kay so. this is a bit of a situation. I knew of a lot of the Kanye West stories already just via cultural osmosis, but even so it’s easy to understate just how wack he is. He’s crazy. He kinda follows an arc. He starts young and crazy, with a strong theme about how education is for chumps and it’s stupid to be smart. As time goes on he gets steadily crazier, more explicitly focused on sex and sexual imagery, more egomaniacal, more unleashed. Until he hits his super-faith phase, at which point he gets much cleaner in his language, but also a bit zealous, kind of hyper-focused. He’s got stretches that I think are musically interesting, and stretches that I think are dull and indulgent.
The standout is JESUS IS KING, which I was fully prepared to dislike. I already knew a couple of the songs and I didn’t like them. But when I’m wrong I admit I’m wrong, and I was wrong about this album. The track that really convinced me, that was compelling in convincing me not to judge harshly immediately, was Hands On. Like, do I think that Kanye is a particularly good person? No. Do I think he’s completely in his right mind when he says… well, anything, and particularly stuff about how God is his mission? Not really. Do I think his concept of God and faith is the same as mine? Almost definitely no. Do I think his application of that faith is the same as mine, or even if not is it an application that I think is entirely (or even mostly) reasonable? Not a chance in hell. But, I definitely think that he is being genuine in his attempt, for whatever that’s worth to him. And that is admirable, I think. That kind of sincerity is really powerful. It’s not always good, it can definitely be pointed in harmful directions, but I think intent to be and do good is something that should be encouraged, is something worthwhile.
So yeah, altogether I’m gonna go with a C-. There’s far too much good and bad both for it to be anything else. I have too many issues both with him as a person and with how he presents himself as an artist for it to be anything higher, but- those many issues aside, I think the music is actually pretty legit a lot of the time
tunafruitsandwitch 