Kanye West has made me understand rap music. Up to now, I listened passively, but I never “got” rap music. I get it now. I cried a few times listening to the album. The entire album can be listened to front-to-back as a journey with bipolar disorder (thus the cover). Obviously it can be read as tons of other things too and the songs often have double or even triple meanings. However, as a person with bipolar disorder, this is how I interpreted the album. Hope y’all enjoy. Do keep in mind that music is what it means to each person, and these are just my opinions.

Overarching Concepts:

As previously stated, the entire album can be listened to front-to-back as a journey with bipolar disorder. Each song illustrates a different part of the disorder or the circumstances attached to it that many of us have had to face in our lives. The person that Kanye refers to as Ye is Kanye when he is manic. Often times, when we are manic, we do things that we would not do otherwise. We act impulsively and do things like… well the things that Kanye has done. However, manic also feels like a god damned high. We are creative and feel like we’re moving at 100 miles an hour. Kanye uses Ye to create. There are themes in the album about both Kanye and other people trying to “kill” Ye through medication.

I Thought About Killing You

This song is about Kanye grappling with whether or not he should take medication. He knows that taking it will “kill” Ye, and he is speaking to Ye in this song.

The song begins with an intro of the phrase “I know” over and over. Kanye knows that he should be killing Ye. He knows that it is “for the best”. He says “beautiful thoughts are always besides the darkest” which is indicative of mania and depression. Often times, we categorize mania as beautiful and depression as hideous. When he says he loves himself more than he loves “you”, he is talking about his stable self. He states “You’d only care enough to kill somebody you love” which is a pretty good illustration of what our relationships are like with our illness. We do love our mania. Yet, the thought of “killing” a piece of us is very difficult, which is why there is a sequence that discusses weighing all the options. The “bad things” he is referring to in “Sometimes I think of bad things” can be alluded to depression. His lines about loving himself illustrates the relationship many of us have with ourselves and our illness. We love ourselves, but we do not love our illness.

In the middle of the song, he says he is going to phone his family and that he is about to go numb how medication feels. He then details how he cannot feel anything, so he decides to stop taking his medication and “bring in the drums”. He references nukes. Explosions are a great illustration for how mania feels. He then proceeds into a few lines about coke. Coke is chemically formulated to emulate mania, so it is used as a placeholder. The “died so young” line refers to how many of us get ourselves killed by not medicating properly.

Because he was numb and could feel nothing, he couldn’t create. So he brought Ye back to “make his name last”. He also refers to his line as Ye season instead of Yeezy season, indicating that Ye is designing the season. His friends want him to get on medication and play the hero, but he states that they “wear no capes” because he thinks he knows better. He assures everybody that he will be fine as he feels invincible. (This is a very common thing for us to do before we crash and burn.) He says his friends are “hating” because of the things he is saying and doing because he is not taking his medication, but he disregards this and goes back to focusing on how he’s going to pack stadiums. He is riding the high of embracing his illness in its full capacity, thus the last few lines “They wanna see me go ape” and “All you gotta do is speak on Ye”.

Yikes

Yikes is the only song on this album that explicitly discusses bipolar disorder. This is Kanye after he has decided not to take medication, and this song is written in a manic state, or from Ye’s perspective. The first lines “Shit could be menacin’, frightenin’, find help” paint an accurate picture of what mania looks like when it gets out of control. Kanye is realizing that he is afraid of himself. All the lines that end in “huh” are addressed towards the public. Kanye discusses how people think he’s on drugs. The following lines are all describing what people think. He then states that “this a type of high that won’t come down” which is in line with mania not really having a comedown like drugs we need to take have. If we continue to feed our mania, it continues to grow. This can be seen in the next track.

He discusses being forcibly hospitalized, and it turning his friends against him. He mentions women here and they are illustrative of hyper-sexuality commonly associated with mania. He also has grandiose thoughts about North Korea which is also expected. Notably, in this song, he states “Uh, told my wife I’ve never seen her”, which will be relevant in the next two tracks. “Take me on meds, off meds” alludes to what is going on in the hospital. If you are involuntarily committed, you are forced to take medication. Feeling spirits is also something that we might do as we can be known to hallucinate. He says Prince and Mike were trying to warn him not to overdose, but he says they’re “dealing with a zombie” which may allude to his brain being a natural high and that he should have overdosed long ago if it were a drug.

The exit sequence explicitly names Ye as his “third person”. He says that’s his “bipolar shit” and that it’s his “super power, nigga ain’t no disability” and “I’m a superhero!” before finishing it off with “Ahh!”. This is honestly a perfect example of the sort of grandiose delusions we have while we are insanely manic… yes down to the incoherent yelling at the end.

All Mine

This one might come across as a superficial “fuck bitches” song, but I think that’s the point. In the last song, he had begun to tell his wife he’d never seen her, and seemed determined to continue his manic spree. Hyper-sexuality is a huge part of mania, and it links up very well with the next track to help with the flow of the album. At one point he says “Oh that girl’s basic, that’s some Ye shit”, once again emphasizing the separation between Ye and Kanye.

Wouldn’t Leave

This one is obviously a dedication Kim. However, this spoke to me on a deeper level because it is about how she wouldn’t leave him through all of the crazy shit his bipolar disorder made him do. It’s really fucking hard to love a crazy person okay. I would know. The previous track “All Mine” alludes to him cheating and forgetting who Kim is. Although the song itself is a pretty straightforward love song, I think the context of the album makes it incredibly powerful. I think that the controversial line of slavery being a choice is actually about being a slave to his bipolar disorder. The lines “I know you and you know me” are repeated a few times in the song, and I think they are about Kim knowing that Kanye is not Ye. Through the song, they work on their relationship and communication. (I honestly think it’s so cute that Kanye wrote lines in to his album about working on his wife and his communication. I think that’s awesome.) He then realizes that his Ye mindset that he uses to gain success is also the one that broke his marriage.

The last verse is Kanye realizing that he messed up by not taking his medication and putting Kim through this. He raps “For every down female that stuck with they dude through the best times, through the worst times, this is for you and i know you and me” which indicates he’s ready to start turning it around.

No Mistakes

This song is addressed to Ye. He has realized the consequences of his actions on his relationship and those around him, and is choosing medication. He is telling Ye that he still loves him (her?). He is addressing Ye as “you” just like in “I Thought About Killing You”. However, he has realized that Ye is not great for him nor his family.

Ghost Town

This one is about Kanye trying to find peace with medication again. He says a lot of “some day” such as he wants to lay down on Sunday like God did, which I am interpreting as him going off medication again to pursue his creative dreams. Medication is a difficult journey. We don’t know what works, and usually, it is rather unpredictable. Kanye is trying to find a combination that works for him and allows him to retain Ye, thus the “I’ve been tryin’ to make you love me” and his dreams of “some day we gon’ set it off”. He raps “You might think they wrote you off; They gon’ have to rope me off” which illustrates that “they” think Kanye’s creative side is gone because of the medication, but he is determined to find a way to exist.

At the end, he is saying he is like a child that let go of everything he knew. This is often what we can feel like when we are finally on the right combination of medication. It’s weirdly quiet and like we are seeing the world in a new light. Yet, he is numb, indicated by the statement with the stove. It does a great job explaining what the feeling of medication is like for us: “kinda free”.

Violent Crimes

The last song in the album is called violent crimes. This song is appropriately about his daughters. He is finally able to be there and a family man for them. This is in sharp contrast with “All Mine”. He expresses concern for his daughters throughout his entire song, and at the beginning says “it was all part of the story, even the scary nights” indicating that part of the story is over.

Conclusion

I truly do love this album. The entire thing tells a beautiful story of him finding his way back to his family.

Edit: I am on one guys. The album has seven songs. The fourth song “Wouldn’t Leave” is the turning point in Kanye’s recovery. However, the first three songs parallel the last three. “I thought about killing you” parallels “no mistakes” as they are both about him coming to terms with Ye. “Yikes” is paralleled with “Ghost Town” with “Yikes” being that wild climb towards mania, and “Ghost Town” being the beginning of the descent. “All Mine” is parallel with “Violent Crimes” as “All Mine” illustrates the deepest loss of Kanye to Ye in mania whereas “Violent Crimes” discusses what his life as Kanye is like when he’s ultimately stable.

I also noticed that the song names seem to make little sense so I looked deeper. When you link the songs that are parallel, you get the phrases “I thought about killing you. No mistakes”, “Yikes Ghost Town”, and “All Mine Violent Crimes” (with of course wouldn’t leave being the middle point). So, in the end, Kanye thought about killing Ye and he made no mistakes when he did, but Yikes he feels like he’s in a ghost town because the medication can make us feel empty (as discussed in the song ghost town). Lastly, Kanye realized that all of these violent crimes are Kanye’s, not just Ye’s. He did all these things