YE Stood on Top of the World at SoFi

YE, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, standing on top of the world at SoFi Stadium felt less like a concert and more like a statement.

And I mean that literally.

There was a massive dome shaped like Earth sitting in the middle of the stadium floor, surrounded by fog, fire, lasers, smoke, shadows, and tens of thousands of phones lifted into the air. Above him hung this giant circular screen that looked like a spaceship, a halo, a surveillance tower, and a movie screen all at the same time. The entire stage felt like sci-fi, religion, theater, ego, loneliness, and legacy all smashed into one massive visual experience.

And there he was.

Alone.

On top of the world.

April 3, 2026.

SoFi Stadium.

Los Angeles.

One of the biggest, most premier stadiums in the world, packed with people waiting to see if YE could really pull this off.

It is no secret that YE is my favorite artist of all time. Not just my favorite artist, but probably my biggest creative inspiration ever. The way I think about music, film, visuals, fashion, confidence, storytelling, ambition, and refusing to be boxed in has been deeply shaped by his work.

That is also what makes everything surrounding him so difficult.

I can sit here and say YE changed my life creatively. I can also sit here and say the antisemitic things he has said were wrong, harmful, and impossible to ignore. Both things can be true at the same time.

That is the hard part.

Being a YE fan in 2026 is not simple. It is not clean. It is not something you can explain in one sentence without sounding like you are defending something you are not trying to defend. I am not here to excuse what he said. I am not here to pretend it did not happen. I am not here to tell anyone else how they should feel about him.

All I can speak from is my own experience.

I have worked with people going through crisis. I have worked in schools and environments where students came from trauma, severe behavioral challenges, autism, learning disabilities, emotional disorders, and situations most people will never see up close. At ACES, I worked ten-hour shifts in a school where we had to be CPI certified, trained in crisis prevention, de-escalation, and physical restraint because students could become violent toward staff or each other.

That job changed how I see people.

It taught me that someone can be difficult, hurtful, volatile, or completely out of control and still be a human being. It taught me that empathy does not mean excusing behavior. It means understanding that people are complicated, especially when mental illness, neurodivergence, trauma, ego, pain, and fame all collide.

So when I look at YE, I see the harm. I see the ego. I see the pain he has caused.

But I also see the artist who shaped the way I think about creativity.

That is why this is hard.

And honestly, I do not want this whole article to become me defending why I went to a YE show.

Because I am not here to defend myself.

I am here to talk about what it felt like to see YE live at SoFi Stadium on April 3, 2026.

And what it felt like was massive.

This was not just another concert. This was YE coming back to a major U.S. stage after years of controversy, backlash, canceled deals, canceled shows, bans, protests, and headlines. It felt like everyone was waiting to see what would happen. Could he still command a stadium? Would people still show up? Would the music still hit? Would the spectacle still feel larger than life?

The answer was yes.

Not just yes.

Absolutely yes.

The scale of the show was insane. SoFi Stadium already feels futuristic on its own, but with YE's stage sitting in the middle of it, the whole place transformed into something else. It did not feel like a normal stadium setup where an artist is on one end of the field with a big screen behind them. It felt like the entire building had been turned into one giant world, and we were all standing inside of it.

That is what makes YE different as a live artist.

Love him or hate him, he does not think about stage design like most people. He does not just build a stage so he can perform on it. He builds a world around the feeling of the music.

And this world was lonely.

That is what stood out to me the most.

Yes, it was huge. Yes, it was loud. Yes, it was packed. Yes, the lights were crazy. Yes, the crowd was going insane. But visually, YE was still alone. Alone on a planet. Alone under a giant floating screen. Alone in fog. Alone in smoke. Alone in beams of light. Alone while tens of thousands of people watched him.

It looked like the metaphor of his life.

Him against the world.

And somehow, he was literally standing on it.

The show opened with "KING" from BULLY, and that felt intentional. It came in swinging. It had that brash, defiant, ego-driven YE energy. That old energy of, "Yeah, I am still here. You did not kill me. You did not erase me. I am still the king."

And whether you agree with that or not, that is exactly what that moment felt like.

The first few tracks from BULLY gave the show this immediate edge. It was not like he slowly eased into the night. He started with the new album and made the crowd sit inside the current version of him before giving everyone the classics.

Then the hits started.

And that is when it became ridiculous.

There are artists who have hits.

Then there is YE.

This man can play song after song after song, and it is not just "the fans know this." No. These are songs that changed culture. These are songs you heard in middle school, high school, college, at parties, in cars, in movies, in commercials, in stadiums, in memes, in fashion videos, in workout playlists, in heartbreak, in confidence, in chaos, in everything.

That is the level of discography he has.

It felt like every era showed up.

The College Dropout. Late Registration. Graduation. 808s & Heartbreak. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Yeezus. The Life of Pablo. Watch the Throne. Donda. VULTURES. BULLY.

It was era after era, banger after banger, memory after memory.

One second you are screaming "Father Stretch My Hands," the next second you are getting thrown into "Blood on the Leaves." One moment it feels spiritual, the next moment it feels aggressive. One moment it feels like church, the next moment it feels like a riot. That is the thing with YE's music. His catalog does not live in one emotional lane.

It is ego. It is pain. It is faith. It is anger. It is heartbreak. It is fashion. It is God. It is chaos. It is confidence. It is loneliness. It is everything.

And when you hear all of that inside a stadium like SoFi, with YE standing on top of a glowing Earth, it hits differently.

One of the songs that really captured the whole night for me was "ALL THE LOVE" featuring Andre Troutman.

I remember being in Los Angeles with my friend Jordan and his girlfriend Shady, driving around the city and playing them BULLY for the first time. When "ALL THE LOVE" came on and that beat dropped, Jordan gripped the steering wheel and just shouted, "Yes."

That is when you know a song has something.

It was not even just the beat. It was the feeling. The song feels like healing. It feels like forgiveness. It feels like leaving pain behind. It feels like looking at everything that happened, everything that hurt, everything that broke you, and deciding you are not going to live inside that anger forever.

Andre Troutman's voice on it cuts through everything. It has that soulful, piercing quality where it feels like it is coming from somewhere deeper than just a feature. It feels like the emotional center of the album.

And in the context of the show, that song felt even bigger.

Because so much of the night was about return.

Return from exile. Return from controversy. Return from being counted out. Return from isolation. Return from everything people thought would end him.

Again, I am not saying that to excuse anything. I am talking about what the show felt like emotionally. The visuals were literally spelling it out. YE on a planet. YE surrounded by darkness. YE standing in front of smoke and fire. YE alone while the whole world watches.

That is not subtle.

That is YE.

The photography side of this show was also a huge part of the experience for me.

I flew out from Phoenix to Los Angeles for this. This was not just a random night out. This was a mission. I could not get a credential, but I was not going to let that stop me. I brought my camera setup that I could get into the venue with, studied the show, studied the angles, studied the stage, and told myself I was going to make something happen.

I told Jordan my whole trip was going to be determined by the quality of photos I got.

That sounds dramatic, but that is just how my brain works.

When I go to these shows, especially for an artist like YE, I am not just there to chill. I am there to create. I am there to document. I am there to prove to myself that I can get the shot, credential or not.

And I truly believe I got the shot of the night.

The photo of YE standing on top of the glowing Earth with the giant circular screen hanging above him, SoFi lit up in this orange-gold haze, and the crowd below him holding their phones up — that image is going to stick with me for the rest of my career.

That is one of those photos where you know it the second you take it.

You feel it.

You look at the back of the camera and you just know.

That is the one.

And I had to work for it. I was moving around the floor, scouting angles, weaving through the crowd, watching the lights, watching the smoke, waiting for the screen to shift, waiting for the Earth to glow the right way, waiting for YE to line up with the scale of the stage.

Then I was running all the way up the ramps of SoFi Stadium, six stories up, just to get different perspectives. I wanted the wide shots. I wanted the atmosphere. I wanted the stadium. I wanted the crowd. I wanted the scale. I wanted the image that showed people what it felt like to be there.

Because that is the thing about photographing a show like this.

A tight photo of the artist is cool.

But sometimes the real shot is the world around them.

And this was definitely one of those nights where the world around him was the story.

There were moments where YE looked like a silhouette against fire. Moments where the dome looked like a moon. Moments where the Earth was glowing below him and lasers shot out like the whole stadium was turning into space. Moments where the giant screen above him showed him in black and white like some distorted broadcast from another planet. Moments where the smoke and clouds made it feel like he was performing from inside a dream.

It was visually insane.

And I do not say that lightly.

I have seen a lot of shows. I have covered a lot of events. I have been around enough production to know when something is just expensive versus when something is genuinely creative.

This was genuinely creative.

The second night also felt special because of the guest appearances.

I feel bad for anyone who only went to the April 1 show because April 3 felt like the night where everything really happened. We had Travis Scott. We had CeeLo Green. We had North West. We had YG Marley. We had surprise after surprise.

But the biggest moment was Lauryn Hill.

When Lauryn Hill came out, it was one of those moments where the entire stadium collectively lost its mind.

At first, from where we were, people were trying to figure out who it was. She had on this bigger, bulkier outfit, and everyone around me was kind of looking at each other like, "Wait, who is that?"

Then YE introduced her as Ms. Lauryn Hill.

And the place exploded.

That was not just a cool guest appearance. That felt historic. That felt cultural. That felt like one of those moments where you immediately understand you are watching something people are going to talk about after the show is over.

There are concerts where the guest comes out and it is fun.

Then there are moments where the guest changes the weight of the night.

Lauryn Hill changed the weight of the night.

Travis Scott coming out was crazy too. The energy shifted instantly. Travis has that ability to turn any stadium into a pressure cooker. When he joined YE, especially on "FATHER," the crowd went insane. It was one of those moments where you remember just how connected YE's influence is to so many artists who came after him.

And that is another thing this show reminded me of.

YE's influence is everywhere.

It is in the music. It is in the fashion. It is in the visuals. It is in the way artists perform. It is in the way stages are designed. It is in the way albums are rolled out. It is in the way fans think about eras, aesthetics, identity, and creative reinvention.

You can hate him and still see the influence.

You can criticize him and still understand the impact.

That is why this whole thing is complicated.

Because YE is not just a rapper. He is not just a producer. He is not just a designer. He is not just a celebrity. He is one of the most influential artists of our lifetime, and at SoFi, you could feel that in real time.

The crowd knew every word. Every era had people screaming. Every song felt like it unlocked a different memory. People were jumping in and out of mosh pits. People were crying. People were filming. People were yelling. People were standing still just taking in the visuals. It was chaos, but it was controlled chaos. It had that rare feeling where everyone understood they were part of something bigger than a normal concert.

That is what YE shows have always been when they work.

They feel like events.

Not just performances.

Events.

And this one felt like a comeback event.

Even outside of SoFi, you can see how much demand is still there. YE reportedly performed for 118,000 people in Istanbul, and even with bans, cancellations, protests, and security concerns around the world, people are still showing up in massive numbers. He is still one of those artists who creates a reaction everywhere he goes.

Love him. Hate him. Protest him. Support him. Ignore him. Criticize him. Defend him.

People are still watching.

That is the reality.

And his music is still standing the test of time.

That might be the biggest takeaway I had from SoFi.

Not that YE is perfect. Not that everything is forgiven. Not that the controversy does not matter.

It does.

But the music is still there.

The songs still hit. The visuals still feel ahead of everybody else. The stage design still feels like something only he would think to do.

And when you put all of that inside SoFi Stadium, with YE standing alone on top of a glowing planet, it becomes hard to deny the scale of what you are witnessing.

For me personally, it was one of the most visually stunning concerts I have ever seen.

Maybe the most unique stage design I have ever experienced.

It was lonely. It was massive. It was beautiful. It was dark. It was arrogant. It was emotional. It was messy. It was cinematic. It was everything I expected from YE and somehow still more than I expected.

That is what makes him such a difficult artist to talk about.

He can frustrate you. He can disappoint you. He can make you question why you still care. Then he gets on stage, stands on top of the world, and reminds you exactly why he became YE in the first place.

And I know some people will not like that.

I understand.

But I am not writing this as a defense.

I am writing this as someone who was there.

Someone who flew from Phoenix to Los Angeles for the show.

Someone who ran around SoFi Stadium chasing angles.

Someone who screamed the songs word for word.

Someone who watched Lauryn Hill walk out and felt the whole stadium shake.

Someone who saw YE standing alone on a glowing planet and thought, yeah, this is one of those moments I am going to remember forever.

Because no matter where he goes, no matter what people say, no matter how complicated the conversation becomes, YE proved something at SoFi.

He is not going anywhere.

And whether people want to admit it or not, the world is still watching.