Kanye West undoubtedly ended 2022 with a bang. He got himself blackballed in hip-hop, banned from social media and had all his fashion endorsements and various deals terminated. His antics culminated in his net worth depleting by four billion dollars.
However, luckily for Kanye, he is no stranger to making headlines. Over the years, the Chicago rapper and entrepreneur has become a known agent of chaos and, nowadays, is perceived more as an idiot savant than a genius. However, despite his idiocy, he still gets stalked by the paparazzi but West never smiles for a snap, even on the red carpet.
West is known for being an exceptional producer who has contributed to many hip-hop anthems over the years. He is also one of the wealthiest men in rap music and owns several businesses. With this being the case, to fans, there are many things West should be happy about. However, one thing supporters never see is the producer smiling.
Kanye used to grin happily quite frequently in the early days of his career when he had just been inducted into Roc-A-Fella. However, when he became a superstar, the producer and fashion designer began to look less happy in his photos. Some would even say he even started to appear somewhat irritated.
West hides his smile at A-list soirées and even at sentimental events such as his wedding. The musician shows his emotions so rarely that his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, once played a game on the Ellen DeGeneres Show where she guessed whether or not West was happy or not in the pictures. The video was extremely popular and accumulated over 10million views.
However, strangely, Kanye West has a reason for not smiling, and it is odd, to say the least. According to West, he was compelled and intrigued by photos he had seen in a book from the 19th century. While looking through the book, he noticed that in that era, people of high status never smiled in their photos, and he felt obliged to do the same and maintain the tradition.
Speaking with Billboard magazine in 2015, Kanye explained it was in 2013 that he really adopted the no smiling as a steadfast rule, stating, “Back when I was working on Yeezus, I saw this book from the 1800s,” West shared. “I looked at all these people’s photos and they look so real and their outfits were incredible and they weren’t smiling and people, you know the paparazzi, always come up to me, ‘Why you not smiling?’ and I think, not smiling makes me smile. When you see paintings in an old castle, people are not smiling cause it just wouldn’t look as cool.”
Kanye is certainly an interesting character. Who would have thought that while working on an album the producer would be looking at a photo book of people from the 1880’s. However, that is typical Kanye West. Unpredictable, elusive and yes, slightly strange.
