The breakdown of Kanye West (and a birthtime controversy)

Kanye West was hospitalized yesterday after an erratic onstage rant that led to his walking offstage and canceling the rest of his tour appearances.

Kanye West (born June 8, 1977, Atlanta Georgia, no confirmed birthtime*) has always been one of the more intriguing figures on the public stage.   I wrote about him back in 2006 after release of his song “Jesus walks” featured him as Jesus and quoted him as saying “saying that he would be a character in a modern bible because he is an inspiration to the culture and is definitely in the history books already.”  But the legend is not only in his mind – he has won 21 Grammy awards and is one of the best selling artists of all time.  He is also a fashion designer of some repute and of course is married to the most Selfied personality of our time: Kim Kardashian.

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Here is what I wrote about his chart in 2006:

What kind of astrological forces create an individual with such confidence and tenacity? West is a Gemini, with the Sun closely conjunct Jupiter. Geminis are mercurial creatures, able to slip in and out of personas and wear different masks in different situations. They are curious and thirsty for experience. Jupiter (expansion and opportunity) closely conjuncts his Sun, giving West not only a high degree of confidence/arrogance but also a certain amount of easy luck. His Sun/Jupiter conjunction is opposed by Neptune (see this article about the current Jupiter/Neptune square), opening up his spirit to a high degree of creativity (Neptune), but also posing the danger of falling into Neptune’s misty illusions. However, disciplined Saturn makes a harmonious aspect with both his Sun/Jupiter and his Neptune, providing West with a strength of character and an ability to create strategies and plans (Saturn) to achieve his goals and take advantage of his natural luck.

There is more, of course – a Pisces Moon that challenges (square formation) this Sun/Jupiter and bestows intense emotionality and further conflicts with Neptune to release enormous creativity but also the tendency towards delusion.  A Venus/Chiron conjunction in Taurus that demonstrates a wound (Chiron) to his self-esteem (Venus) and sense of security. A challenging square from Saturn in Leo, which can never be quite famous enough, to that Chiron which necessitates the continual unfolding of his wounded nature in order to heal and evolve.

Kanye has been under a powerful Pluto transit over the past few years (the transit of Pluto in a challenging square formation to his natal Pluto) and this Pluto transit is being triggered right now by Jupiter which is directly transiting natal Pluto, opening up the barriers of consciousness and liberating his inner restraints.  For some this could be a positive event but for someone as already unfettered as Kanye, the result has been a collapse of his psychological system. At the same time, transiting Saturn (tests and restriction) is opposite his Sun/Jupiter, enforcing limitations and restraint and possibly causing the economic problems which have been rumored lately.

Sometimes these powerful Pluto events dredge enough material from the subconscious that an individual is able to create powerful transformation in their lives.  I hope that will be true for Kanye West.

Birth Time Controversy

There is an unverified birth time for Kanye of 8:45 am floating around the internet with a scurrilous past. Astrologer Chris Brennan wrote about this on his blog in 2015 (here).  Apparently at that time Astrotheme listed a 2007 interview with Blender Magazine as the source of the birth time.  Chris went so far as to order a back issue of that interview, and the birth time was not cited there.  The Astrotheme webmaster wrote in a comment to this article that they had received this tip in an email and because they are French they couldn’t read the article and didn’t verify the time.  Chris mentioned in this article that Matthew Currie had written a post on Kanye West and cited this birthtime from Astrotheme.

At some point after that 2015 discussion on Chris Brennan’s blog, Astrotheme changed the source of the 8:45 am birth time from Blender Magazine to Matthew Currie’s article.  And somehow Astrodatabank took the lead from Astrotheme (oh no! How could that happen!) and posted Matthew’s article as the source for their birth time.

Consequently, this birth time is extremely suspect and should not be used.