Roughly three weeks ago, as my eyelids folded and the Twittersphere awoke, I wasn’t shocked that the immovable, idealized presence of Kanye West, with the globe in his hand, had proceeded to poke the attention of millions of millennials.
Disregard all of the donations he had made to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton just months earlier, because, now, Kanye was “against us all.”
I, one who tries to avoid Twitter moments as if they were the plague, hardly batted a lash. But the backlash toward non-pollster Kanye, after he said at a concert in San Jose in mid-November that he would’ve voted for Donald Trump, was unbreathable.
Did people forget about the Bill Cosby tweets, or did they even notice the similarities that Trump and West possess: exaggerated cocksureness, bluntness, outspokenness and a huge brand?
In what was a brief concert two nights later on Nov. 19 — this time at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento — West brought out rapper Kid Cudi, called Trump’s method of communication “very futuristic,” and cast a verbal “f*** you” to radio.
I’m sure Kanye wouldn’t want to be characterized as “just an artist,” just as he would want to have his opinion matter. Any sudden detractor of Kanye should fess up to their own ignorance if they are truly jumping out of the Kanye West inflatable fun house.
One question: Why do people care about Kanye publicly disagreeing with their ideology? No matter what Kanye actually believes in, isn’t he entitled to do so?
Maybe, just maybe, celebrities shouldn’t speak for us. People tend to project their feelings onto celebrities, whose words have a dense secrecy to them. And, sure, intentions can never be fully understood with language barriers, but the semantical and syntax rules are for another argument.
I’m not saying that I’m against Kanye, no. But if you are keen on perpetuating the Kanye prohibition, start pulling him off the pedestal you’ve allowed him to sit atop, by deleting him from your musical storage and never attending another tour date. It starts with the venues, the outlet stores, albums and singles, which, then, affect Kanye, and so forth.
Consumers have the intellectual power; famous people have the material power that can wear on the intellect.
Kanye has influenced fashion, tried making the world more socially conscious, and reinvented the music wheel, even when he has talked out of turn. One comment shouldn’t define a man. Did he say he was against anybody in particular? No. Was he honest about some of the prickly politics in the music industry? Yes.
In the concert, the self-described “truth” said he was living a moment in the matrix — he’s the glitch. He mentioned two of the most poetic and dense voices in hip-hop history, in KRS-One and DMX.
He has always felt “the urge” — and he has mostly proven himself right. Kanye can’t be discounted, compromised. Take this for example:
West’s first two albums defied preconceived notions of hip-hop, because Kanye rhymed about: his family and his formative years; wearing pink polos and a backpack; and racial and socio-economic problems in America, among other things.
808s & Heartbreak, with the help of Kid Cudi, sonically and topically helped give rise to artists like Drake, A$AP Rocky, and more. The 808 drum had never been as prominent in music, nor had the advent of Auto-Tune. Yeezy’s outward vulnerability has always put him at the forefront.
How many Nina Simone, King Crimson and James Brown records did young people (now bashing the man) hear before Kanye sliced up some of those works to make beats? Who else talked brazenly to power in a Hurricane Katrina telethon? Exactly.
I get why the Trump-laden comments threw people off, but Kanye has always been incendiary and contradictory, mostly to his benefit. People should hold out if they believe it to be right, but they shouldn’t try to jump out of cold cement, if he winds up dropping prophetic wisdom.
Next time you’re at a party dancing to “Paranoid,” or rapping every lyric to “Power,” know that this man hasn’t abandoned you. Just because the windshield has bird poop or a dead beetle on it, doesn’t mean the rear view is obstructed.
If you hold Kanye accountable, hold yourself accountable also. This may be a gimmick, but nobody will know until many calendar pages flip.
(Note: Watch the full-length video of the performance from Sacramento.)