In Defense of Kanye West: The Most Important Artist of The 21st Century
When you normally read articles regarding Kanye West, your mind goes “Oh god! What did he do now?”. The purpose of this article is to give you another view on why Kanye is…Kanye.
Disclaimer: This is an opinion article. Please excuse any grammatical errors, I have yet to take 12th-grade English.
Who is Kanye West?
One of the most important things that I have learned thus far is that knowledge is like building a skyscraper: you must first set the foundation before you place all the doors and windows. With this in mind, I’d like to give you a brief synopsis of the Kanye West that most people don’t know about.
To start off, Kanye Omari West was born in Atlanta, Georgia to Ray and Donda West. His father is a former Black Panther who was an early photojournalist with The Atlanta Journal-Constitute. His mother was a Professor of English at Clark Atlanta University and the Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University.
At the age of 13, West persuaded his mother into paying $25 an hour for time in a recording studio. As a high school student, he received A’s and B’s in his classes. Upon graduation, he received a scholarship to attend Chicago’s American Academy of Art as a painter, but eventually transferred to Chicago State University to major in English. Now hold on a minute… Kanye West majored in English? Ok, moving on.
What is an artist?
The question of who, or what an artist is will always be up for debate. In terms of numbers, we can identify how many ‘artists’ there are in the US through a government census. Despite this, one thing that has not remained clear among large groups is what actually defines an artist.
When I type in “artist definition” into Google, it yields the following results:
From what I can gather here, an artist is whoever you interpret an artist to be. Kanye West happens to fall into all three definitions. He produces, practices, and is skilled at what he does — create music.
The artist and the influencer
“Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who believed it?” — Kanye West
It is important to note that West did not achieve initial prominence as a rapper, but as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records; gaining recognition for the music he created for Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson. Yes folks — Kanye West (successfully) created music before he began his career as a rapper.
In his pursuit to become a rapper, West was constantly rejected by record labels. Once he was finally signed by Roc-A-Fella as a rapper, the rest is history.
The numbers speak for itself:
West is one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, selling more than 21 million albums with over 66 million digital downloads. Along with that, he has won 21 Grammy Awards, and three of his albums are ranked on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time List. Through his music, West is able to express his thoughts on numerous controversial topics.
While I do believe that numbers tell a large portion of the story, I feel that you really do need to experience the music of Kanye West for yourself.
“You have to learn the rules of English before you can break them.” — Jeanmarie Dollard
Early Kanye (2004)
Memorable lyrics:
“It seems we living the American dream. The people highest up got the lowest self-esteem. The prettiest people do the ugliest things for the road to riches and diamond rings.”
“I want to act ballerific like it’s all terrific. I got a couple past due bills, I won’t get specific. I got a problem with spendin’ before I get it. We all self-conscious, I’m just the first to admit it.”
The first song that I’d like you to sample is “All Falls Down.” What really differentiates West in this is that when this song was released, hip-hop was dominated by ‘Gangsta-rap’. This was a huge change in hip-hop, which is why so many record labels were reluctant to sign him in the first place.
Today’s Kanye (2015)
Memorable Lyrics:
“Remember who you are. No you’re not perfect but you’re not your mistakes”
“I talked to God about you, he said he sent you an angel. And look at all that he gave you. You asked for one and you got two.”
The second song I’d like to introduce you to is “Only One ft. Paul McCartney.” This song was released almost 10 years after “All Falls Down”, and you can definitely tell how West has grown and changed through the years. What I really enjoy is that he is not afraid to bring up new topics. With “Only One”, West is now married with a child, and the song is in his late mother’s point of view. Along with this massive topic change came a change in artistic style. Normally, I wouldn’t condone the use of auto-tune, but in the case of this song it’s supposed to be obvious. The auto-tune is used to incorporate a ‘different’ sound, and a pleasant one at that. Kanye West is by no means a vocalist, he is an artist and he does an excellent job with the resources he is given to properly execute the message of the song.
Live Performances
Kanye West is a great performer. I think one thing that most of us can agree on is that he sounds similar to his recordings when performing live. In “Kanye West- Late Orchestration: Live at Abbey Road”, West is the first mainstream hip-hop artist to include an orchestra to aide him in his performance. Despite all the attention he gets for his ego, his tenacity to giving quality musical performances is unquestioned.
Influence
You’re probably thinking, “This kid is crazy, is he really about to say that Kanye West is a positive influence?” Yes I am. What I admire about West is that he is not afraid to be himself. This doesn’t always work in his favor. In today’s world, it’s important to have a balance between speaking out and filtering what you talk about, especially when you have an influence on millions of people.
Kanye West is the last person that we would call humble or modest, but has he ever encouraged negativity? He is often controversial, even once saying “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” This probably wasn’t the smartest thing to publicly say, but he would eventually apologize. This comment did however cause more discussion about the current state of African Americans in the United States, something that I believe is far more valuable. “It was not the particulars of your words that mattered, it was the essence of a feeling of the insensitivity towards our communities that many of us have felt for far too long,” said co-founder of Def Jam, Russel Simmons.
Along with inciting powerful discussion, West has also done his fair share of philanthropy work. With his mother, he founded the “Kanye West Foundation (renamed to: Dr. Donda West Foundation, closed in 2011)” with a mission to battle dropout and illiteracy rates, along with partnering with community organizations to provide underprivileged youth access to music education.
“It is true you can be successful without [college], but this is a hard world, a real world, and you want every advantage you can have,” West said backstage. “I would suggest to people to do all that you can. When I dropped out of school I had worked in the music industry and had checks cut in my name from record labels and had a record deal on the table, and when I wasn’t successful and Columbia said, ‘We’ll call you,’ I had to go back and work a telemarketing job, go back to the real world, and that’s how life is. Life is hard. Take advantage of your opportunities.” — Kanye West
In addition to his focus on education, he has worked with volunteers to orchestrate Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, participated in the World Water Day rally, and even assisted Iraq War veterans who struggled with PTSD in an MTV schedule.
Conclusion:
Whether you like it or not, hip-hop is currently the most prominent musical genre. The growth and reach within this genre rewards artists with massive influence. The line between hip-hop and pop music is quickly blurring. Hip-hop was primarily gangsta-rap oriented, and with Kanye West’s arrival, the message of songs changed to more introspection, romance, and social issues. This doesn’t necessarily mean he was the first to do it, but it is his music that marked the beginning of the artistic shift. It’s because of Kanye West’s perseverance and passion for his music that allowed people like Childish Gambino, Drake, and various other hip-hop artists to become popular. They would have been ignored had the course of hip-hop never been altered.
Kanye West has challenged the social and artistic status quo by inciting controversial discussions on race relations, socioeconomic division, and education. The subliminal positive influence that Kanye West exerts onto society overshadows the petty negative controversies that occasionally arise with Kanye West being… well… himself.
In the end, I am just a 17 year-old student expressing my own thoughts. Once again, this is just my own opinion. No matter the case, when a young person takes the time to write an article about someone — you best believe that person has left an impact on that young person’s life, whether it be positive or negative. In this case, positive.
