On Sunday, the 2022 Billboard Music Awards provided a stage for many of the past year’s top artists to claim some shiny hardware for their outstanding contributions to music.
Among the night’s winners was rapper Kanye West, also known as Ye, who won multiple awards for his album Donda. However, those awards were not within hip-hop or R&B categories but instead Gospel and Christian music categories.
More than a few critics weighed in about Ye winning the awards on Sunday night, as the rapper had infamously been berating his ex-wife and her boyfriend, Pete Davidson, in the past several months.
Kanye West won multiple Billboard Music Awards with Donda
Kanye West’s 2021 release Donda arrived to much fanfare as it had a stacked tracklist that featured plenty of guest stars. Among them were Lil Baby, Jay-Z, The Weeknd, Travis Scott, and Baby Keem.
While the album was popular with hip-hop listeners and die-hard Ye fans, it was released by Ye while he was still promoting his Sunday Service and attempting to make Gospel hip-hop.
Due to that, it got into the Christian and Gospel music categories for this year’s Billboard Music Awards with multiple nominations. Ye wasn’t at the event based on the live awards show telecast.
Ahead of the event even starting, Ye won Top Christian and Top Gospel Artist and Top Christian Album, and Top Gospel Album. In addition, his songs Jail and Hurricane won awards for Top Gospel Song and Top Christian Song, respectively. Billboard presented the news to fans earlier in the night.
Twitter critics outraged by Kanye’s award wins at BBMAs
With Kanye winning awards in those particular Billboard categories, it caused some uproar as critics reacted online. Many were outraged that the rapper won in those categories following his public rants against ex-wife Kim Kardashian, her boyfriend Pete Davidson, and others.
“Well that makes me sick,” one Twitter commenter wrote, adding, “Ye being listed as Christian/Gospel is a joke!”
Another critic called out Kanye for winning awards in Gospel categories after “stalking his ex wife and threatening her new man.”
Another critic called Kanye winning a “joke and a major disrespect to all the REAL Christian artists” nominated.
The rapper was suspended from Instagram for 24 hours several weeks ago due to his use of a slur toward Daily Show host Trevor Noah. He removed all posts from his Instagram and hasn’t posted since following that ban.
In addition, he was removed as a performer from the 2022 Grammys and soon after dropped out as a headline act for Coachella 2022.
Kanye’s behavior against Kim and Pete included multiple Instagram posts attacking the Saturday Night Live Star Ye also released video rants about the situation between him and Kim and the shared custody of their four children.
In addition, Kanye released the song Eazy featuring The Game, which included an infamous threat against Davidson in his verse. The music video included an animated Kanye West kidnapping a claymation Pete Davidson, burying him alive, and even carrying around his decapitated head.
West has been mostly quiet online since his March Instagram ban and has been sighted publicly with girlfriend Chaney Jones. He recently surfaced on Instagram to leave a few comments expressing his love for Jones.