13 Reasons I don’t Hate Kanye West
“People never get the flowers while they can still smell ‘em.”
We all see the worst sides of people in the media, especially some of Kanye West’s most embarrasing or worst moments. Since you’ve likely seen all of that, I wanted to share the other side of Kanye West.
I’ll leave it at a few reasons why I admire West — based on what he’s written and said himself, and what other people have said about him.
When someone is strong enough to believe in something only they believe in, people are going to call them crazy…
sometimes crazy is a label that the average put on the exceptional.
(Thank You and You’re Welcome, Kanye West, 20.)
“Say what you want about Kanye but you got to give him one thing…He fucking loved his mama with all his heart”. (See second most commented in first link.)
I feel like my confidence + someone’s low self-esteem = my arrogance.
(Thank You and You’re Welcome, 26.)
“Rob Stone, co-founder of music magazine the Fader, recalled the budding lyricist visiting his office in 2003 and quietly asking him to put on a CD. He then rapped “voraciously” over the instrumentals for a song he wrote after a serious car crash, “Through the Wire,” which would become his first solo hit. Mr. Stone says, “He was performing as if he was in front of 20,000 people but there was only four of us in the room.” That display earned Mr. West his first magazine cover.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324188604578543182410326030.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
“I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I’m not.”
(Thank You and You’re Welcome, 48.)
Never justify your behavior with the wrongs of others.
“When does it make sense that because someone else made a bad decision, now you should?” (Thank You and You’re Welcome, 44.)
“Kanye was never down on himself…He’d be ready to rap on the spot, ready to make a record on the spot. He was probably the hungriest dude I ever saw.”
— Capitol Records A&R man Joe “3H” Weinberger
(Kanye West in the Studio, Jake Brown, 27)
Sometimes when I see a bad performance people still clap…I wonder if they’re clapping because they liked what they saw or because they’re happy it’s over? (Thank You and You’re Welcome, 36.)
I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a “one size fits all” standard for happiness.
Regardless of your position in life, no one but you is qualified to determine your happiness.
(Thank You and You’re Welcome, 44.)
My entire family used to tell me, “You don’t need to get your teeth fixed, they’re fine,” but the kids in the lunchroom would say, “Your teeth are big and white just like a horse!”
So I got braces and had to have eight teeth removed. Imagine how crowded my teeth must have been. After that I was teased for having braces. Once my teeth were fixed, everybody (including some of the same people who said I didn’t need them) said, “Your teeth look so much better!”
So now, when I see people with messed-up teeth, I want to be that one person who tells them truth like the kids told me, “Your teeth are big and white like a horse!”
I don’t believe in accepting a changeable condition.
(Thank You and You’re Welcome, 25.)
Warning! Arrogant people are most often too arrogant to realize their arrogance.
(Thank You and You’re Welcome, 26.)
“they used to consider me a prodigy — until I got too old to be one…There’s nothing I really wanted to do in life that I wasn’t able to get good at. That’s my skill. I’m not really specifically talented at anything except for the ability to learn. That’s what I do.”
— Kanye West
(Kanye West in the Studio, 19)
“I don’t care if I jumped up and down right now on the couch like Tom Cruise. I don’t care what I do, I don’t care how much I stunt — you can never take away the amount of work I put into it. So I don’t wanna hear all of that politically correct stuff…So ‘Jesus Walks’ is not a classic? ‘Roses’ is not a classic? ‘Gold Digger’ wasn’t song of the year? ‘Oh, but Kanye, you can’t say that.’ Why? Who are you?”
(Kanye West in the Studio, Jake Brown, 129)
He tells the story of getting arrested for stealing printers from OfficeMax, which he explains he didn’t do, nor would he need to, having already sold beats to Beanie Sigel and Lil’ Kim.
But the charges stuck, due to onlookers who identified him as the culprit based solely on his then cornrow hairstyle. He claims cops scratched out the original description of the vehicle, a cream Blazer, replacing it with one of his whip, a white Expedition. To avoid the risk of serious time, West’s legal counsel advised him to take a guilty plea with the promise that the charge would later be expunged from his record.
“So then, last year, I’m on tour with [Talib] Kweli, and we had a couple dates in Canada,” West says. “We get to the border, and they pull me aside and say, ‘Have you ever been arrested for stealing printers from OfficeMax?’” Despite the embarrassment, he eventually got into the country, but that doesn’t stop this meandering tale from functioning as his “a-ha!” moment.
“I say that to say this: Ever since that happened, I decided I’m not just taking what people give me if I feel that I deserve more,” West says, now riding in an SUV en route to a Milwaukee radio station. “When I was standing at customs in Canada, I could feel my grandfather looking down at me, just shaking his head. Right now, I feel like I deserve a cover and that doing another feature will just hurt my chances at a cover later. I don’t want you to be talkin’ about giving me a cover in 3 months, and then have you ask me if I stole a printer from OfficeMax. You feel me?”
— Noah Callahan-Bever, Vibe Magazine
The most remarkable thing that stood out to me is how well he knows himself (and his awareness of how people perceive him), and how sharp and hard-working he really is. I think that his mentality has made him a great artist. So that made it (and him) worthy of study to me, and the more I learned about him the more empathetic I became; I could admire his work way more. He’s also an (accidental) marketing genius.
He’s also an interesting person to study in terms of career; he trojan horsed his way into a tightly-sealed industry and pivoted successfully from producer to rapper.
I had previously written the longest spiel about why people should love Kanye West.
But to be honest, I hate when people tell me why I should do something or feel a certain way about something or someone, so it’d be awful if I did the same thing (despite how awesome Yeezy is).
Yeezus is out on shelves June 18. Support good art.
Image by: Rodrigoferrari
