Chapter Seven - Saint Pablo and the Breakdown

CHAPTER SEVEN

Saint Pablo and the Breakdown

BY 2016, KANYE West’s life was running at maximum volume.

On paper, he was unstoppable:
– The Life of Pablo had cemented him as the most unpredictable voice in music.
– The Saint Pablo Tour was a spectacle — Kanye rapping from a floating stage, literally above the crowd.
– Yeezy was a cultural juggernaut, selling out every drop.
– His marriage to Kim Kardashian made him part of the most photographed couple in the world.

But behind the scenes?
Kanye was burning out.

Saint Pablo wasn’t just a concert — it was an experience.
The stage hung from the ceiling. Fans swarmed underneath as Kanye rapped, preached, and improvised rants between songs.

Some nights, the energy was electric.
Other nights… it was chaos.

Kanye stopped songs mid-performance to deliver unfiltered speeches about Jay-Z, Beyoncé, the radio industry, Taylor Swift, the media, and politics.
Sometimes the rants lasted longer than the music.

On November 19, 2016, in Sacramento, Kanye played just a few songs before going on a 15-minute tirade. He accused friends of betrayal, praised Donald Trump, and demanded that the press “stop lying.”

The next day, he cancelled the rest of the tour.
The reason? Mental and physical exhaustion.

Two days later, Kanye was hospitalized for psychiatric evaluation. Reports cited sleep deprivation, dehydration, and paranoia.

It was a turning point.
The “eccentric genius” label no longer covered what people were seeing.
The conversation shifted to mental health — and Kanye’s was clearly in trouble.

In the months following his hospitalization, Kanye resurfaced… wearing a red Make America Great Again hat.

For many fans, it was a betrayal.
Kanye defended it as free thought — saying he admired Trump’s outsider mentality, not necessarily his politics.

But the optics were explosive.
Hip-hop and Hollywood turned on him.
Twitter was a war zone.

Kanye admitted to being on medication for bipolar disorder. He spoke openly about how it affected his creativity. Sometimes he stopped taking it; other times he relied on it to function.

In 2018, he released Ye, a short, raw album recorded in Wyoming, with a cover that read:

“I hate being bi-polar, it’s awesome.”

It was as much a confession as a marketing hook.

Kanye wasn’t hiding his instability anymore.
He was building with it.