How can you be a fan of Kanye West?!
Many people dislike rap artist Kanye West aka “Yeezus”, for what seems like an endless amount of reasons. Despite having so much bad publicity Kanye West still has many who defend his antics. This column aims to highlight each and every popular point. From his arrogance to his world famous rants, to change the question from, “how can you be a fan of Kanye Kardashian” to “how you can be a fan of Kanye Omari West”?
Kicking off this column we’ll be tackling the largest point on his naughty-list, his EGO!
“Kanye west is an arrogant prick, that's what makes him kanye. It’s his brand. Nothing like this should be surprising to anyone. In fact it should be old news”, posts Facebook user Marlan Leon in reference to the latest K. West publicity. Many people are not a fan of Kanye West as an artist, because they dislike his unbridled arrogance.
So what do fans see in him that others don’t? Are Kanye West fans just as crazy as he is, or is there another side to Kanye West?
From his first and second albums titled College Drop Out and Late Registration respectively, Kanye shows extreme transparency of his life journeys. If the titles of the albums aren’t already honest enough, he raps about how music industry experts repeatedly told him not to follow his dreams of becoming a rap artist and how hard he worked to prove them wrong.
From College Drop Out we listen to his song titled “Spaceship” where he’s quoted saying, “ Y’all don’t know my struggle, y’all can’t match my hustle ******, you can’t catch my hustle, you can’t fathom my love, dude lock yourself in a room doing five beats a day for three summers, that’s a different world like Cree summers I deserve to do these numbers the kid that made that deserves that Maybach, so many records in my basement, I’m just waiting on my spaceship”.
From his album titled Late Registration we listen to his journey through the popular song with Lupe Fiasco, “Touch the Sky”. In the song he’s quoted saying, “Before anybody wanted K. West beats me and my girl split the buffet *** at KFC, Dawg, I was having nervous break downs like man these (people) that much better than me”.
Pre-fame and fortune, Kanye West experienced a life threatening car accident, and constant rejection from his peers in regards to his style of fashion and rap music. After overcoming these obstacles with his commercial success from his first album, West found himself investing his own earnings into his work to avoid what’s known as “sophomore slumps”. On the albums Wikipedia page, the following critical reception can be found: In his review for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield deemed it "an undeniable triumph, packed front to back, so expansive it makes the debut sound like a rough draft", while calling West "a real MC".
[2] Uncut magazine's Simon Reynolds found most of the album brilliant and highlighted by his unparalleled use of vocal samples,[57] while Josh Tyrangiel of Time said the sample and string arrangements on "Gone" may persuade listeners to believe West's own hype.[35] Alexis Petridis, writing for The Guardian, commended his topicality and subversive studio production: "Late Registration suggests an artist effortlessly outstripping his peers: more ideas, better lyrics, bigger hooks, greater depth.
"[54] The Observer called it a significant milestone in hip hop and West "the Brian Wilson of hip-hop" because he "plays up the struggle between conscience and covetousness, the pop mainstream and what can be achieved within the notional boundaries of hip hop".[28] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Hilburn compared West's dignified execution of pop crossover to that of The Beatles, Johnny Cash, and Bob Marley.[55] Sean Fennessey from Pitchfork Media felt West avoids the sophomore slump with an "expansive, imperfect masterpiece" that draws on his enthusiastic, ambitious, and scattered personality.
[30] Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice, praised the album's "exquisite details", both lyrical and musical, and concluded that West is "as good as he thinks he is ... He wants everybody to buy this record. So do I"
If an artist doesn’t believe in their own work who else will? In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, who was once against Mr. West himself, Kanye said:
“People don’t stand up and protect their dreams… Creatives have gotten beat up my entire life. There are moments I stood up to drug dealers in Chicago (to say) you’re not going to bully me..Do you know how many people tell me, “stop believing in yourself… stop affirming what you’re gonna do and then completing that in real life, that’s the improper way to do it… I refuse to follow those rules that society has set up and that they use to control people with low self-esteem.”
