Kanye West goes inside on ‘Ye,’ maybe

For a pop celebrity, solipsism comes as easily as breathing. In that respect, Kanye West has few peers. His eighth studio album, “ye” (GOOD/Def Jam), was unveiled at an exclusive listening party Thursday in Jackson, Wyo., and it comes with the usual Kanye caveats: Is this a cry for help? Is this a put-on? Is he trolling, well, everybody?

After a series of albums that rewired popular music, West’s recent works—“Yeezus” (2013), “The Life of Pablo” (2016) and now “ye”—have increasingly sounded like extensions of his onstage rants, Twitter outbursts and unfiltered waywardness with words in interviews. The melding of real life and imaginative art made West an innovator, and his albums still sound like nobody else’s. But now his personal troubles have become the focal point, interior monologues dressed up with occasional musical flourishes.

Across an image of snowcapped mountains on the “ye” album cover, there’s a very Kanye-like, bleakly humorous contradiction: “I hate being bipolar, it’s awesome.” Mental disorders, drug addiction, financial turmoil, ill-chosen words about black slavery, misogyny, temptation, guilt—West couldn’t be more transparent about any of it on the new album, as tough on himself as he is on his rivals.

“I got dirt on my name, I got white on my beard, I had debt on my books, it’s been a shaky a** year,” West raps on “No mistakes.” “Ye” isn’t so much a musical statement as a 23-minute, seven-track therapy session.