The Greatest Kanye West Article Of All Time

Recently Kanye , it comes from a long line of outlandish actions that Zaib Nasir thinks we need to discuss…

Okay. I’m a Kanye fan. A Yeezy freak. A West wackadoodle, but sometimes it becomes pretty hard to defend his actions. In fact, exclusively, his actions are indefensible. Pseudo-scholar, self-acclaimed prophet, alleged fashionista and a caricature of the celebrity ego, Mr Kanye West is a ‘character’ to say the least. Nevertheless, his comical causes have stacked up over the years to form quite a list…

There’s no better place to start than his ego, exemplified by the quotes that come from Yeezy’s mouth:

“My greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live”

This is a whole other level of self-aggrandisement. Mr West, if your ‘greatest pain’ is not seeing yourself perform, then you live a pretty damn good life. Talk about a warped sense of the self, eh?

At the very least, that sentence made sense, but sometimes the rapper just spits random words out hoping they form sentences:

“When I think of competition it’s like I try to create against the past. I think about Michelangelo and Picasso, you know, the pyramids”

Huh? You know when you try to process a sentence and then a few other elements are added halfway through and now you cannot even begin to understand what’s going on…that’s this sentence. I could continue with the quotes but, you know what, just visit his Twitter.

I can’t talk about Kanye West without talking about his award show brattiness, stemming from the 2004 American Music Awards when he walked out after not winning Best New Artist (temper tantrum much?!), and I’m not even going to mention the iconic Taylor Swift debacle at the VMAs. But then he comes after Beck for ‘not respecting artistry’, and again with the giving awards to Beyoncé?! Calm down, Kanye, even North doesn’t act out like you do.

By far my favourite West moments come from interviews. On Sway’s morning radio show he states the following:

“I am Warhol! I am the number one most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh. Walt Disney, Nike, Google”.

Talk about your haphazard name dropping. He talks about Shakespeare as if he wasn’t a real person, then proceeds to list…corporations? What. I’m not sure what he’s trying to convey here, but it’s certainly… something. He proceeds to flip out when Sway asks Kanye about his failure to break into fashion. It plays out like a child trying to win a battle with their mother, and we all know how that goes. Then back in the UK, on Zane Lowe’s radio show more hilarity ensues. We see a different Kanye here, the preacher and prophet, he cries, he shouts, and calls himself God (standard).

Kanye’s problem is that he tries to turn everything into a cause. Maybe his intentions aren’t entirely wrong, but his timing is deluded. George Bush doesn’t care about black people? Kanye you’re doing a hurricane appeal. AIDS is a man-made disease? Kanye you’re doing a Live 8 concert for global poverty. But hey, maybe Kanye is great at his public image? Maybe he’s deliberately portraying himself as a douche. Maybe he’s duping us all!

Who cares, it’s just entertainment. Here’s looking to you, 2020 Presidential Debates.