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More than a month into 2025, Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, has been announced as the fourth rapper to achieve a billion streams on Spotify for the year.
Following close behind Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Travis Scott, Ye enters as one of the highest-streamed hip-hop artists for the year. The announcement, made by popular media outlet Hip Hop All Day, comes only a few days after the Chicago rapper went on a highly publicized rant on X (formerly Twitter).
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A massive spike in listening numbers for albums like Vultures 1 has led Ye to push past Atlanta rapper Future, who was closing in on a billion streams, generating 814 million streams as of February 2, 2025.
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While many believe the majority of his boosted streaming numbers came from his controversial rant this past week, it could be said that fans are revisiting West's catalog as he gears up for the release of his highly anticipated solo album, Bully.
With popular media outlets reposting his 2025 achievement, several fans have taken to the comment section to share their thoughts on Ye securing over a billion streams on Spotify less than two months into the new year.
More reactions followed from individuals congratulating Kanye West on achieving a billion streams, even after an extremely controversial week on social media, with fans claiming the rapper can't be "canceled".
"This man can’t be canceled no matter what he does or says," a fan stated.
"Even Kanye himself can't end his career," another claimed.
"Getting rid of Ye is the hardest thing ever, for both society & Hollywood lol smh. At this point, everyone just gives in and doesn't bother anymore. He will wild [out] this week and get a #1 song next week, while everybody is angry at him," another cited.
Many fans were seen claiming to have been revisiting Ye's earlier work, praising older albums like 2019's gospel LP Jesus Is King.
"Fu*k dude, lmao. His old sh*t slap but he aint had an album even close to his old work in ages," a fan stated.
"His old stuff is still some of the best music of all time," said another.
"It's not for the reasons people think it is... His gospel songs are actually going viral the last few months on TikTok but it's more so people asking what the hell happened to him," a fan claimed.
A few individuals were seen criticizing Kanye West's 2025 achievement, given the controversy surrounding his tweets earlier this week.
"Even after last week is crazy," an individual cited.
"Can somebody erase him from history?" a critic questioned.
"Bro could murder every single person that has streamed his music and his numbers would still pop off. I'm going to need a while to recover from his rants before I enjoy anything with him in it, right now listening to his stuff just makes me feel dirty," another stated.
Spotify terminates Kanye West's Yeezy website over "Swastika" T-shirt listing
Kanye West, who changed his name to Ye in 2021, released a brand new Yeezy commercial, which was aired during the 2025 Super Bowl LIX.
Similar to last year's NFL advertisement, the rapper filmed the commercial on his iPhone while at an appointment with his dentist, supposedly installing new grills for his teeth.
"I spent all the money for the commercial on these new teeth so, once again, I had to shoot it on the iPhone. Go to Yeezy.com," Kanye West stated.
Up until Ye's advertisement aired during the 2025 Super Bowl, his Yeezy website hosted various clothing items, from pants to hoodies, all of which were reportedly deemed not to be a "content issue" or violation.
However, shortly after his commercial, Kanye West removed all pieces of clothing from the Shopify-powered store, instead replacing them with a "Swastika" T-shirt, priced at $20.
"It was such a small ad, I don’t think anyone put two and two together. The copy was clean, the website was clean, and so they did their due diligence with that little part of it," an insider stated.
Almost three days after the commercial was aired, E-commerce giant, Shopify officially shut down Kanye West's Yeezy website, claiming violations of their terms of service agreement.
"The merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms, so we removed them from Shopify," they stated in a public statement.
Ye's Yeezy.com was terminated following days of inflammatory and highly controversial antisemitic statements on X.
Kanye's tweets found him declaring himself a "Nazi," expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler, and also calling for the release of Sean Diddy Combs, who was arrested over allegations of s*xual trafficking amongst other charges.
This past week several reports confirmed that Kanye West's X account was restricted by Elon Musk, following his controversial tweets, labeling his posts NSFW.
Before Ye officially deactivated his account, he shared his appreciation for Elon Musk in one final tweet, thanking the Tesla CEO for allowing him "to vent" and use the world as his "sounding board".
