Kanye West has always wanted to be a man of mystery. He blurs the lines in his music and often begs the question whether he’s a producer or a rapper. He makes appearances on Saturday Night Live donning a Perrier bottle costume, yet he associates himself with eccentric geniuses such as Elon Musk. He’s the man who was held above his peers a decade ago for saying, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” in the days following Katrina, yet he’s the same man who said slavery was a choice earlier this year. He’s married to a Kardashian and very friendly with President Trump. He’s Kanye West, and we just can’t seem to figure him out.
His paradoxical presence forces all of us to talk. Some of us love him, some hate him, some think he’s simply looking for attention, some separate the man from the musician and others just don’t care enough to discuss him. Members of the last group might see Kanye as nothing more than a self-congratulatory figure who will do anything to elevate his sense of status and success. I agree with them. That’s why I’m writing this as a plea of all of us to stop feeding Kanye’s hubris.
We first saw it at the 2009 Video Music Awards, when Kanye rushed the stage and interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to make a claim for why Beyoncé should have won. All the attention was on him, and not Beyoncé or Taylor Swift (who won the award). We saw it earlier this year when Kanye arrogantly went into TMZ’s studios to conduct an interview expanding upon his criticisms of the African-Americans during the country’s slavery period. We even saw it when he hosted a release party for his new album “ye” in the Wyoming wilderness, where major figures in the music industry and Kanye’s good friends made the trip out near Jackson Hole, just to listen to his new 30-minute-long album.
It appears everything Kanye does is self-congratulatory, to some degree. Any contrarian political stance he so publicly takes, any outrageous price tag he throws on his “thrifty” clothing line, any cutting-edge way he delivers himself or his music to his fans, is all self-congratulatory.
This isn’t to say that Kanye doesn’t make music or clothes worth consuming, and it isn’t to say that the right-wing beliefs he has portrayed over the past year don’t represent the beliefs of a major portion of our country. But it is far more damaging to our society to feed into Kanye’s hubris than it is for us to seemingly ignore his presence.
Kanye has every right to wear M.A.G.A. hats and publicly support President Trump. He has every right to parade his bipolar disorder around and he has every right to criticize African-American’s perception of slavery. While he has the right to do all these things, that doesn’t mean they aren’t damaging.
When the youth look at Kanye now, they won’t know what to make of him. They’ll see a successful business man, a talented musician and an outspoken citizen. They’ll be puzzled by his presence, just as Kanye wants. But it won’t be long before the next generation of artists trying to make a name for themselves start their own controversies in hope of gaining popularity. If what Kanye is doing now becomes a trend, it will no doubt water down any future celebrities who become outspoken in what they believe in, and that’s a frightening future.
It’s time for us to stop feeding into the Kanye controversies, just as he wants us to. It’s time for us to separate the musician and the mogul from the person. If we fail in doing so, we could be doomed to a future where the unqualified and uninformed become major influences and leaders in our ideals.
