Kanye West SUCKS? or: The Miseducation Of The Public About Kanye West

No, I didn’t get the punctuation wrong in the title. I meant to put a question mark and not an exclamation point. Those who know me know that I was never a huge fan of Kanye West as an emcee (as a producer…that’s a different story all together), in fact, I use the term ’emcee’ lightly. I only thought of him as a decent rapper at best. There is a standard of rhyming that I had grown to respect and love and honestly, Kayne just didn’t fit the bill. That was until a stranger (who was obviously an enormous fan) started telling me about how he felt like Kanye was the best emcee of our time. Of course I disagreed, but at the very least, it caused me to rethink my position. I went back and listened to his albums and cameos on other cuts, and checked out all of the internet fodder (or as much as one can manage to squeeze in a weekend. It’s a lot of hatin’ out there. Whew.). My opinion on Kanye suddenly changed, literally overnight. Don’t get excited, I still think he is a mediocre rapper when it comes to word play and complex rhyme patterns, but (and this is a but bigger than Nicki Minaj’s) I think that he is one of the better emcees of the new millennium when it comes to emoting. What do I mean? Glad you asked. Let me break it down. There are several things that can make a great emcee great and not all of them have to do with how good he or she is with flipping lyrics. One of the things that can make a great emcee great is his or her passion and ability to emote (I know that is two things, but go with me on this). Take a look at greats Chuck D from Public Enemy and Tupac Shakur. Neither were the best wordsmiths, not like say a Big Daddy Kane or a Treach from Naughty By Nature, but both were better at expressing their passion through rhyme than any of their contemporaries.

Yep. You are connecting the dots correctly, I am putting Kanye in the same boat as Chuck and Pac, but that isn’t the point of this blog…just me laying a little ground work. Does Kanye’s record sales reflect how truly talented and passionate he really is, or is it the media buzz surrounding his outbursts that drive his record sales? I don’t know if we will ever get a substantial answer to that question, but I do want to know this; why do we care more about Mr. West’s off mic antics than his on mic ability?

When I first set out to write this I thought that I would do a catalog of all of Kanye’s famous (and some not so famous) rants that ultimately landed him in front of an LA judge to face assault charges for trying to seize a camera from a paparazzi photographer. But the more I thought it through, the more I realized that the salacious nature of his outbursts wouldn’t at all help me make my point, and that point is this; we drank the Kool-aid. Now we are more concerned with the ‘pop culture,’ money/swag influenced aspect of hip-hop than we are with rappers actual abilities and passion.

What makes an emcee? As I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t only reside with their lyrical skill, but also with their passion, and who else is more passionate than camera grabbing, angry tweeting, award interrupting Kanye West (what he did to that poor little girl is unforgivable, unless of course you consider how her career skyrocketed after his display…I’m just sayin’). We drank the Kool-aid. It seems like Kanye is a victim and a hero of fate. He emerged shortly after the flashy, emotionless, Puff Daddy (some of you know him as Puff, I mean P Diddy, sorry, I mean Diddy okay…no…wait, I mean Sean Combs) inspired era of rap. His production and passion was undeniable and that, about a decade prior to his emergence, would have set him apart from his contemporaries. Now, unfortunately, he is cursed with creating music in an era that cares less about his talent and more about his public persona. That makes him the victim. What makes him the hero is that in order to reign as king of the rag mag (that’s rag magazine for those not into the Wendy Williams jargon), glitz and glam world of pop culture, all he has to do is bend to the pressure put on him by his fame. Lose his shit in public every now and then, and stand up for his rights as a human being, and he can watch his record sales catapult to new heights.

It all really begs the question; are his outbursts about record sales, or are his record sales about his outbursts? Either way I know this. Kanye isn’t the monster, we are. Let’s go back to a time when the only reason we cared about our favorite artist becoming a father is because of how it would influence his music, not if we would get to see pictures of the baby (insert really cute picture of baby North West here. She is freakin’ adorable! Sorry…I had a moment). Let’s look back to a time where paparazzi were reserved for movie stars and hip-hop emcees could be concerned with social commentary and art. Creating true art for art’s sake. Hip-hop music is the art of the culture, simple and plain, so let’s not get it confused with the business machine that promotes and exploits the culture.

At the end of the day, whether you are a fan of Kanye West or one of those many, many, many (should I add one more ‘many’ for effect? I think I will) many haters, despondent critics and soccer moms who just don’t get or understand his passion, we should all give him a freakin’ break. He is a father. He is an artist. He is an emcee. He is a passionate human being trying to tell his story among those who would sell his story. He is the result of our idolatry (ouch…that word stings a little) and the future of our hip-hop culture. He is the star created through worship that we would tear down through condemnation. Pour out the Kool-aid. Stop drinking. Let’s start liking and elevating our artists for the sake of their art, not for how many hits their frustrated rants can get on youtube. Let’s change things. Let’s get back to the art and away from the stardom. Let’s think of Kanye as a man and not an icon.

-DJ Mike Swift

The views represented by bloggers on this site do not necessarily represent the views of Hip-Hop 101, its management, employees, advertisers or any associated parties.