Kanye West is mad. Very, very mad. Judging by his latest music, interviews, and rants, he’s had a storm brewing in him for quite some time now, and it looks the full force of it is going to come raining down on America when YEEZUS officially drops today.
I’d be mad too if my career was a uninterrupted slide from black sheep to jackass. When Yeezy went on SNL to debut New Slaves and Black Skinhead from his new album, it was clear he was targeting the people who hate him most—middle America. And there he was, the star of the night, raging against the pigs who profit off the prison-industrial complex—which, by no coincidence, are the same pigs that own GE, which owns NBC, which owns SNL. “Fuck you and your Hampton house / I’ll fuck your Hampton spouse / came on her Hampton blouse / and in her Hampton mouth,” he seethed.
50 years ago, maybe 20, it would have been downright dangerous to go on national TV and say the things he said. In many ways, it still is. But Kanye West, throughout his career, has progressively given less of a fuck about what the public thinks of him and more of a fuck about what he thinks of the public. During his recent rant at the Governor’s Ball, he spelled it out: “honestly at this point when I listen to radio, that ain’t where I want to be no more. Honestly at this point, I could give a fuck about selling a million records…”
In the last few weeks, with everything he’s said and done, he’s probably lost more than one fan. Me, I like him more. I watched his SNL performance, read his New York Times interview, and was thoroughly entertained. This is a dude who’s still pushing the bar, even after already reaching the pinnacle of his craft. This is a dude who’s still on some new shit, even on his 8th album. This is a dude who has balls. Che Gueverra was a political revolutionary, Steve Jobs was a technological revolutionary, Kanye West is a musical revolutionary. The extent of most contemporary rappers’ consciousness is limited to merely...