Say what you want but Kanye at least tried with this album and it's critically acclaimed and influential in spite of how polarizing it is to hip hop.
So many rappers get in their comfort zone and try to rehash the same album over and over again to replicate success. I think that's one of the reasons why Wayne's been on a commercial decline for a while. He keeps treating the Carter series like the Fast & Furious series and doesn't show much growth musically even though he can spit.
Yeezus basically came out of nowhere. Kanye had everything together from 2010-2012 with the universal praise for MBDTF, the anticipated collab with Jay-Z, and the bangers on Cruel Summer. He could've easily made MBDTF 2.0 for the acclaim or drop an album full of catchy bangers or radio songs for the sales.
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But he instead drops a Death Grips-inspired industrial album that sounded like nothing in the mainstream at the time and was a big risk. Yet, years later, tons of artists even outside hip hop like Rosalia cite Yeezus as an influence on their music and it still does great on streaming despite it being short and not radio friendly outside of maybe Bound 2.
Kanye is in a sunken place now but, back in 2013, this album was very refreshing due to breaking up some of the monotony of the sound of mainstream hip hop and actually being innovative.
Plus, the tour was really on point too. I still think, to this day, that Kendrick stepped his live stage presence up after touring with Kanye in the Yeezus tour.
