I guess “Jesus Walks” is catchy enough for some of y’all to forego your morals and basic decency. No other reason else fully explains why Kanye West has somehow made the Top 10 list of most-streamed artists of 2025 in the US, according to Spotify Wrapped. The Joe Rogan Experience also extended its reign as the top podcast for a sixth year, so at least some of y’all are consistent in your bad taste.
Sure, West may land at the bottom of the top 10 — behind the likes of Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, SZA, and Tyler, the Creator — but that means he still beat out roughly a bajillion other artists. (For some helpful context, Bad Bunny, who ranked No. 5 on the US list and No. 1 on the global list, racked up nearly 20 billion streams.) Bands and other artists, we’ll remind you, who haven’t spent the last several years outwardly embracing Nazism and other alt-right beliefs/stances. Some of this can be traced to West’s alleged substance-use struggles — he admitted to relapsing on nitrous oxide back in February — but West has also made it clear that his personal and professional choices are a deliberate extension of his own musical and creative exploration.
And in a career marked by chaos, West (with over 65 million monthly listeners on Spotify) has clearly spiraled since he first started espousing these ideas over the last several years. And people everywhere (save for Spotify) have held him accountable for his actions. Just in 2025 alone, West’s been banned from entering Australia; caught flak for a truly “terrible” concert in Shanghai; and was threatened with arrest if he promoted Nazism during a proposed Brazilian show. His erratic behavior has been so bad, in fact, that ex-wife Kim Kardashian blamed their sustained divorce proceedings for her recent diagnosis of an actual brain aneurysm.
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And while it’s small potatoes compared to actually praising Hitler on several occasions, he also legally changed his name to Ye Ye back in June, ’cause that’s the mark of a man who demands our energies.
I won’t waste too much time worrying about how West ended up with so much attention and traffic. Enough folks like to play a little game of “separate the art from the artist,” which is a level of mental gymnastics comparable to thinking it’s a good idea to release a song called “Heil Hitler (Hooligan Version).” But the problem with that approach is that it not only uplifts the worst, most feckless fart canoes on the entire planet, but it also denigrates the consumer as well.
There are heaps more non-terrible artists who deserve your precious time and energy. Artists who will be able to do good (or at least not do more bad/harm) with that kind of attention and overall engagement. So find those artists, block or delete West on any and all streaming platforms, and don’t feed the monsters any more than you’ve got to in daily life. Hell, we’ve got you when it comes to finding albums/new music for this and every year.
Peep the full Top 10 list below.
Spotify’s Top 10 Most-Streamed US Artists of 2025:
01. Taylor Swift
02. Drake
03. Morgan Wallen
04. Kendrick Lamar
05. Bad Bunny
06. The Weeknd
07. SZA
08. Zach Bryan
09. Tyler, the Creator
10. Kanye West