Ye Got the Band Back Together

Ah, Labor Day weekend: the unofficial end of summer. For families and friend groups everywhere, it’s the final chance to schedule the annual reunion before the weather gets cold, the days get shorter, and kids go back to school. This appears to be true even for global superstars like Ye, whose concert at Soldier Field in Chicago on Friday night served as a reunification for many of the hip-hop artists who have been in his orbit over the course of his long career. Fifteen of them, to be exact (Common, Lupe Fiasco, Rick Ross, Young Thug, Travis Scott, Don Toliver, Big Sean, Kid Cudi, and more), joined Ye onstage to perform in front of the sold-out crowd of 70,000 people, the second Ye concert at his hometown stadium in as many nights. 

The concert marks the most publicly star-studded show of support for Ye since he apologized for his history of antisemetic and anti-Black rhetoric in January, chalking his erratic and hateful behavior up to his struggles with bipolar disorder. (In April, he was banned from entering the U.K. because of his history of antisemitism.) Kid Cudi, in particular, felt compelled to defend his reunion with Ye following the concert, writing on X that Ye is his “brother” and that their relationship had suffered after he’d held him “accountable” in the past but that Ye has since sincerely apologized: “Talking to him now is how it use to be when I first signed to him, but even better. He was dealing w mental health struggles for years and now hes good.” He didn’t address that Ye is currently also being sued for alleged sexual assault by 2009 America’s Next Top Model finalist Jennifer An.

An even more literal family reunion also took place over the weekend, with Ye and ex-wife Kim Kardashian both attending their daughter North West’s first headlining show at the Vic Theatre in Chicago on September 5. Videos depicting the two of them in attendance circulated on social media, though they appeared to watch the show from different balconies, so perhaps Kim isn’t as ready to let bygones be bygones as Kid Cudi is.