By now, we've all heard about Kanye and we've all said how we're done with his stupid ass. Even our President, who is so restrained that he won't even mention that "birthers" and "teabaggers" are "missing a chromosome," couldn't keep himself from calling Kanye a "jackass."
But how much further Kanye go; how much more he can embarrass himself? In the end, none of it will matter to him, because it's not gonna make his sales go down or stop people from coming to his shows. We don't live in a time when we have a discerning music audience. Let's face it: R. Kelly sleeps with little girls. It's not speculation, it's not holding tightly to something that was disproven. We saw the tape. Yet "Double Up" still went platinum, despite the fact that he's on there making monkey-fuck sounds.
So, if Kanye bitching about not winning an award because he spent a million dollars on his video or Kanye crying about not getting the main stage to perform didn't make a dent in his sales, then neither is this. Even the threats to his health by other music stars ("Twitter gangstas") won't faze him. It's all just boiling down to "Kanye being Kanye." Eventually, people won't even care anymore.
But Kanye's defenders (and Kanye himself) would have you believe that he's misunderstood, eccentric, and some sort of outspoken champion of what's right. A crazy genius. A tortured artist. He does these things because he won't back down from the corporate machine that's turned us all into sheep. He wants to turn the mirror of hypocrisy back into our brainwashed faces, then shatter that mirror over our heads so we can bleed our sins all over the ground. If his fans were more pretentious, they might say that.
The truth is, that motherfucker's just an asshole.
You kinda have to be to proclaim yourself "the voice of a generation." You kinda have to be to call the President a racist while you're supposed to be raising funds for Katrina victims. I'm sure that behind closed doors he does some positive things. I'm sure he donates money or gives shoes to children or whatever.
But when the cameras come on, the nigga comes out. And that's when you got a grown man throwing temper tantrums over music awards from a company that doesn't even play music videos.
There used to be a time when music artists would try to keep those moments under wraps. Prince makes people sign non-disclosure agreements when they come to Paisley Park. We still don't know who Michael Jackson was behind closed doors. But I guess you can't expect too much in the way of "image control" from a guy who's main contribution to fashion was wearing two Polo shirts on top of each other with the collars up.
So what's next for Kanye West? After all, there are still so many ways that he hasn't made headlines. He hasn't gotten naked in public yet. He hasn't hit anyone (paparazzi don't count because they're not real people). He hasn't spit in a kid's face then shoved his face into a birthday cake (but give it time). He hasn't driven a car into a single shopping center or public gathering of any kind. There is so much more territory to mine here. The possibilities are endless, like just when you thought porn couldn't take it any further than scat videos, along comes "2 girls, 1 cup." Kanye has yet to really "coon outside the box."
Being a cocky and arrogant black man is really old hat. The entire urban music industry hinges on it, seeing as how almost everyone with a record deal fits the description. If "cocky and arrogant black man" was a wrestling gimmick, then everyone in the industry would be "The Godfather." To really take it there, Kanye's gotta turn that "Godfather" gimmick on its ear. Instead of just being a wrestling pimp and being as flashy and misogynistic as possible, he needs to start carrying a mannequin's head that he talks to and cover himself in blood. Then tell the head that it needs to stop asking so many questions about where the blood came from. It's the only way that he's gonna make it into the history books.
He still hasn't even passed up Sinead O'Connor insulting the Pope or any number of things that Prince has done (namely, the assless chaps). Kanye's got a long way to go. Because the thing about Kanye is, he's not shocking or challenging. He's just fucking annoying.
No one can support him. No one can defend him. He doesn't represent any generation and no one would want to be represented by him, unless they're of a generation of spoiled, ignorant, self-indulgent, children who are all about flash without substan...uh, you know...
*looks around at the world today*
Never mind.
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