We gather here today to pay our respects to a man bigger than life itself. In all truth, we can’t be entirely sure that a man was all he was. He reached higher and dreamed bigger than Ghandi, Alexander the Great and Thomas Jefferson put together. I am, of course, speaking of Kanye West. Kanye came from humble beginnings. The son of an English professor and an absent father, his upbringing in Chicago gave little indication of the heights to which he would climb. Kanye was black royalty, nay strike that. Let’s make it race blind and say he’s just royalty – a modern day monarch. Some may think that to be reaching, but if anything it’s an understatement. Kanye was a titan. He was a god. He was Yeezus.

Many of America’s more out-of-touch folks will only recognize Kanye by his more blatant escapades into belligerence. His famous VMA interruption of Taylor Swift comes to mind. To take the mic from America’s sweetheart; at the time, that was nigh on heresy. This coupled with Kanye’s other moments of unfiltered stream-of-conscious thinking, such as his proclamation that George Bush doesn’t care about black people, or his interruption of famous singer/songwriter Beck at the Grammy’s, helped to paint Ye as a pariah in the eyes of much of the middle-class boomer generation. But they were wrong. They missed how Kanye’s moments of unbridled Kanye-ness served as a valuable form of American pop culture. In an era where the thoughts of so many of our heroes and celebrities consist of censored and publicist pre-approved statements, it was completely refreshing to hear the unrestrained thoughts of an artist truly of our times.

Kanye faced much scrutiny for his supposed arrogance. To this, I scoff. At the position Kanye occupied in our modern day celebrity pantheon, it was basically impossible for him to arrogant. You would never accuse Mozart or Michale Jordan of being arrogant. At a certain point of fame, arrogance is deserved and humbleness is a lie. You didn’t expect Steve Jobs, so don’t expect Yeezy to be humble. Jesus was humble, ask the Romans where that got him. To those who cast derision at Kanye’s proclamations of being on par with Shakespeare or Beethoven, I have nothing to say but “21 Grammys and counting.”

Kanye subverted expectations, at nearly every opportunity. At a time when most rap was rife with violence and thinly-veiled gang mentality, Kanye broke down barriers. He brought prep, (prep!) into hip-hop. In the late 90s if you thought that prep and hip-hop could ever mix you would be laughed out of the room, and then laughed out of whatever room you went to next. Kanye didn’t care. He dressed how he wanted and sang the lyrics he felt like singing. When people were begging for another "Graduation," he gave us "808’s" and "Heartbreaks". When we were dying for another album, he introduced a fall clothing line of his own design. When we wanted him to collaborate with Kendrick, he produced a beat for The Weeknd. Kanye didn’t care. He did what he wanted and we dealt with it. Because we loved him.

Kanye was not an articulate man, in interviews at least. And yet he continually shocked us with lyrics so shocking they awed us, such as “I’m trying to right my wrongs/but it’s funny, them same wrongs helped me write this song” or “Got a light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson/Got a dark-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson.” He continually shocked us with his eloquence and keen insight, in songs like "New Slaves" or "Black Skinhead." And his production, unmatched to the fullest extent. He built each of his albums from the ground up. They were all unabashedly Kanye.

Kanye married Kim Kardashian later in his life and with her, had a child. He faced scrutiny for the decision to marry a perceived blight on society, an air-headed heiress with little positive impact on the world. But the marriage in itself was a statement. By marrying one of the most famous celebrity women of this generation, Kanye cemented himself as an American pop culture staple. In 100 years only historians will talk of Obama, but our kids’ kid’s kids could still very well be rocking out to "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy."

Kanye could have given us so much more. But instead of fixating on the loss that is Mr. West, we should instead celebrate all that he blessed us with. Kanye’s final act may have been his greatest. By dying he proved that he was just a mortal, not a deity like so many expected. By illustrating that he was just a human, Kanye proved to us all that even mere men could achieve the impossible and become legends.