Watch me Successfully Defend Kanye West

Grandstanding is a perilous route to fame.  When done right, you’ll amass legions of fans who will extol your every fashion statement and dope beat.  When done wrong, you bewilder a cute blonde in front an adoring audience, which never bodes well for flamboyant megastar under the influence of too much Courvoisier.  Enter Kanye West, a polarizing media gargantuan who managed to do both, excellently at that.  In a moment of unabashed megalomania, Mr. West managed to shove away a large majority of his already abated fan base.  Since, he’d been making the rounds (disastrously) to re-establish himself as the flamboyant, peerless hip-hop icon he was just years ago.  Nothing seems to have worked, though.  Former fans have jumped ship for less egregious, albeit less dynamic performers.

If we’ve learned anything about bandwagons, it’s just as easy to jump off as it is to jump on.  And while most everyone seems eager to relegate Kanye to the realm of controversial afterthoughts, I’m prepared to declare him as one of the most important figures of contemporary culture as well as music.  Lousy attitude and selfishness aside, West is this generations’ Jim Morrison, or maybe even Pythagoras.  Hrmm….we’ll stick with Morrison.

Let’s go back to 2008.  Kanye was still riding the wave of incredible popularity garnered by the success of his two prior albums, not to mention the dozens of hits he’d produced.  Without question, he was the face of the industry and was primed to eventually reach a cult status shared by few.  However, he was reeling from the death of his mother, an emotion that would cast a heavy shadow over his new album.  808s and Heartbreak sputtered commercially, and was rejected by listeners who expected the same vibe delivered on his previous two efforts.  Granted, it was heavy on the pop and harmony, and lacked the dick-swinging swagger that became his staple, but he had opened up like never before.  Heavily themed in depression, anxiety, and self-doubt, he dropped his guard and peeled away at his exterior almost entirely and was shown no thanks for it.

Things seemed to fall apart slowly thereafter.  The Swift situation, an utter fiasco at Bonnaroo, a couple of very public breakups; the shine and mystique began to fade.  But that wasn’t going to stop West from doing what he was best at, saying exactly what was on his mind. 

Late last year, he released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.  Most devotees were long gone by then, but the few that remained found themselves being overtaken by a stirring, histrionic opus rarely found in today’s rap.  Sharp, impetuous, and brutally honest, Fantasy delivered unexpected depth, as well as the burgeoning essence of a figure who’d fallen from the crest to the doldrums.  Even more provocative was the overall message; you people don’t know what you want. 

And really, he nailed it.  The general public took a nobody, exalted him to a messiah, and left him as a leper.  They didn’t want the same ole same, but didn’t care for anything odd or antithetical.  Young males adulated him for his misogynistic tones, but turned when he was a big bully to embodiment of the cute, awkward girl whose songs they related to.  So Kanye let go, stopped caring, and told the world “yes, I am that asshole, and you people love it. Without the anger, without the intrigue, I would have been another passing craze soon to be forgotten like so many others. I am that asshole, and even if you’re not okay with it, I am.”

It’s key to realize how many personalities we now view as historic figures were incredibly imperfect.  Albert Einstein has been retroactively diagnosed as having severe autism, as have Thomas Edison for Aspergers syndrome and Martin Luther for OCD, and there’s a good chance they were impossible to tolerate on many occasions during their respective eras.  So it’s easy to say West is a washed-up, brooding jerk with no room in his heart but for himself.  But, as we’ve seen, genius tends to walk hand-in-hand with emotional and chemical imbalance.  Maybe he’s not your favorite.  Maybe you want him to disappear already.  Maybe you’d prefer music that has nothing to explore, or won’t lead you to explore yourself, because one may find they’re not the most savory individual.  Kanye West made that very grim discovery, and used it to create a quietly brilliant album.