Oh Kanye. How you make life difficult for us all. It’s been a rough year for Mr. West, as he has continued to fend off the ever rabid media while managing to repeatedly embarrass himself with moronic comments. He cemented his legacy as a world-class nutcase by interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the VMAs in order to promote Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” video instead. Kanye’s sense of shame is apparently a myth. He’s rapidly becoming more famous for his oddball personality and public relations snafus than what he actually does for a living: making music. This is why for my final Who’s Simon Defending Now? piece of the year, I’m defending, against all odds, Kanye West.Despite the fact that he burst onto the scene only six years ago, with 2004’s The College Dropout, Kanye has arguably been one of the five most defining musicians of this entire decade. He’s managed to win over not only pop fans (who, as we hipsters know, will accept anything the radio plays, right?) but also music critics. He’s one of the few mainstream rappers who’s seen as “acceptable” for uber-trendy college students to listen to. He’s collaborated with an all-star cast of musicians in the past ten years and his fingerprints are all over a sizeable chunk of this decade’s chart-topping music. Whatever you personally feel about Kanye, you’ve got to admit that the man has been very successful in a very short period of time.
Then there’s the music itself. While Kanye is far from being a particularly blessed lyricist, he compensates by being one of the more inventive and risk-taking producers working today. From the hyperspeed “chipmunk” soul voices on The College Dropout to the skronking horns liberally spread throughout Late Registration (2005). He can also stumble upon lyrical snippets that exist in a wonderful grey area between absurd and awesome, such as the mind-boggling “I’m like the fly Malcolm X/buy any jeans necessary” line from Graduation’s “Good Morning” (2007). I wholeheartedly believe that Kanye is a genius, but he’s a unique and absurdly idiosyncratic one.
Then there’s 808s And Heartbreak. His fourth album, which was suddenly dropped upon the world just over twelve months ago, remains one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated albums of the entire decade. Lost in all the whining and moaning about Auto-Tune is the fact that 808s is a startlingly personal and risky gesture for a mainstream rapper. He really, truly took rap somewhere that no one else was going with the genre and, personally, I think he knocked the whole thing out of the park. After releasing three albums of increasing braggadocio and ego-stroking, he delivered a masterpiece of frozen electronics and heart-on-sleeve emotions.
As with many pop stars (Michael Jackson, for example), it can become hard to separate their music from their public persona and the attending flock of gossip-hounds, bloodthirsty photographers and sensationalist entertainment reporters. However, it’s important to remember that the art and the artist are, in fact, completely different things. When you hold 808s in your hand, you aren’t holding a piece of Kanye himself. You’re holding a disc of music and you can choose to listen to it in whatever context you want. Just always remember that the music itself is a separate entity and you can enjoy it without condoning the behavior of the artist creating it. Kanye’s ego continues to lose him more and more fans, virtually by the hour, but I urge people to remember his music. He’ll never be a perfect person. But his quirks, inane ramblings and self-mythologizing have allowed him to create some great, landmark songs and albums. He deserves a place alongside Eminem and Jay-Z as rappers who have dictated what hip-hop (and pop music in general) has sounded like this decade and will probably sound like for years to come.
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