All those years in South America I wanted to return to my country the USA because it was a democracy, not with just two classes like Chile. There are definitely classes here.” –Lucia Berlin from “Dear Conchi”
Ye, Kanye’s newest album, dropped a few days ago, and my social media feeds failed to go crazy; it didn’t feel like an event. A handful of years ago I would have gawked at the prospect of turning the release of an album into a more-or-less holiday, but it’s expected now; culture has gotten to that place. Suffice it to say—despite his place in the headlines as of late—it was disorienting to observe a quiet Kanye release. Nor has Ye crawled its way into the world due to the effort of Kanye himself, but quite the contrary is true: he’s been not so subtly alluding to new material on the horizon for months, stirring up a maelstrom of media attention, and even hosted an ultra-publicized listening party in pastoral Wyoming. Despite all the efforts, Ye has only garnered a fraction of the buzz compared to any of Kanye’s previous releases. It’s too bad the hype machine is failing this album too because its Kanye’s best since My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. When talking about a new Kanye album there are always two points of conversation, the music and the story, and, as is always the case, both must be discussed.
The Music:
Ye is a brief album—twenty-three minutes—but it doesn’t feel rushed or like a rough draft. On a side note, the trend of the short album, falling somewhere between ep and lp, seems to be catching on in the mainstream this year, and I’m really excited about it. Albums are so much easier to account for in my days when they take twenty-five minutes of time carved out instead of forty-five or fifty. I understood the criticism that The Life of Pablo felt unfocused, like a hode-podge, but I really don’t hear that on Ye. To the contrary, everything seems intentional: the samples utilized, the features, the verses, the production; it’s maximal minimalism. Ye is a punctuation, a statement, it’s Kanye getting as personal as he ever will on an album, and, for his aesthetic, taking a back-to-basics approach. Repetition, hooks, pared down percussion, soul samples and melodies constitute the running time of the album. If My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an ultra-talented, charismatic older sibling, Ye is the equally talented, quiet, aloof, younger sibling. Setting this album apart from any other Kanye release is the psychology, every composition and lyric, if not probing into Kanye’s personal psyche and emotional setbacks, seems intentional and unbridled. It’s a thrilling listen that demands a slew of analysis.
“Ghost Town” is made to be a single; the song is a master class in pop songwriting: epic, catchy, and concluding with a chill inducing sing-a-long of the line, “And nothing hurts anymore, I feel kinda free.” Just like the subtlety and power that comes from the word “kinda” in the previous lyric, Ye is jam-packed with existentialism, contradictions, and epiphanies. “All Mine” finds Kanye at his catchiest and, classically, most misogynistic at the same time. Valee sings the memorable, for both better and worse, chorus on the track that includes the lines, “Yeah, you supermodel thick, damn, that ass / bustin’ out the bottom,”—lyrics I would gladly replace in my mind’s daily song cycle. After a low moment though, things get really interesting on the next track, “Wouldn’t Leave”—the most provocative of the seven song cycle. With an artist that pays as close attention to detail as Kanye does—really, an artist as sublime as Kanye—it can’t be chalked up to coincidence that “Wouldn’t Leave” comes on the heels of “All Mine.” There is a duality of emotion, music, and psychology on this album that is clearly meant to be interpreted as the manic battle in Kanye’s mind. Some may find this aspect of Ye too on the nose; I don’t. “Wouldn’t Leave” ends with, “Now you testin’ her loyalty / This what they mean when they say / “for better or worse,” huh? / For every down female that stuck with they / dude / Through the best times, through the worst times / this for you.” Is this a repentant Kanye West on Ye? It sure seems like it. The rest of the album is just as beautiful, ugly, and confused, full of surprising soul samples, disorienting pitch shifts, and classic, gonzo Kanyeisms.
The Story:
Why must the cultural elite, based on the opinions of an artist, create a consensus about the quality or validity of that artist’s work? I agree if the artist has done something criminal or against the universal moral code that their work should be boycotted as an act of protest. But the current condemnation of Kanye West seems different to me. Recently I was imbibing with some friends at a local dive bar that sported an elaborately decorated chalk art sign with the phrase “R.I.P. Kanye” beautifully written in the middle. In the moment, we giggled about the sign—this was right after his slavery comment—made our own jokes, and largely ignored the significance of the endorsement: if you don’t agree that Kanye crossed the line—that people just now feel this way is kind of baffling in and of itself considering his career—past the point of return, you don’t fit in here. Reflection of this moment presents a perfect example of binary thinking amidst people that claim binary thinking is poison and attempt standing for the exact opposite. I disagree with Kanye’s open views on almost everything, but I refuse to allow that power in the way I consume his art: openly. When popular, cultural opinion is projected onto a piece of art, it poisons the art. I do have to recognize that the art/artist debate is accelerating so quickly in the current moment that there has been no room to breathe amidst it. Something historically I’ll also recognize is that artists have always been crazy-fuck-ups, and there has to be a level of separation between the appreciation of art and opinions of an artist. With Kanye, instead of condemning his music because I find his actions and stances reprehensible, I look at his music as a beautiful, informative testament to the life of a person that thinks in a way I can’t comprehend. On the cover of Ye, written in a childish, lime-green font, are the words, “I hate being bipolar its awesome.” These words could work as a thesis statement for the perception of, mental state, and music created by the artist; it shines light.
I think of Lucia Berlin’s line about class in the short story “Dear Conchi” when I think about the Kanye debate. In American thought so much superiority exists, amidst all groups of people. From a place of superiority is one of the most dangerous geographies to view anything from because it denies the opportunity for open forum, learning, and relating to people that think or function differently. Ye shouldn’t be listened to as the album by the superstar Kanye West, the celebrity Kanye West, the ultra-right-wing Kanye West, or the crazy Kanye West, but it should be listened to as the album by the artist Kanye West, the human Kanye West. When listened to that way, I’m convinced, it’s a beautiful, heartbreaking, artistic artifact. Ye exposes the fragility of one human’s struggle to exist in their own mind; it is bipolar; it depicts both the grotesque and the repentant; it exposes how closely all humans flirt with destruction at any given moment. I give Kanye West a ton of credit for expressing the turmoil that exists within himself, for sharing that turmoil through his art because when individuals are unwilling to acknowledge their own neuroses is when they come together and celebrate their “betterness” with things like “R.I.P. Kanye” signs. Listen to Ye; do your best to separate the conversation from the art because, in my opinion, art is the ability to express the experiences and feelings that can’t be reconciled within the mind, and that’s what Ye is all about.
