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But how would he know? He's never met them. It would have been reasonable - and totally understandable - if Kanye had been angered instead of humbled by a very public and very childish takedown, the sort that South Park seems to specialize in (to this day, I'm still not sure why South Park has such a loyal following). Maybe it would be fair if Kanye simply wrote them off those writers as know-nothing assholes."SOUTH PARK MURDERED ME LAST NIGHT AND IT'S PRETTY FUNNY. IT HURTS MY FEELINGS BUT WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM SOUTH PARK! I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MY EGO THOUGH. HAVING THE CRAZY EGO IS PLAYED OUT AT THIS POINT IN MY LIFE AND CAREER. I USE TO USE IT TO BUILD UP MY ESTEEM WHEN NOBODY BELIEVED IN ME. NOW THAT PEOPLE DO BELIEVE AND SUPPORT MY MUSIC AND PRODUCTS THE BEST RESPONSE IS THANK YOU INSTEAD OF "I TOLD YOU SO!!!" IT'S COOL TO TALK SHIT WHEN YOU'RE RAPPING BUT NOT IN REAL LIFE. WHEN YOU MEET LITTLE WAYNE IN PERSON HE'S THE NICEST GUY FOR EXAMPLE. I JUST WANNA BE A DOPER PERSON WHICH STARTS WITH ME NOT ALWAYS TELLING PEOPLE HOW DOPE I THINK I AM. I NEED TO JUST GET PAST MYSELF. DROP THE BRAVADO AND JUST MAKE DOPE PRODUCT. EVERYTHING IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. AS LONG AS PEOPLE THINK I ACT LIKE A BITCH THIS TYPE OF SHIT WILL HAPPEN TO ME. I GOT A LONG ROAD AHEAD OF ME TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE I'M NOT ACTUALLY A HUGE DOUCHE BUT I'M UP FOR THE CHALLENGE. I'M SURE THE WRITERS AT SOUTH PARK ARE REALLY NICE PEOPLE IN REAL LIFE."
And why not? They did virtually the same thing to him.
Not for a second have I tried to draw any conclusions about Kanye's true character or personality based on his ego-fueled persona. Why would I? What would I really know of him?
Maybe I'm being unreasonable here, which is entirely possible since I'm a fan of his music and we're talking about a cartoon that makes its name by skewering celebrities. But to me, all the attention on Kanye's notoriously overinflated ego has almost always overlooked his compassion for the Katrina victims, his outspokenness against homophobia in hip-hop, and his philanthropic streak. In many ways, it seems like another way of calling him "uppity."
Even Kanye's public persona has many dimensions. Of course, South Park chose to focus on only one.
However, keep this in mind:
And:Now I could let these dream killers kill my self-esteem/Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams/I use it as my gas, so they say that I'm gassed/But without it I'd be last, so I ought to laugh.
If anything, Kanye is every bit the actor that he is the musician. Too bad South Park didn't even bother to figure that out or, if it did, chose to reacquaint itself with the low ground.Interviewer: Do you think you’ve gotten to a place where there’s no self consciousness or insecurity?
Kanye West: Yeah. There’s no insecurity in the work I do, the outfits I put together, the beats I make, the raps I say.
I just wish Kanye had turned the channel that night. Or just laughed it off.
4 comments:
I also really enjoyed 808's & Heartbreak. It sounds like that incredibly irrational moment everyone has when they get dumped stretched over a whole album. Fun stuff.
I agree that Yeezy doesn't get credit for the whole of his personality, but to be honest, that's not his humility splattered all over the jumbotron. Hip-hop is often an ego driven form. That said, Kanye seems to take many of his cues from outside the hip-hop world. He's part of the reason House music is resurgent in pop music. His touring band was indie rock band Peter, Bjorn & John. He wants to sing so bad, he has decided to do so despite his inability to sing. He's complex, is what I'm trying to say.
I also admire his outspoken stance on homophobia in hip-hop. What I think is most fascinating is his willingness to grow in front of all of us. On album, through interviews, and in his tv appearances he is constantly showing the world where he's starting and where he's ending up, and that's what keeps people coming back for more. Ta-Nehisi Coates has a bit of this, too. People feel connected to you when they witness your thought process evolve, and even more so if they feel like they've had an effect on that. Unfortunately the South Park thing is one of these things. I wish that the infamous Alicia Keys conversation would have "talked some sense in him" but it didn't. This might have. I say do what you've been doing: sit back and enjoy the show.
I can appreciate that, Jack.
But see, I'm hoping that his thought process or personality or persona or whatever it is evolves without the help of South Park. Maybe that's selfish or myopic of me, I dunno.
You know, I'm not sure that the person we see in videos and on stage and on camera has anything to do with the person behind all of that.
You're right: hip hop, like a lot of other art forms, is ego driven. But that's why, in a way, I think hip hop artists create these characters for themselves: Shawn Carter ain't Jay-Z, Dwayne Carter ain't Lil Wayne and Nasir Jones ain't Nas.
And he's playing a character during these very public moments, I believe. Sometimes, he even lets behind the curtain.
But I'm not sure what South Park was trying to get at. Maybe I took them too seriously, which is entirely possible.
Actually I liked 808s and Heartbreak perhaps for Kanye's confidence with stepping outside of the box to give something unexpected. I like the darkness of the album as wells as the music. Echoing Jack T., there's a certain realness to it - Kanye gives us a person dealing with heartache and loss. He takes us through the multitude of emotions and even name calling (i.e. Robocop) that a person tends to go through when faced with those two words "It's over."
Anyhoo, after Kanye's mom passed I kind of placed in my head that we might soon see an evolution of his ego. I always had the two pegged as a dynamic duo of entertainment - Kanye would give us a cocky performance and Mama West was right there to cheer him on.
"Did I give 'em the cocky mama?"
"You sho' did baby! That's my boy!"
So in a sense, some of his cockiness might be buried for a minute until he finds more motivation to stir it up again. I don't want Kanye to go completely limp and soft on us. The Kanye ego is always entertaining. How could you not love a person brazen enough to throw out a public verbal smackdown on the U.S. President? He gave us the unexpected. But now, we're expecting that all of the time. The only way for Kanye to top all of his ego-escapades is to do a 360 and turn us on to this new mellow musician. Kanye is a genius on branding and entertaining us. Just the fact he posted the blog, well that's Kanye getting attention as only he can.
He is definitely evolving - and when it's done, I doubt South Park will garner any credit for the new Redefined Kanye that makes a very public debut.
Right. The blog post was another stroke of celebrity genius, you know?
Kanye makes sure never to stay too far away from the headlines. Which matters in his biz.
And I'm certainly hoping he evolves as he gets older and more experienced, much in the same way that I hope I do. But for whatever reason, South Park's send-up just seemed unnecessarily stupid. It wasn't even all that mean. There was nothing behind what they were saying.
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