Why I Haven't Vibed With Kanye This Year
I don't like sending negative vibes or having any bad relations with people in general. I've been there and I've done that before. I've lived through my fair share of personal problems and rap beefs, but at the end of the day, I dust myself off and move on. We have to do it if we want to grow. There is no reality in which hate is more powerful than love or in which conniving actions are more poignant than the truth. None. The public spats and the diss tracks are acts of relative pettiness, but for it to become bad blood is where I know it's gone too far. When the spark of the feud has been lit and the dust has settled, I want to see that my opponent and I are both standing firm as better people. That is, if the person didn't burn the bridge and enjoy it.
What does this have to do with Kanye West? Everything.
With only two months to go in the year, I can firmly say that we've witnessed the alienation of Kanye in front of the media and within the rap community. He is no longer the producer we loved nor the artist representing the problems of the common man. He's become - and becoming - something else: something unsettling. My impression of West had been alright entering the year - I still vibed with him. The idea of the college dropout who made GOOD music still permeated my mind. But no image is forever and no one ever stays the same.
The change started with the Drake and Pusha T beef that I expanded on in detail in my Scorpion Isn't About Pusha T and my A RatedR View: Drake vs. Pusha T articles from back in July and June respectively. After Drizzy's episode on Lebron James's 'The Shop', almost everything I said on that article was verified by Champagne Papi himself. The entire affair doesn't really have anything to do with the GOOD music president - he's the mouthpiece. Pusha shouldn't have known what had happened with Sophie and his son if Drake told Kanye the events privately. Kanye shouldn't have produced 'Infrared', a diss track and then claim that he wanted peace. As well, the aura of love that Ye claimed to have disappears when you realize that he brought Drake to wyoming, gave him a track, lied about the existence of an album and made the "Summer of Kanye" around the release of Scorpion. Those are conniving maneuvers.
For those that will espouse the fact that Kanye released so much music, let's talk about the musical blunder that was the Summer of 2018. While Pusha T's Daytona was a critical success, it could be considered very soft in a year of major releases. With only 77 thousand first week sales, it is weak compared to Nicki Minaj's Queen, Astroworld from Travis Scott, Weezy's Tha Carter V and is ironically dwarfed by Scorpion. Maybe Pusha should send him an invoice? Anyways, Kids See Ghosts, a collaboration artist with Kid Cudi was very popular for its chemistry and interesting ideas, but it was evident that Cudi was much better than Ye on the entire album. This was followed by Nas' Nasir, which had lukewarm reception and wasn't the return to form we expected. The only real undisputed victory was Teyana Taylor's K.T.S.E.
As for Kanye's music on a personal level, Ye was subpar at best and arguably one of his worst albums. It sounded unfinished and lyrically sporadic. The best track on the endeavor was 'Yikes', ironically partly written by Drake. It shows that Kanye doesn't have the touch anymore, with aspects of his album lacking solid ideas and beats, a concept seen on all of the songs that Drake and Chance the Rapper co wrote on Life of Pablo.
I'd talk about Kanye's political views, but let's not lie: whether you're democrat or republican, you can acknowledge he doesn't know what the hell he saying right? Cool.
To finish, I don't believe that Kanye is irredeemable or that he has completely lost his way. He's well on his way to both. See, the rap game has always been a community which stands on free speech and the freedom of expression. I'm going to allow him that and I even applaud him for using it. However, he's burned his bridges through lies and created bad blood with people that used to admire him and see him as a hero. I partly started rapping after having heard him on Keri Hilson's 'Knock You Down'. Kanye used to be the common man's artist that we could relate to, but now, he's become something unsettling. He's become disconnected to the culture he once championned.