This is Exactly What Kanye West Talks About When Kanye West Talks About Kanye West
"This one Corbusier lamp was like, my greatest inspiration ... I’m a minimalist in a rapper’s body.” -Kanye West, on Kanye West
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The thing about Mr. Kanye West is that he’s unstable in the best and worst possible ways. When I think about Kanye West – which, believe you me, I do altogether too frequently for any one person on a daily basis – I have to laugh to keep myself from ruminating on the shock and awe that is in his every pronouncement. The man walks a tightrope suspended on the precipice of his sanity. It is amazing, entertaining, and simply confounding.
It is also undeniable that he's a fantastic producer. Anyone who records Rick Ross saying, "Cherry red chariot / excess is just my character" deserves major points regarding does-it-better-than-you score keeping. What I find really interesting about Kanye West's self-assessment as "a minimalist in a rapper's body" is that he, much like Ricky Rozay, is the embodiment of excess. Every action Kanye West makes is predicated on some level of excess - "Flyer than a parakeet, floatin' wit' no parachute / Six thousand-dollar pair of shoes / I made it to the Paris news" - be it flaunting his wealth, fame, or style. As he says, it's "hard to be humble when you stuntin' on a jumbotron."
This is what I don't understand about him - the candidly open, sometimes bipolar, often hypocritical hyper self-awareness. We get it, you're talented, you're creative, and this sometimes tortures you, but ultimately propels you to produce an outstanding product. We're all contradictory at times, but observing him act accordingly in such a flagrantly ridiculous manner has become something of a hobby of mine at this point. The dude tweets such amazing and random thoughts ("Classical music is tight yo") and you just think, is this dude actually as weird (read: some adjective akin to thoughtful) as me, but with like 1,000 times the clout?
I'm fairly sure I'm projecting there, but I think that's what makes witnessing Kanye West reflect on his "awesomeness" so entertaining. He's just saying the most absurd shit and for the most part getting away with it. I for one would love to hear Jon Hamm start going off all of a sudden on how his "Little Dick Whitman" is bigger than your forearm and how he could buy your mom's cousin's house and use it as a pineapple storage unit. If anyone can pull off Ad Reinhardt-levels of depth from nothing, it is most certainly Minimalist-Savant Kanye West.
Anyway, we've got the unassumingly named Yeezus to look forward to, which will most likely bring us myriad more insights into the beautiful, dark, twisted, humility-blind public persona that is Kanye West, and hopefully he'll tell us exactly what he feels about Kanye West, just as long as you let him finish his thoughts.
Galia Abramson appreciates self-deprecation, bizarre interviews ("Matt, you're glib"), and Kanye West's Twitter feed.