Rant: Kanye West's messiah complex is not good for hip-hop

The hip-hop community has an obsession with crowning new royalty. It seems that every time a new buzzworthy artist crops up, the discussion inevitably turns to whether or not he or she is the next great hope. When people aren't arguing about whether or not hip-hop is dead, they are debating who can save it. Hip-hop's de facto savior du jour for the past six or seven years has undeniably been Kanye West. The producer turned rap superstar has enjoyed near universal acclaim since his debut album College Dropout in 2004. His sales are among the highest in the industry and every new release is a major event. Seemingly the only person more impressed by Kanye West than the fans and critics is Kanye West.

And therein lies the problem. West's ego is an entity unto itself. By now it has consumed the rest of his personality to the point that the only thing remaining is a comically absurd real-life Tracy Jordan. The listening public seem more than happy to look past his rampant materialism, his inflated sense of self and his public temper tantrums when he doesn't get the recognition he feels he deserves from award shows. They are willing to look past all of that because Kanye West, as he is not afraid to keep telling us, is a "great artist." Well, I hate to be the turd in the punchbowl folks, but when it comes to rapping, he isn't even very good.

Is he a gifted producer? Absolutely. Is he at least a tiny step above most top forty rappers when it comes to lyrics? Perhaps, but only just barely. At the end of the day, for me West is 90% hype and only 10% substance. His last 3 or 4 records in particular are filled with graceless goofy lyrics that, while they make a pretense to depth or profundity, are ultimately uninspired. What's most irritating about Kanye West's fame is that it completely overshadows the truly talented artists in hip-hop. It's a tragedy, and one in which I think fans and critics are complicit. By passing him off as the great creative mind in modern hip-hop, the hive mind is telling the unwitting public that they need look no further than Kanye West when looking for the best and brightest in hip-hop. But I've seen what a truly gifted MC can do. I've heard verses from artists with a fraction of West's album sales that are powerful, that make you weep, that astound you with their honesty. I've also heard verses where it's clear that the MCs aren't taking themselves too seriously. These artists are self-aware and are willing to look at themselves and hip-hop with a critical eye, to be self-deprecating. And that's something that Kanye West is simply not capable of.

I've heard it speculated that West's larger-than-life persona is all part of the show, that his ballooning ego is some kind of meta-critical performance art. While this is an interesting theory, I just do not buy it. If Kanye West is to hip-hop what Stephen Colbert is to punditry, then I think he would have to be much funnier than he is. Sure, his antics can be amusing from time to time, but I see him in the same light as Charlie Sheen. You cannot help but laugh a little bit at the absurdity of it all, but it seems more like schadenfreude than anything.

It should be said that Kanye West is far from being the first hip-hop artist to have a large ego. And I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that ego and braggadocio don't have their rightful place at the hip-hop table, they do. In fact you can trace this kind of attitude back to hip-hop's earliest days when teenagers in the Bronx were battling each other (on the mic as well as on the turntables or the dance floor). But the difference here is that Kanye West isn't some young kid trying to carve out a name for himself in a ghetto where every brown face is just another statistic. He's a multi-millionaire who is known worldwide, and if he isn't self-aware enough to laugh at himself every once and awhile, then the whole thing falls apart.

Okay, so if Kanye West is not worthy of the hip-hop crown, then who is? Well, that's a question that I'm afraid to say I do not have an answer for. The problem I see is that if hip-hop needs a savior (and I'm not completely convinced it does), then that artist must be able to combine talent with a willingness to be self-aware while still being popular enough to reach a wide audience. I don't see anyone on the scene right now who can do all of that. The closest I can think of is someone I wrote about recently, Lupe Fiasco. Yet, while he's definitely more talented than Kanye and certainly popular, he still suffers from an inability to let his ego take a backstage to talent. He's ultimately Kanye in new clothes. Artists like Mos Def and Talib Kweli who have the ability to write truly gut-wrenching lyrics do not enjoy nearly the amount of popularity that Kanye West does. And artists willing to take the piss out of hip-hop and themselves like Busdriver don't even come close.

What it all comes down to is that the listening public has to start being better fans. I think Kanye's biggest problem is that he's decided that he is the only person who can "save" hip-hop and nobody wants to tell him otherwise. If fans and critics aren't willing or able to see through the cloud of hype surrounding Kanye West, then he will only continue to think that he's God's gift to music. At the end of the day, if hip-hop needs to be saved from anything, it's Kanye West.

Confessions of a Kanye Virgin

So, I've definitely been aware of Kanye West's solo career since at least College Dropout. He would have been hard to ignore. And of course, I've heard all of the major singles along the way. I think even most modern cave dwellers have been exposed to the near ubiquitous airplay of songs like "Gold Digger" or "Jesus Walks."

But until only last week when I picked up a copy of Graduation, I had never actually listened to any of his albums (go ahead, let out those gasps of astonishment and disgust). The truth is, anybody as heavily hyped as Kanye automatically makes me wary. Whether it is because of a fear of disappointment or my resentment of being told that somebody is the "savior" of an art form, I'm perennially late to jump on the bandwagon.

But even after listening to Graduation I still don't think I'm ready to drink the Kool-aid. Because no matter how consistently inspired Kanye's productions are, I still find it hard to ignore the elephant in the room: his lyrics. While there are definite flashes of brilliance, it's hard for me not to think that Kanye should have stayed in the production booth and left the rhyming to those more suited to it than him.

This isn't to say that Kanye West isn't talented, his production skills border on the sublime and when he produces songs by more talented MCs (prime examples are Mos Def and Talib Kweli)the results are astounding. But Kanye's own lyrical abilities often aren't enough to carry a song on their own and listeners are left with cringe inducing rhymes like:
So we gon' do everything that Kan like,
Heard they do anything for a Klondike,
Well, I'd do anything for a blonde dyke

And I know by now I should be used to rappers' full frontal assault on the English language and fully expect the kind of slang that causes grammar teachers to seize involuntarily, but a man has to draw the line somewhere. And, frankly, using the made up word "apologin'" is an offense to all things decent in language.

I was talking with a friend recently about my reservations about Kanye's music, and he told me that he enjoys it strictly in terms of sheer ego. For him, just to hear West's elephantine ego play itself out over the course of an entire album was entertainment enough. And I understand that viewpoint, if I didn't I wouldn't have a guilty pleasure for AC/DC. But for whatever reason when it comes to hip-hop, I'm pickier and less forgiving about lyrics. Perhaps I should just take my friends advice and just shut up and marvel at the absurdity of it all.