Kanye West arrived at Auckland’s Westin Hotel in December 2008 looking exhausted, at the end of every possible rope. He was in New Zealand to promote—or perhaps explain—808s & Heartbreak, the new album he recorded in an ungodly rush amidst his continent-hopping Glow in the Dark tour. Sporting Tom Ford shades so dark that they seemed to obscure half his face, he waded through a 40-minute press conference in seeming slow-motion. Still reeling from the death of his mother as well as a breakup with his fiancée, he explained how “808s came from suffering multitude losses at the same time—it’s like losing an arm and a leg and having to find a way to keep walking through it.” When a reporter asked what he planned to see during his visit to New Zealand, he replied dryly: “The back of my eyelids."

In the time leading up to the album’s November release, West gave the impression of a man running on fumes, flooring the pedal through the most nightmarish moment in his life. There was a manic quality to his promo tour: Just one week before his New Zealand press conference, he was in New York performing 808’s lead single, “Love Lockdown”, on “Letterman”. The song called for him to sing alone, and he botched the first take in front of the studio audience. On take two, he still sounded shaky, badly missing a note even with real-time pitch correction software. But his body was twanging with effort as he gripped the mic stand for balance while heaving himself into the music. Kanye West had always been audacious, but this was a new kind of wire-walk.