LIVE: Kanye West — Bully Tour

By Nick Campos | NJC Creative

The Experience

Kanye West is a name that holds weight, and seeing him live made me understand just how much weight his music carries with it. His catalog is massive and incredibly diverse, but what surprised me most was the way that scale translated into the production. I've never seen a stage designed quite like his. The earth and moon became part of the stage itself, surrounded by fireworks and what felt like a million lasers. It was interesting watching someone make minimalism feel so massive.

There were moments when Kanye wasn't doing much at all, yet the entire stadium was moving. He didn't need constant choreography or an overcrowded stage. Sometimes it was simply him, the music, the lights, and tens of thousands of people reacting to a catalog that has existed for decades. And that catalog carries history. He performed music I remember hearing while growing up alongside songs from completely different periods of his career. Hearing how differently the crowd reacted as he moved between those eras made me realize how many generations of listeners his music has reached. The production could be enormous, but Kanye himself could remain almost completely still.

He did so little, yet somehow everything was happening around him.

Even through countless controversies and moments when it seemed like Kanye West's career could completely collapse, his music remained. His legacy had already become too deeply embedded in music and in the lives of the people who grew up listening to it. The music had become bigger than any single moment in his career. His music didn't just make him famous.

It cemented him.

Albums like ye and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had already found permanent places in people's lives, including mine. No controversy could go back in time and erase the memories, emotions, and experiences people had already attached to those songs. Seeing Kanye West live felt like one of those experiences that would be almost impossible to recreate exactly. His performances are constantly changing, his music has changed drastically throughout his career, and every era seems to bring a completely different version of him to the stage. For that reason alone, seeing him live felt like witnessing a specific moment in music that won't happen the exact same way again

From My Experience

I'm not entirely sure what you're supposed to say after seeing Kanye West. There are a lot of things you can say about him. His career has been complicated, controversial, and unpredictable. But one thing that's difficult to deny is the impact his music has had, not only on music itself, but on the people who have found pieces of themselves within it.

For two hours, I was completely immersed. I didn't know every song, and I didn't need to. I was still able to experience the music in real time, watching thousands of people react to songs from completely different periods of his career. But there were certain songs I wasn't simply hearing.

FML. Runaway. Ghost Town. Violent Crimes. Those songs will always remain close to my heart because of how disgustingly truthful they feel. ye and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy will always have a special place in my life. Not just because of nostalgia, but because of what I've come to associate with the music on those albums. Growing up, I've struggled with making and keeping friends. I've spent a lot of my life feeling different and alone. I've struggled to maintain friendships and relationships, and when they fall apart, my first instinct is often to blame myself. Sometimes I lose myself in the process.

I cope in ways that only dig me deeper. There have been moments when I've become so disconnected from everything around me that I barely feel real anymore. Life has a funny way of making you feel incredibly small. And somehow, these songs encapsulate those feelings. They're messy. They're insecure. They're self-destructive. Sometimes they're uncomfortable. They don't always portray their emotions in a beautiful or easily digestible way, and maybe that's exactly why I've connected with them. Hearing Runaway live wasn't just hearing a Kanye West song I've known for years. It was standing in a stadium and hearing something that had accompanied feelings I didn't always know how to explain myself.

That's the strange thing about music. An artist can write something about their own life, release it into the world, and years later a complete stranger can hear themselves in it. Hearing these songs still makes me cry. I say I'm better now, and I genuinely believe that I am. But these songs remind me that I'm still human. I'm still growing. I'm still becoming whoever I'm supposed to be. One day I'll have a family. I'll have a life I've built for myself and a career I'm proud of. There's so much of my life that I haven't even experienced yet. These songs remind me that I don't need to be in such a hurry to grow up. I have time.

And more importantly, they remind me that I'm going to make it. There was a point in my life when I genuinely thought it was over. I couldn't imagine myself growing beyond the person I was at that moment. I couldn't imagine evolving, becoming happier, or one day looking back at that version of myself from somewhere better. Now I can. I can listen to the same music and still cry, but I'm not always crying because I'm sad anymore. Sometimes I cry because I remember the person who first needed those songs, and I realize that I made it past everything he thought would destroy him. I'm different now.

And I'm going to be different again.

I'm always evolving. That's the impact Kanye West's music has had on me. That's where its value exists for me. It isn't about pretending the person behind the music is without controversy or defending everything he's done. It's about recognizing what the music became in my own life. These songs remind me of who I was, who I am, and all the versions of myself I haven't met yet. For those two hours, I understood that on a completely different scale. Everyone in that stadium seemed to carry their own version of Kanye West. Different albums, different memories, different stages of life.

I carried mine too.

I went into the show knowing Kanye West's reputation.

I left understanding why certain pieces of his music will probably follow me for the rest of my life.