“There was a moment where I felt like after TMZ, maybe a week after that, I felt like the energy levels were low, and I called different family members and was asking, you know, ‘Was Kim thinking about leaving me after TMZ?’” he said. “So that was a real conversation.”

Like many of the songs on “Ye,” this one functions as both personal and professional, micro and macro, individual and universal. Kanye is serenading not just his wife, but also the fans who stuck by him during this most trying period.

Or as he put it on “No Mistakes,” “For all my dogs that stayed down, we up again.”

Staying down, he understands, has not been a given. “Half that audience that was there last night, half the people that are listening to the album are supposed to not listen to the album right now,” he said. “I’m canceled. I’m canceled because I didn’t cancel Trump.” (On a call earlier in the day with Khloé, he acknowledged the challenge: “I set the video game on the hardest setting possible, the most hate possible.”)

And yet “Ye” still debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart. That underscores the real tension endemic to contemporary cancel culture: It’s possible to be canceled and thrive at the same time.

Getting comfortable with the dissonance, that’s the thing. For someone who spent the whole of his early career in conquer mode, constantly questioning anyone who doubted him, accepting that you can’t always control your own narrative is a kind of growth. Along the way, there will be missteps, setbacks, even upheavals. The healthiest choice, Kanye has discovered, is to learn from them, accept them and absorb them into who he’s becoming.

“My existence is selvage denim at this point, it’s a vintage Hermès bag,” Kanye said. “All the stains just make it better.”