How Much Longer Will We Care About Kanye?
On Hip-Hop Relevance and Kanye Getting Old
At Chance the Rapper’s Magnificent Coloring Day last week in Chicago, fans spilled over the outfield barriers of U.S. Cellular Field — it looked almost impulsive — as the sounds of “Father Stretch My Hands” swept through the ballpark. Kanye West made his surprise appearance mere hours before his slated concert in Nashville, and his fans lost their collective mind at the first sign of his presence.
Kanye has been at the pinnacle of hip-hop for a decade now, but in recent years his relevance has transcended the boundaries of music, making his name one of the most recognized on earth. Outside of the critics’ circle, the release of Kanye’s most recent album, the patchwork (and patchy) The Life of Pablo, was met with its share of groans and “I miss the old Kanye” lamentations. And yet Kanye’s push from soul-rap god into the avant-garde has not seen a corresponding shift from the mainstream into obscurity. Instead, Ye has rightly found that, regardless of whether or not he can still rap like he used to, his formula for sustained mainstream success and (more importantly) critical praise is through challenging the boundaries of hip-hop sound and genre, and arguably through exiting the genre entirely.
Although Kanye’s mega stardom has never been greater, he also turned 39 in June, and the question remains, how much longer can he retain our fascination, our devotion, our ire? Answer: we will care about Kanye for as long as Kanye is cool. As soon has he ceases to be so, he will be shuffled into a side room where we will check in only to catch his most recent act of absurdity. Because in a genre in which industry relevance and coolness is the measure of success, the day a rapper is no longer cool is the day that we no longer care.
But “cool” is a slippery term, in spite of its ubiquity. In one sense, it is a measure of the extent to which an artist moves the needle of cultural trends and tastes. In another, it is a measure how special or different or good his fans feel for aligning with him.
In a 2014 interview Andre 3000 explained his retirement from rap, saying that he did not believe he could stay in touch with what is cool past age 40: “[In hip-hop], first you have to be hip, and the older you get, the further you get away from that hipness.” Hip-hop is by definition a youth movement. The old vet just can’t keep pace with the capricious definitions of cool as determined by a younger generation. Until parenting struggles and prostate-exam anxieties are cool, said Andre, he will not be.
Hip-hop relevance is fleeting for many reasons. Deaths and prison sentences have always been real and sad obstructions to extended hip-hop fame, but as the genre has moved a step away from gangster rap over the last decade, thanks in part to Kanye, crime and violence have become increasingly less common disturbances to sustained hip-hop success. The most imminent threat to a star’s relevance today is simply a combination of time, age, and changing tastes. The ability to recognize and react to what is cool is a difficult charge. To do so for over a decade is even harder. But to define what is cool for the same period is a rare gift.
We have seen this play out over and over again, rappers proving the difficulty of enduring relevance as they fade from the spotlight. Even the mega stars, the guys who were at the top of the game for a near decade, have an inevitable drop-off point. These rappers often overstay their welcome long enough to embarrass themselves. Look at Jay Z, who today is providing more fodder for schoolyard jokes than veneration (see Tidal launch party, see Lemonade, see original “Pop Style”), and Eminem, whose misogynistic adolescent angst has not aged well. These once great rappers must manage both the changing times and their changing position in rap’s social structure, and few have the agility to pull both off.
In 1989 Robert Christgau wrote in The Village Voice that “rap eats its kings like no pop subgenre ever,” a line that is as true today as it was then. In that same 2014 interview Andre 3000 recalled watching many of his rap idols’ descent from cool: “It’s not that they’re not as good as they were when they started, it’s just the world progressed. The world actually took them in and learned everything they’re doing and spit it out in a whole new way.” Our world has already consumed the old Kanye and spit him out as something new and different. His name is Drake. His name is Frank. His name is Chance.
Chance’s verse on the SNL debut of “Ultralight Beam” was a changing of the guard, Kanye’s acknowledgement of his true heir. But we have not seen the beginning of Kanye relinquishing the crown, only his donning a new one. He has created a bona fide religion out of his stardom, himself a greater spectacle than his music. His marriage to Kim Kardashian has legitimized him to a whole new fan base. He has cultivated a following that will remain interested in him even if it has long tired of his songs; his relevance is no longer dependent on his ability to churn out good music.
Kanye’s fan club is unique in having all the trappings of a niche subculture but the magnitude of, well, the biggest fan base on earth. But with the media covering Kanye ad nauseam, it often feels like Kanye’s only fans are the critics. With each new egomaniacal tweet, with each new bombastic talk show appearance, with each new hagiographic Pitchfork review there is another pair of rolling eyes in the audience. But we haven’t looked away yet. Because to be a Kanye fan you no longer have to like Kanye, or even like his music for that matter. You need only be watching.
My induction into Kanye fandom came in the early hours of June 6th, crammed somewhere between thousands of bodies on 11th street in New York City, staring up at teens kicking their feet from atop semis and USPS trucks. Perhaps the final measure of a star’s relevance lies in his ability to shut down a New York block in the same sort of minute at 2am on a Monday morning. It was laying witness to this chaos that confirmed for me Kanye’s unparalleled sway over a much younger generation. Kanye is getting old, but, at least for now, he is really, really cool.
