An Obituary for 2018’s Best Cinderella

Every March, college basketball fans from across the country (except Lexington, Kentucky) unite in one singular cry.

“The NCAA screwed our team with this seeding!”

Now, while all those fans are probably right about their team in one way or another, a worse crime was committed in an entirely different bracket: The Kanye Madness Bracket.

Carrington Harrison, a board operator for 610 Sports Radio in Kansas City, came up with this year’s best non-sports bracket; finding Kanye West’s best song. The bracket was posted on Twitter and Harrison held polls for each matchup, dividing the rounds by multiple days.

Creating this bracket was obviously no easy task. Kanye is one of the rare artists who can actually produce 64 different tracks worthy of making a bracket. So seeding was naturally going to be full of controversial picks. And biases have obviously reigned supreme in the comments as they do with every bracket.

But there was one seeding in this bracket I believe all Kanye fans can agree to disagree with. “Homecoming” checked in as the 14-seed in the “Saint” bracket.

14!!!

Homecoming debuted on February 18, 2008 as the twelfth track on Kanye’s Graduation Album. The song also struggled to get noticed then, as it peaked at 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The song is a tribute to Kanye’s hometown of Chicago. Throughout the song Kanye references the city like a childhood love:

“I met this girl when I was three years old

And what I loved most, she had so much soul”

The song brings out a unique softer side of Kanye as he chronicles his ups and downs with leaving Chicago to further his career. The song also features Coldplay frontman Chris Martin on the hook and also providing the song’s fantastic beat on piano. Martin adds a perfect mix to the nostalgic Kanye.

The low seeding set the song up for tough matchups all throughout the tournament.

In Round 1 “Homecoming” squared off with 3-seed “Gorgeous” from Kanye’s 2010 Album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Despite a solid hook from Kid Cudi and a feature from Raekwon (of Wu-Tang Clan), “Gorgeous” became the first victim of upset-minded Homecoming. The song pulled in 55% of the 84,478 voters and put itself back on the map.

In the second round “Homecoming” faced an even tougher task in 6-seed “Heard ’Em Say.” “Heard ’Em Say” proposed a unique challenge as it also shows off Kanye’s softer side and a great hook by a big time pop artist (Adam Levine).

However, Levine and Kanye’s tale of overcoming odds couldn’t stop the momentum of “Homecoming”. The final count was even tighter this time around, 53% for “Homecoming” and a trip to the Sweet Sixteen.

Like many cinderellas before it, “Homecoming’s” run finally came to an end in the third round. The matchup this time was with powerhouse 2-seed “In Paris.” “In Paris” was a highly popular song by Kanye and Jay-Z on their collaboration album Watch The Throne.

“In Paris” had rolled through the region’s 15 and 10 seeds with victories of 90% and 74%, respectively. “Homecoming” gave the former Billboard number 5 song it’s best run yet, but could only garner 38% of the vote.

The loss was bittersweet.

A run to the Sweet Sixteen proved to us “Homecoming” fans that the song was brutally underseeded and deserved, at the very least, to be a 4 seed. But, it still stings to take such a decisive loss for a song I believe to be Kanye’s best piece.

So congrats to UMBC, Buffalo and Loyola, but I’m gonna stop you right there, “Homecoming” had the best run of 2018.