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.

Review: Lupe Fiasco - Lasers

Lasers, the third outing by backpack rap sensation Lupe Fiasco, is an album that almost wasn't. Fans have been waiting for a follow up to the concept album The Cool since it came out in 2007. Initially, Lupe Fiasco announced that his third (and supposedly final) album would be a three disc release called LupE.N.D. which has since been delayed indefinitely. From there, the album went through several name changes, from the Great American Rap Album, to We Are Lasers, to simply Lasers (in case it isn't readily apparent from these titles, Lupe has never been one for being understated, his concept for the Cool is only further evidence of this,) But the roller coaster ride was far from over. Despite the fact that it had a release date of late 2009 and several singles had been released (some of which never actually did make it onto the album) Lasers didn't actually get released until last month. According to Lupe himself, the album had actually been complete for some time, but was being held up by Atlantic Records. But after several years of waiting, and an online petition to Atlantic to release the record that quickly received 30,000 signatures, Lasers finally hit the shelves. Unfortunately, the head scratching didn't stop there.

For all the anticipation and hype leading up to its release, the actual album turned out to be every bit as confusing and difficult to pin down. Critical response seems to be a resounding "meh," and I can't say I disagree very much. There has been a considerable degree of rumbling in critical circles about the increasing pop sentiment on this album. The Allmusic reviewer, for example, complained of the album's "lumbering, overwrought choruses." While there certainly are some disappointments here that likely arise from the concessions Lupe had to make to finally get this album released, I for one think that to call the hooks and choruses in Lasers a departure is largely ignorant of what Lupe has always done in his music. Lupe's shtick has always been superb rhymes interspersed with hooks painted in broad strokes. Just look at the two most well-known tracks off his debut, "Daydreamin'" and "Kick, Push." Neither of these is devoid of pop overtones. The Jill Scott chorus from "Daydreamin'" is positively infectious, and the strings sampled from Celeste Legaspi's "Bolero Medley" on "Kick, Push" give the song a syrupy grandeur for which any pop composer should be envious.

While the poppier side of Lasers shouldn't be seen as a complete betrayal, there is no denying that the album has its share of disappointments. To my ears, there are two important things missing from this album. The first is trajectory. While the album starts with some strong tracks, particularly the musical indictment of Obama "Words I Never Said," what follows is a sharp decline in quality. The first signs of trouble come on the song "the Show Goes On," which strangles the life out of a sample of Modest Mouse's "Float On." That Lupe would look to the indie rock darlings for inspiration is interesting, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Easily the best track on the album, "All Black Everything," comes as the penultimate track on the album. The song imagines a comically absurd alternate reality in which racism doesn't exist. In this world, things are completely turned on their head, Bill O'Reilly eulogizes Malcom X (who dies as an old man) by reading from the Qur'an. Lines like "Somalia is a great place to relax in/ Fred Astaire was the first to do a backspin/ The Rat Pack was cool group of black men" illustrate the kind of lyrical brilliance Lupe is capable of. Any sense of trajectory gained here, however, is completely lost on the album ending "Never Forget You" which features John Legend who completely overshadows Lupe in the worst way possible.

But perhaps even more conspicuously absent from this album is any sense of the quirky nerd-friendly side of Lupe that made him a critical success in the first place. Gone are the geeky rhymes about robots, skateboarding and Japanese culture from Food & Liquor or the grand (if silly) prog-rap sensibility of the Cool. What we are left with is a relatively ordinary hip-hop album from an artist whose appeal is based largely on his ability to be anything but ordinary.

The few bright moments on Lasers make it worth at least a listen, but to see Lupe Fiasco in his more consistent, less adulterated form, first-time listeners should stick to his first two albums.