Image by theballatician via Flickr

After Kanye’s starling rise to celebrity superstardom, from Late Registration to the prog-rap opus of Watch the Throne, Ye has gone from humble beatmaker to musical icon, engineering some of the most iconic anthems of the past decade and even earning a reference to Jesus from none other than Jay Z in a verse off No Church in the Wild. Yeezy has a number of turning points in his career, from The Blueprint to his car accident to Jesus Walks, but his last solo album, the epic My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy set Kanye apart from his peers as a true pioneer in the game, a man with everything to lose who’s still willing to take chances on his vision. From Nicki Minaj’s introduction and the first piano chords and choral accompaniment on Dark Fantasy, Kanye’ ambitions were clear. What other rapper in the game can move back and forth between the hood and the hills so effortlessly? Mixing beats with orchestras has been done before but never on this scale. Kanye took the stage at Austin City Limits on Friday for the last show of the Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy tour and delivered another blowout performance, backed no less by a troupe of ballet dancers but stalking the stage solo most of the time. After all the drama has died down, the botched awards shows and presidential-level feuds, the loss of the women in his life who mattered, Kanye stood there alone on the precipice of another game change, leaving the audience wondering what comes next.