People dislike Kanye West, justifiably. People like Kanye West, also justifiably. However, the uniting factor is that almost everyone knows Kanye. He is a monolith of culture. Sitting at the cornerstone of music, fashion, and popular culture, Kanye's influence pervades into every nook of social dialogue. At the same time, he is cocky as hell, and infamously delivers grating monologues concerning millionaire problems. That's only the start of the list of “problems" people have with Kanye West. He has deeply entrenched and predictable flaws centered on his self-centered world view. Nevertheless, West has defined 21st century music. More than being king of the hill, Kanye created the mountain he stands on, and that mountain is Everest.
West is anti-conformist in almost every way imaginable. First, Kanye deviated from the rest of the rap community in the early 2000's simply by coming from a middle class background. College Dropout in and of itself is anti-conformist versus the societal norm that degrees equal success. Further, who else would declare that the president, “Doesn't care about black people," as Kanye procliamed post-Katrina. A recent example of Kanye drama happened just last week as sixty-thousand people signed a petition to remove Kanye as a headliner at the Glastonbury Festival. However, it's Kanye's success despite his controversies that creates the cognitive dissonance that brings him into the center of the public sphere.
It speaks to the size of his personality that I've hardly mentioned Kanye's music profile until now. In his early years, Kanye utilized soul music vocals combined with his own unique beats to craft his songs (and others' such as Jay-Z's The Blueprint in 2001). From there, College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation each represent different, more developed takes off this template. Though from there, each Kanye album has been unique. The crown jewel of Kanye's discography, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (MBDTF), “can be considered perfect," in his words. Watch the Throne may have had the most star power ever present on one album. Then, Yeezus. . . If MBDTF was meant to be perfect, Yeezus is the opposite. Yet, it is poignant and appealing. It is incomprehensibly complex for me, but in the words of the famous Lou Reed, “Such an enormous amount of work went into making this album. Each track is like making a movie." The ultimate indicator of a revolutionary artist centers on the ability to do the unique and incomprehensible. Yeezus is either bad and incomprehensible or revolutionary and incomprehensible (though I'll take Lou Reed's opinion that it is revolutionary). Each sound is meant to convey an emotion rather than to be pleasing to the ear. At some points, it quiets to nothingness only to crescendo into frantic screaming. Some of the lines are jokes, and some of the lines I cannot even put in this publication (yay for censorship??).
Given that all the above things are true, it turns out Yeezus is nothing more than the embodiment of Kanye's personality. It's completely anti-conformist. Essentially, Kanye went and baited half the country into liking his music so much, despite his personality, that he could make an album that embodies his personality and still have people like it.
So why is Kanye so appealing that he can make a Yeezus type album? I think perhaps we all wish a little bit that we could turn the system on its back and operate it in our own ways. Yet some, justifiably, like the system as is which means Kanye is a pariah to them. Some, justifiably, feel “the system" is broken, and Kanye exists as an idol who has trumped the system despite his flaws. Either way, Kanye's anti-conformism is the uniting factor between both the supporters and critics of Kanye West.
