American Asshole: Why We Need Kanye West1

by Brett Warner

Love him or hate him, Kanye West is America’s favorite asshole. His endlessly hyped new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy hits stores next week, though little of that hype concerns the music itself. Whether apologizing to George W. Bush, rambling on Twitter, canceling appearances, or claiming that Coldplay are bigger than The Beatles, Kanye seems dead set on further alienating his “haters” and keeping his fans in perpetually defensive mode. In spite of – or perhaps, because of – his talents, Kanye is a uniquely positioned pop culture scapegoat. Too self involved and misinformed to realize how he sounds to the rest of us, Mr. West has a knack for stealing the spotlight from other obnoxious, egotistical celebrity artists – of which there are plenty.

Yet despite all of that, we need Kanye West. It’s painful to admit, but it’s true. Not for his music – which alternates between brilliant and shudder inducing – but because West calls attention to two gaping, glaring problems in the big pop culture machine that we’ve built for ourselves: 1.) We hear way too much from our celebrities, and 2.) We can’t always distinguish between excellence and the suggestion of excellence.

For anyone who knows Mr. West only as “that prick who interrupted sweet, innocent Taylor Swift at last year’s VMAs,” the Yeezy story goes something like this: Born in Atlanta, Kanye followed his mother to Chicago after his parents’ divorce. By all accounts, Dr. Donda West was a very smart, very sweet and nurturing mother (not to mention an English professor) who helped Kanye succeed in school up until he dropped out of Chicago State University to focus on his music career. That career consisted of making beats for big name R&B and hip-hop artists, most famously Jay-Z on his The Blueprint and The Black Album records. Roc-A-Fella Records were justifiably skeptical when West would play them demos of his own solo work, seeing him as just another producer with MC ambitions. But Kanye seemed to prove everyone wrong — his debut album The College Dropout was seemingly everyone’s favorite CD in 2004. The following year’s Late Registration brought even more gushing accolades. West could seemingly do no wrong, but of course he found a way. He embarrassed poor Mike Myers during that Katrina benefit… he appeared on Rolling Stone wearing a crown of thorns… he acted like a fucking baby during the Grammys, VMAs, and just about every other televised celebrity orgy he was invited to. Before you knew it, we all hated him. Even Evel Knievel sued him in 2006.

Unfettered, Kanye outsold and outshined 50 Cent with Graduation in 2007 and recorded the unfairly blasted 808s & Heartbreak the following year, largely dedicated to his mother, who died during a cosmetic surgery mishap. (All Auto-Tune criticisms aside, 808s at long last answers the age-old question of what would happen if 1984 Phil Collins ever recorded a hip-hop record.) Despite his musical success, Kanye’s reputation was irrevocably tainted, though I highly doubt he sees it that way. In fact, it’s his very Kanye-centric worldview that gets him into so much trouble. Be it politics, racism, fashion, music, or any other topic under the sun, Kanye West only seems to be able to filter information through himself, which serves as a potent PSA per the dangers of celebrity acclamation and media proliferation.

In his review of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Sputnik Music writer Channing Freeman recognizes Kanye’s greater role in the pop music/pop culture spectrum:

“I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that a large majority of artists over the past forty or fifty years have been like [Kanye West]–spouting off, making this claim and that claim, putting people down, building their own reputation up. We just never heard ninety percent of it because it wasn’t done over Twitter. Somehow, we’re able to recognize the inherent ridiculousness of this 24-hour exposure into the lives of famous people without wanting to give it up.” (Source: Sputnik Music)

Kanye’s Twitter account is the latest puzzle piece in his Frankenstein monster of a public persona. People who don’t use or understand the service are bewildered that anyone would feel the need to tell the world “I’m going to the supermarket” or “I’m so bored today!” West is the ugly epitome of that notion. Most people recognize the social and communicative values of something like Twitter, but Kanye does not. For him, Twitter is yet another venue in which to vomit his asocial viewpoints onto a quickly turned-off public. It’s doubtful that he realizes what his endless, unfettered tweeting does to a well-intentioned follower who can no longer keep up with their real life friends due to the endless onslaught of Twitpics and stream of conscious ramblings. The general public has always held an unhealthy fascination with celebrities, but until recently it was largely impossible for celebrities to hold such an intrusive foothold in our day-to-day, media filled lives. As Freeman writes, “Kanye is so visible and outspoken that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone who’s never heard even one of his songs feels like they’ve heard his entire discography.”

The other problem that Kanye draws attention to is the oft-deep gap between artistic greatness and the suggestion of it. Since the very beginning, West has built his entire career around the notion that he is great. It’s all he wants to talk about and it’s the only thing music critics seem willing to throw at him. (I love Rob Sheffield to death, but his Rolling Stone review of Kanye’s new album is the closest thing to critic-on-artist fellatio I’ve ever read.) Whether or not Kanye’s music is actually great is up to personal preference, but he is indisputably the latest in a long line of musicians, writers, and artists who embody self-importance while forgetting to actually deliver the goods that keep them on their pedestal. (Insert your own name here. I’m going with Elvis Costello.) Easy praise is the poisoned beverage we’re so quick and happy to serve, and it usually results in a quickly inflated ego and exaggerated sense of self-accomplishment. Ladies and gentlemen… Kanye West.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a pretty great new album, but it will never receive a completely fair, unbiased critical analysis because Kanye West lives in our guts, not in our ears. Personally, I hope he continues making music and making a stupid ass of himself for years to come, because his antics remind me that famous people are just as obnoxious, self-centered, and dumb as the rest of us…that “genius” is not a word that deserves to be tossed around lightly…that George W. Bush didn’t really care about the people of New Orleans, black or white… and that no one man should have all that (cultural) power.