Is it Still Cool to Like Kanye West?

 Last month Jay Z sat down for an interview with the American financial institution that is Warren Buffet and noted conservative money man Steve Forbes of Forbes Magazine. It was a far cry from the drug dealing project reared roots of hip hop's celebrated elder statesman. Last year President Obama invited him to the White House where Jay Z was given a private tour and snapped the now infamous photo of himself lounging in the situation room. Possibly Obama's way of thanking Jay after the President made an allusion to a line from one of his songs in '08, when then candidate Obama was fighting off Hilary Clinton in the nation's longest primary season (Man, I miss that Obama). As part owner of the New Jersey Nets, Jay Z is partially responsible for the future move of the NBA team to Brooklyn, the home of Marcy projects, the home of Jay Z, made famous by the artist himself. For much of the 20^th century the unofficial anthem of New York City was Frank Sinatra's crooning rendition of New York, New York. It served it's time well for decades of transplants, onlookers, outsiders, and natives alike, as the musical for the world's most dynamic city. But let's be honest it's a new century, a new millennium even, and New York needed a new anthem as the city has changed from the days of Sinatra. Jay Z provided that anthem last year, doing Old Blues Eyes justice with a beat backed anthem that recognized that the New York of this era is different than the Broadway sounds of New York's Sinatra past. This is the era that the boroughs birthed hip hop making it all the more fitting that Jay Z wrote the tune. For those of us on the outside life seems pretty good for Jay Z and he appears happy with whatever place he's reached in the cultural pantheon.

Just over a year ago at MTV's Video Music Awards a drunk Kanye West jumped on the stage, uninvited, and interrupted teen pop star Taylor Swift's acceptance speech to let the world know that he thought Beyonce deserved the award more. A stunned and embarrassed Beyonce looked on from the audience, as the audience themselves looked on in horror. Following the stunt President Obama, joking with reporters off the record before an interview, commented that he thought Kanye West was a, "jackass" (Warren Buffet and Steve Forbes haven't been reached yet for a comment). Jay Z is married to Beyonce and we can all imagine how he would respond to someone asking whether he thought Beyonce or Taylor Swift is a better artist, but truth is no one cares what he thinks about the subject. From what anyone can tell he seems to be alright with that. The other truth is no one cared about Kanye West's opinion on the matter either, something he clearly wasn't alright with.

Kanye West is getting old. Not in the sense that another year has passed and we're all getting a little grayer. Kanye West is getting old in the sense that the gimmicks, the games, the publicity seeking stunt making is getting old. In a world filled with pseudo events and inundated with reality TV spectacles we are a nation that's growing weary of Kanye West. He doesn't seem to care. Indeed Kanye seems to be an all inclusive package of musical talent with a roundtrip to stuntsville. Kanye West isn't satisfied being just a cheered musical figure, by his own admission he wants to be a cultural force, a societal bellweather that shapes the world beyond what people listen to, to what they watch, how they dress, what they love. According to Kanye West he wants to be Michael Jackson. Yet the sad fact is toward the end of his life there's some doubt as to whether Michael Jackson wanted to be Michael Jackson. Which serves only to highlight the point that you can't make yourself Michael Jackson. MJ became what he was not only because of his dance moves, not only because Thriller is the biggest selling record of all time, but because he was truly strange. Like Kanye West, Michael Jackson sought fame and in the end achieved it through an onstage persona that he meticulously crafted, but the larger than life mystique that accompanied that fame was due to his outlandish eccentricities. Thus MJ on stage was the greatest show on earth, but MJ off stage was in many ways even more interesting—the offstage eccentricities weren't crafted, tragically they were all too real. West's offstage "eccentricities" come across as him begging to have the spotlight from the same angle Michael Jackson had it, and it just doesn't look the same, namely because you can catch a glimpse of Kanye in the corner begging. So while Jay Z settles into to his new role as an aging rapper, and Michael Jackson rest in peace killed by the fame he sought, Kanye is desperately clamoring and clawing his way for a spot somewhere between the two. The most remarkable aspect of the whole situation is that he doesn't have to.

Type Kanye West into Google news and something "controversial" or "eccentric" will always come up. Kanye's latest attempt at eccentric stardom is a 30 minute music video/movie titled Runaway that I can only assume is filled with deep allegorical meaning. I watched it and forgive me if I missed the allegory, but I found it hard to care. And still, as hard as I wasn't caring, the problem is some of the music isn't all that bad. Really, it never was. I'm old enough to remember what the world sounded like in '03 and '04 when Lil' John had every club in America in the palm of his hands and Kanye West came along. I remember watching BET one night and hearing Chaka Kahn sing "Through the Wire," as a beat dropped and Kanye West through his wire-shut jaw, talked about the car crash that changed his life and gave him a second chance. It was in many ways a breath of fresh air and an ode to the soul sampling roots of hip hop as much as it was honest and real. It pains me to say it, but with his first album College Dropout Kanye brought a bit of sophistication to the game. Jesus Walks was a hit song. I'll say it again, Jesus Walks was a hit song. Undeniably, people were in clubs and everybody was screaming out, "jeee—sus walk's." Kanye was on to something. "All Falls Down" with Lauryn Hill singing and Kanye being bluntly honest about the illusions of money and fame. Kanye was on to something. It wasn't just the music either. The concept of hip hop artist walking around dressing preppy, wearing suits, and cleaning up, so much of that started with Kanye West. Gone were the nappy roots (what up Wyclef, I'll deal with you in another post, 'cause you seem to have your own issues nowadays) of hip hop style centered on the baggy jeans and street lifestyle; Kanye brought an amount of sophistication that only a college dropout could. This isn't a commentary on whether the changing style of hip hop was a good thing or a bad thing, but rather an illustration purely of Kanye's impact. An impact that enabled him to make a song about blood diamonds and put a pair of those pointless shade sunglasses on people's faces everywhere.  

Listen to this and tell me it's a bad song. It's not. Or this. It's not either. Most of Kanye's music has been consistently good going on 7 years now. His impact stylistically, musically, culturally, fashion wise, denotes that to a certain degree he is/was Michael Jackson, just nowhere near the same level as Michael Jackson. This seems to be the part that disturbs Kanye West as much as it is the part of Kanye West that disturbs everybody else. He can't figure out exactly how one achieves the eccentric alarming behavior that made Michael Jackson scary famous and culturally dominant. And it's because you can't achieve that behavior—unless he wants to go through barely surviving multiple child molestation charges—that Kanye is ever more annoying to watch, and it all makes his music sound just a little worse. But I can't tell how bad his erratic behavior makes his music sound anymore. So I ask, is it still cool to like Kanye West? I bet Jay Z doesn't care.