hit with Jay-Z in 2011, the title of which contains the N-word, which made you think about how he and his old enemy are making a comeback at the same time, Jay-Z as a kind of retiree victory lap and Ye hoping to move on from a mess of his own making.
Other classics Ye performed included “Bound 2” and “Heartless,” to name two of his most emotionally powerful songs, although the thick smoke in the stadium made it difficult to feel a sense of connection with him as he moved back and forth atop the dome.
You brought in Don Toliver to perform “Moon” and “E85” by Toliver, and then you went through the “Bully” songs again that he had done before. North West came out to perform “Talking” and “Piercing on My Hand,” after which Ye performed his and Ty Dolla Sign’s “Everybody,” which prominently samples “Everybody (Backstreet's Back)” by the Backstreet Boys.
He then ended with a sprint through some of his most beloved hits: “All Falls Down” to “Jesus Walks” to “Through the Wire” to “Good Life,” which he restarted several times because he said the lights were “cheesy.”
“Is this like a 'SNL' parody or something?” he asked when no one made the changes he was looking for.
Ye ended the show with “All of the Lights,” which had a strong run, and “Runaway,” his epic 2010 warning to anyone foolish enough to consider falling in love with him.
“Run away as fast as you can,” he chanted, and the crowd roared.
