It's sad because to become successful Kanye had to ignore hundreds/thousands of important people telling him he wasnt good enough and he would never make it as a rapper. Then he became, arguably, the most popular rapper/hip hop artist of all time.
Now image you've done what seems impossible despite countless people telling you it wont work out. You are in the top 1% of fame. Now someone tells you your other ideas are wrong. And that you cant actually achieve x goal. And that you don't know what you are talking about when you talk about y. And that you are sick and need to take meds to fix yourself.
Would you believe them? Or would you believe yourself?
I think Kanye is sick and needs help but I can see almost anyone falling into the exact same trap hes fallen into if they lived his life.
> but I can see almost anyone falling into the exact same trap hes fallen into if they lived his life.
Kanye is a garden variety manic-depressive. It has likely been exacerbated by stress and self-medicating with the wrong drugs, causing instability, paranoia and delusion. Bipolar disorder is genetic, it doesn't develop due to no one being able to say "no" to them.
What you are describing, however, is one way that Narcissistic Personality Disorder can develop. Successful individuals are more at risk of NPD. One of the biggest issues is that NPD patients usually don't suffer, so they rarely seek treatment, which can correct if not cure the disorder in under 2 years, rare among psychological disorders. But the symptoms of NPD not only include an exaggerated sense of self-importance, but also an inability or fear of criticism, and exceptionally strong denial. Narcissists don't listen to anyone, such as those that are trying to help them, yet they require constant admiration.
It is likely West has one of the more benign flavors of NPD, at least, I haven't heard he is violent nor of reports of him berating and belittling others (though I do not follow celebrities). I think his biggest problem is BPD and drug abuse (though the self-medication may be keeping him alive, it is far less than an ideal solution), but due to the combination with NPD and vast wealth, and probably being surrounded by those that will never deny him his insane impulses, he's probably not going to get help until he bottoms out in clinical major depression for months, if he survives it. BPD must be maintained, and if it isn't, inevitably the train leaves the rails.
This is word salad. A bunch of psycho-babel that gives the impression of a deep understanding of the human psyche when in reality it shows at best the ability to memorize the criteria around a few invented categories and give a horoscope based off of them.
I wouldn't make a point of saying this on other topics but it's crazy how much damage this stuff causes to people's lives
Vagueness fallacy as well as as hominem argument. If you disagree with what I've said, you must specifically speak to it. Handwaving and attacking me personally will never be persuasive.
Do you apply this same stict framework to your medical diagnoses you are handing out for people you've never met over the internet?
I don't need to catalogue the fallacies to point out why this is not a good idea.
This is also ironically vague and there is literally no ad hominem in there. Word salad is critique of the quality of the discourse, not of the person making it.
>> that gives the impression of a deep understanding of the human psyche when in reality it shows at best the ability to memorize the criteria around a few invented categories and give a horoscope based off of them.
This is ad hominem. You are ignoring what is said and making a personal attack. That is what ad hominem is, ignoring the argument and attacking the man.
> Do you apply this...
This is ad hominem.
> I don't need to catalogue the fallacies to point out why this is not a good idea.
You seem to be confusing disagreements with ad-hominem.
Here's an example of real ad-hominem: "You are an obnoxious narcissistic piece of shit that thinks every disagreement is a personal insult because you can't stand not being right". If someone was to use that sentence in an argument, that would be ad-hominem.
Asking whether or not you apply same standards of not using logical fallacies (from your original comment, I personally doubt it) is not ad-hominem because it's calling you out on asymmetric standards - apparently, you're free to commit logical fallacies as much as you want, but the moment someone else does, you halt all discussion and just shout "fallacy!" without any further elaboration and expect the other person to do the legwork of analysing how and why is the argument fallacious and fix it. That's not good faith discussion.
I'm abandoning this conversation because you seem unwilling to respond to the point of my post and bring any kind of argument to the table that isn't "fallacy!".
Ad hominem and invincible ignorance. Who says what never matters, it is what is said that is the province of valid argument. I have made no unsupported assertions regarding the truth values of fallacious responses to my initial argument, only identified these responses as specific fallacies to justify not responding. Thus, I have not made any appeal to fallacy, leaving the accusation(s) of such as straw man arguments. I would be more than happy to entertain valid argument, but none have been made in this thread in response to my OP in preference to attempts to humiliate, ostracize and bully me. Any scrutiny whatsoever of me is fallacious argument.
I agree with you. There was no attempt to engage the material of your original post. It was classified as psycho-babble from the outset and thus engaging it seriously would nullify that classification.
There was no attempt to engage with the material of the original post, because the original post contains no material, just various claims pulled out of thin air:
> Kanye is a garden variety manic-depressive
> It is likely West has one of the more benign flavors of NPD
> I think his biggest problem is BPD and drug abuse
The rest of the post is either true-sounding-at-first, but completely meaningless claims, or completely obvious things that provide no insight whatsoever.
> NPD patients usually don't suffer
Completely false. Narcissistic injury is extremely painful, and one of the reasons narcissists lash out in the first place.
> [NPD treatment can] correct if not cure the disorder in under 2 years
Also not true. Narcissism is a personality disorder, and "curing" narcissism in 2 years is not common. Everything "can" be done, theoretically, but the implications of the sentence is that Narcissism is somehow special in that regard. It's not.
> but due to the combination with NPD and vast wealth, and probably being surrounded by those that will never deny him his insane impulses, he's probably not going to get help until he bottoms out in clinical major depression for months, if he survives it
So assuming he's NPD, his wealth and sycophants will lead him to destruction? Yeah, quite profound. He also has clinical major depression? Where did that come from?
"Psycho-babble" is a perfectly appropriate description of the original comment.
I think the basic assumption is that you are diagnosing someone that you do not know and have never met, and that by doing so, you are engaging in folly.
(Retracting my comment. Kanye West has publicly talked about having bipolar disorder, see link below. Thank you to toomuchtodo for digging up that reference!)
> Kanye, who is now legally known by his nickname, Ye, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after being hospitalized for a psychiatric emergency in 2016. In the years since, he’s spoken about experiencing manic episodes, often tweeting and performing through them. He has famously referred to bipolar disorder as his “superpower,” and spoke candidly about the stigma around mental illness on David Letterman’s show in 2019. “I ramp up, I go high,” he said of his episodes, describing feelings of paranoia and delusions, as well as being handcuffed, drugged, and hospitalized.
In general, mental illness should be kept jealously private and only discussed with one's therapist, but this is in regards to the patient protecting themselves. Kanye can do what he wants, but if he is glorifying BPD (I have no idea), then he is indulging in his symptoms and heading towards cautionary tale rather than being a positive role model for other BPD patients and an advocate or activist for mental health, such as Patty Duke, Carrie Fisher, Catherine Zeta Jones, Trevor Noah, and many other celebrities. Life is hard for the mentally ill, and though I'm sure a couple billion dollars can make a huge difference, most BPD patients will end up institutionalized, in prison, or dead repeating Kenye's mistakes.
I'm not saying monetizing one's own mental illness is necessarily wrong, and I think many have been successful throughout history doing so, especially in art, without causing harm. But living in the spotlight, whether intentionally or not, one should, like Spider-Man, recognize there is great responsibility, and take the positive and negative effect it has on others seriously. Again, I don't know what Kenye is doing, only getting glimpses from headlines I can't avoid.
Incorrect. There is no single cure for personality disorders, but that doesn't mean they can't be cured. Any mental illness that is not genetic and which develops due to external causes can be cured. There are many personality disorders, of which NPD is one. While there is no single cure for NPD, in fact NPD can be cured in many cases in one of two ways. Some can be cured relatively quickly with an antidepressant, which eliminates the symptoms, but most with NPD can either mitigate the disorder or completely cure it though talk therapy generally in under two years. It's absolutely true that one can learn to stop being an asshole.
Both you and parent are likely incorrect. The truth is, curability depends on a number of things which we currently lack the correct insight and models to correctly analyze. It's likely case-by-case, and ad-hoc, based on the extremely complex history of the individual.
But most importantly, we don't know, so making broad, absolutist claims is a waste of time.
Personality disorders can be treated and managed, but not cured. Like PTSD, just because a disorder is caused by external factors does not mean that it is reversible.
It is not. The question has been settled on a huge scale by historical events.
If illnesses like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia were meaningfully caused by genetic factors, then the Nazi genocide of mentally ill people would have caused a dramatic and lasting reduction in mental illness post-war among the affected population. It didn't.
You might also ask yourself, if something is genetic, shouldn't identical twins (preferably raised apart) both get it or both not get it? Obviously that situation is rare, but researchers do seek out and study instances.
Mental illness is a social phenomenon. There are lots of physical explanations for symptoms similar to psychosis - drugs, infection, immune disorders, chemotherapy, professional head trauma addict, but when nothing else clearly fits, "mentally ill" is the default, the end of the "switch" statement.
The social construction of the category is embodied by the admission process at a hospital's mental ward. They literally go down the various causes that they can check for a disordered mental state, and if they can't find anything else, that is mental illness, end of story. In fact, lots of abnormal blood tests may be ignored if they don't fit into an obvious pattern.
The meaning of the term is defined by what people with the power to assign it do. There is no abstract essence of it beyond the process as enacted.
It's a label that serves a critical function of allowing society to abandon difficult diagnoses and redirect resources to others permanently. It doesn't represent an illness, but the lack of understanding what it is. This is not at all the same as the (unknown) constituent disorders being unphysical or one single entity.
It's sort of like the "scientific creationists" that keep finding God in the gaps of science. There's always something left, but either you have faith in naturalistic explanations or not. If you aren't satisfied with science, you can't talk as though there is such a thing as scientific fact about the scientifically unknown, and implicitly lump it all together.
There are many contexts in healthcare where it's considered socially acceptable not to be strictly honest and accurate.
Psych drugs commonly say, or used to say, in the info leaflets something like they "correct imbalances of certain chemicals in the brain".
This is completely made up, and apart from the vagueness, obviously not reasonable when you consider that such drugs usually take a considerable amount of time to have their full effect.
But it's a customary "white lie" (or rather a fiction) to try to sooth patients and keep them confidently on meds. It's not a big secret, or a scandal, but an attempt to manipulate hopefully trusting people for their own good.
As another example of the dynamic, doctors treat patients who are inevitably going to die in the near future, and if they sense the patient is still holding out hope and still wants treatment, they will probably avoid accurately communicating the reality, the number of weeks or days left, and instead say things about progress and remission until the end.
I don't know what context "the gene" for bipolar disorder came up in, but could it possibly be that your family member was obsessed with "the gene" and the doctor humored them? You've heard of sugar pills?
> If illnesses like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia were meaningfully caused by genetic factors, then the Nazi genocide of mentally ill people would have caused a dramatic and lasting reduction in mental illness post-war among the affected population. It didn't.
Citation needed.
The population of Germany alone in 1940 was over 70M people. The Nazi's killed an estimated 230K disabled individuals, including the physically disabled and the mentally ill. That only accounts for 3 tenths of a percent of the population, but ~50% of any population will be diagnosed with a mental illness at some point in their lifetime, so their efforts were astoundingly insufficient from a mathematical perspective.
But whether someone is bipolar or not is not a simple trait like whether their earlobes are connected or whether they can roll their tongue. A massive genome study identified at least 64 regions of the genome that are associated with an increased risk of bipolar disorder. But even if it were a simple trait, there is such thing as recessive traits, so the Nazi's agenda was, of course, totally insane and could never be successful from a genetic perspective.
Schizophrenia tends to run in families, but no single gene is thought to be responsible. Bipolar disorder is the most likely psychiatric disorder to be passed down genetically. If one parent has bipolar disorder, there's a 10% chance that their child will develop the illness.
I read (ok, skimmed) an academic study that attempted to compare post-war populations with different histories, and failed to find evidence of an effect; if anything the reverse.
I dislike your sophistry about 50% of the population being mentally ill, as if the victims were chosen from that portion at random. So, out of spite, I'm not going to search for the study and you are free to believe that it doesn't exist.
As someone who doesn't listen to much rap / hip hop, and can only name his cover (adaptation?) of Stronger, I do know who Kanye is. I don't know anything about his music. Mostly I just know of him because he's a very public asshole. Much like his wife.
I find it basically impossible to empathize with him. I just wouldn't ever be in that situation. "Rising against adversity" is not the story I'd be be using here so much as just a typical strongman bravado leading to an absolute disconnect from reality.
I would wager greatly that it's not that he's grown cynical to people saying he can't do something, but that he's become delusional from people telling him a genius. People who convince themselves that they're smart do this thing where they have an idea, and conclude that because they've come up with it and they're smart that it must be a well reasoned idea.
Early Kanye West brought a lot of attention to social issues through his music and was one of the first hip-hop artists to publicly advocate for acceptance of gay folks in hip-hop culture at a time when gay slurs were very common. His first album was downright wholesome as far as hip-hop and there's a reason he was so beloved.
He's been on a long, slow, downward trajectory with his mental health since the death of his mother and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anybody looking out for him anymore. It's really sad to watch at this point.
This is an interview from 2005 where Kanye defended gay people when it wasn't exactly popular. Trigger warning for gay slurs.
> one of the first hip-hop artists to publicly advocate for acceptance of gay folks in hip-hop culture
That's interesting - I've listened to his music since the beginning and would've assumed the opposite based on his reaction to the South Park Fish Sticks episode. Is there a specific song/album/statement he made that shows support for the LGBT community? As he's turned deeply religious (supports mega churches) + conservative in recent years I'd further expect him to not support LGBT groups.
GP is simply offering some context since you said you don't know Kanye at all and have only encountered him recently. It was never intended to be incompatible.
But you also clearly have no idea who he is and what’s he’s stood for - the guy is single-handedly responsible for turning the tide on Gangster rap.
Here’s one way to put it:
No other man alive today is more responsible for changing negative to positive messages in popular music today.
He’s literally one of the most thoughtful and revolutionary artists alive. But of course you’d have to have listened to his albums from the start and followed along with interviews not just reading all the headlines on Reddit or Twitter.
And no, he hasn’t degraded. Ye, TLOP, Kids See Ghosts, Jesus is King are all massively successful unique pieces of art. It’s hard to compare him to anyone - MJ stayed within one genre, only really the Beatles maybe had as much diversity of novel styles.
If you only pay attention to the media you’d have your opinion. It’s so out of wack with reality though. But that’s what we have all across this entire forsaken thread - a bunch of totally naive people who aren’t even 1% familiar with his corpus of work or history calling him sick and worse.
> "Rising against adversity" is not the story I'd be be using here so much as just a typical strongman bravado leading to an absolute disconnect from reality.
It's not really a story of rising against adversity though. It's that people who have a lot of success doing something have trouble turning around and doing the opposite. There seems to be a human tendency to double down on what people think got them their success.
She's a no-talent clown who bought her way into the public view with nepotistic wealth. She heavily uses photoshop on her pictures, and then sells beauty products to insecure young women to profit off the insecurities her digital media team helped manufacture. Her brand is basically just 'stupid and rich' - not someone I'd ever want any of the young women I care about to idolize. Her fame is a shame of American society: her rise is emblematic of the shift, away from talent, to wealth being the primary factor in modern cultural prominence.
> She heavily uses photoshop on her pictures, and then sells beauty products to insecure young women to profit off the insecurities her digital media team helped manufacture.
This describes the whole "beauty" industry. I think this might be a case of "don't hate the player, hate the game". There are also plenty of other celebrities whose success amounts to appearing on some reality TV show and building an empire off of that. Kim Kardashian is not remarkable in this regard, but seems to get more hate than average.
I think the majority of beauty industry 'personalities' are assholes. Some are finding success without manufacturing insecurity though, so I don't think it has to be table stakes.
What is your point? Someone called her an asshole and then gave a reason. You don't like that reason but you say it's fine not to like her. Seems like a pointless conversation.
> and is apprenticing to become a lawyer in California
She's been working on that for nearly four years. And only just passed the 'baby bar' exam this year (The baby bar exam is the exam California gives -first year- law students. It requires a score of 70% to pass. Kardashian has taken four years, and four attempts, to pass the equivalent of the first year of law school).
Much as I hate to say it, those whose lives would be bettered by meaningful prison reform would probably get more out of her doing publicity and fundraising and using her celebrity status to that end, rather than becoming an attorney.
Though I was under the impression that her entire brand was showcased on a show where they went over the top being vain, petty, and brandishing the biggest ego's they could muster?
>I would wager greatly that it's not that he's grown cynical to people saying he can't do something, but that he's become delusional from people telling him a genius.
I've been wary of defending Kanye online lately, but Kanye's influence isn't just "rap / hip hop". Kanye also broke into luxury/high-end fashion quite unexpectedly where he was given the same sort of push back. It started with him interning at Fendi (when he already was one of the largest entertainers on the planet) alongside a group of other eclectic individuals (the other most notable one, Virgil Abloh, who would go on to become creative director of Louis Vuitton).
He captured lightning twice and I can't imagine that developing into a personality into anything other than "everyone else is wrong".
That said, I don't think he's become delusional from people telling him he's a "genius", or from mental illness. Since 2020, I've seen scores of people all fall into the internet misinformation pipeline and I don't think Kanye is any different - he just has the largest platform. He's no more mentally ill than your uncle who believed COVID was a hoax. Everything he is saying is currently "mainstream" conservative ideology, his talking points are lifted directly from Candace Owens who is employed by The Daily Wire, which is run by the most famous conservative personality, Ben Shapiro, (maybe after Tucker Carlson).
the secret here is that the emperor has no clothes, and Kanye's fashion garbage is equally as garbage as the rest of the high end fashion culture. It's not that kanye's that good, it's that its all a crock of dogfood with high end price tags and people who won't say anything trying to fit in for access to the wealthy.
I own a pair of DH Gate "Feezys" purchased for $40. They're comfy, stylish, and surprisingly durable. 3 years of semi regular wear and they're just getting to the point where they look ragged and shitty. I'm strongly considering ordering a new pair of knockoffs simply because they're just a well designed casual athletic shoe. Comparable to something like Vans, except they don't fall apart in 5 months.
I personally wouldn't pay $300+ for them. A lot of his fashion design has a similar utilitarian theme to it, and I believe that the intent with his partnership with GAP was to more or less have an outlet to offer his designs at a more affordable price. Although I could be mistaken.
(I acknowledge the fact that the price of my shoes is because of either some fraudulent factory manager skimming product and/or bad labor practices and that's a bit shitty of me. But they're simple shoes, there is certainly a very high markup on the authentic versions too.)
>Kanye's fashion garbage is equally as garbage as the rest of the high end fashion culture.
This is not something I agree with, I believe there is something like called good taste (http://www.paulgraham.com/goodtaste.html), and just because I don't care to understand it (just like I don't care to understand expensive cars or expensive watches), that doesn't mean the entire field is garbage.
just because good taste exists doesn't mean it exists in the luxury fashion industry or any particular location or time. Good taste exists but not there.
It's overpriced gaslighting dogfood at best, a meat market to gain access to the stupidly wealthy at worst.
Just because you don't understand an entire art-form and the industry attached to it, that doesn't make it all "garbage".
Might as well go on to say that all modern art or modern cuisine is garbage, and sound just as ridiculous while doing so.
Spoiler alert: weird artsy high-fashion pieces you see on runways are not expected to be sold or worn in real life. Just like visual design of concept cars isn't what's expected to actually drive on the roads.
Doesn't make it good either though. A lot of "modern" art was artists claiming that traditional lenses and standards held too much authority and fuck off. We're going to do draw squares and they're going to be cool. Challenging "what does it mean to be good". Cool.
A lot of "post modern" art is this idea that it doesn't matter what you think, fuck you, I made this thing and it may even feel purposefully bad, and if I say it's good, it's a valid perspective. Which is really just kind of a post truth drain on society if you ask me; and is a really toxic thing when it's driven by tribalism and mass media to claim "this is good because a lot of people are saying it's good".
High end fashion is not very approachable to most people. A lot of it is just speaking back and forth within a very insular community. Most of it is absurd from the get go. Good art should be evocative of something.
FWIW, Kanye's fashion to me seems like it wants me to call it bad. Dreary. Unattractive. Poor, but.. in a way that seems like its asking for victimization rather than express something about poverty.
Yup, whenever I hear that about fashion, for all the times I think that the GP's statement is accurate, there's also a Vetements story.
Their line, they want to champion a more "pragmatic" approach to fashion, and "down to earth nature", compared to the big fashion houses.
Demna Gvasalia and his friends all worked at LV, Balenciaga, Maison Margiela, etc.
Vetements in reality? "Down to earth" $1200 track pants, $800 t-shirts, $500 baseball caps, $1500 hoodies.
Given a choice between "trying to break down fashion to be more pragmatic, approachable and down to earth" and "we saw how much money the fashion houses made and we decided we wanted a bigger piece", I know which way I lean.
Edit: in a fit of irony, Balenciaga offered him the role of Creative Director and he went there.
For "every day" fashion, the game is given away by the cyclical nature of fashion trends. What's popular today is approximately what was popular 20 years ago. It's a game of maintaining constant demand for new stuff in an industry where almost all of the practical problems were solved a century ago.
High fashion is obviously a completely different beast. Something that has been pointed out to me recently is how "folk fashion" which focused on meticulous details like beading and cross-stitching was largely the pursuit of women, while modern "high fashion" that involves conceptual flourishes that are relatively simple to produce is more dominated by men. I'm not really sure what to make of this observation yet, but it is interesting.
The treatment of workers in both "every day" fashion and high fashion is deplorable as well and is hard to look past if you're trying to keep an open mind.
I think Kanye actually is more mentally ill than our misguided uncles. I believe he has even spoken about his struggles with it during more lucid times.
It’s odd how in my own personal experience, the only way that I know that Kanye is “the most successful rapper of all time” is people telling me that he is the most successful rapper of all time. I actually hardly ever hear his music, or see him performing anywhere, as compared to other rappers who, if I were to volunteer an opinion based on my own experiences I would think of as “most successful rappers of all time”, like Eminem, or Dre, or JayZ or even Snoop.
It’s almost as if his whole thing was to successfully market himself to be associated with the title of the “most successful rapper of all time”.
But I have to give him that other than such an illustrious title, I do hear of him in countless contexts other than music: his marriage, his shoes, his renaming himself, his presidential ambitions, his beefs with other actual artists, and now his purchase of 4chan.
He's literally one of the best selling music artists who single-handedly pioneered multiple substyles within hip-hop over a 20 year career. He's released some of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time.
Strictly as a rapper he might not be listed as "the best rapper ever", but as a musician he's easily up there.
His father was a photojournalist for the main newspaper in Atlanta and his mother was a Fulbright scholar. He grew up in a solid middle class suburb and he attended a magnet school for gifted kids before getting a scholarship to the American Acaedmy of Art. He started producing music for artists directly out of high school and was producing for Roc-A-Fella within 3 years of starting out in the music scene.
It was at Roc-A-Fella that he decided to be a rapper, and it took him all of 2 years to produce The College Dropout.
He lived an incredibly charmed life before he ever started rapping.
Kanye makes me think of someone I knew. I knew a young woman once whose conversation was impossible to follow. She was a college graduate, and seemed intelligent. But, I think either her mind wandered, or else she simply lacked the capacity to reliably establish context in conversation.
I assure you, I really tried to make sense of what she was saying to me. She was beautiful, and I was interested in her. (I say this to emphasize how hard I was trying to make sense of it all.) But, in the end, I just could not follow. Maybe she had a kind of ADHD. But my point is that her "mental illness" likely went no further than that.
I can't follow Kanye either—though I am far less motivated to do so, by comparison. But, the guy is successful. I'm tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt that, like the young lady in my story, he may know what it is he's saying.
To a lesser extent, I have found entertainment in speaking with people who start a topic with their thesis (i.e. why are there Yellow Pages and White Pages? So stupid!) To which you lightly counter with some easy to digest fact (i.e. yellow is biz, white is res), and then a few sentences later, they'll conclude with their original point, as if you said nothing at all (i.e. See? Isn't it stupid, yellow and white pages. Makes no sense!). It was frustrating before, but now it's enjoyable to see a person live in a different reality right in front of me.
Note: Sorry for dating myself and using a The Simpsons reference.
Interesting, because personality disorders run in my family (ADHD, ASD, schizophrenia, OCD, depression, anxiety, etc.) and as someone with two of those diagnosed (and likely a third undiagnosed), I tend to follow Ye's line of thought flawlessly.
On the other hand, I often have to speed-watch speeches and lectures, as most neurotypical people stay on the same topic far too long for me to stay attentive. By speed-watching, the subject changes frequently enough for my mind to never start wandering.
I don't know much about Kanye, but are reports of people telling him he didn'h have talent to be a rapper genuine, or just something he tells people? Because it sounds like the sort of thing people make up for their own personal narrative. It reminds me of when people say things like "the doctor told me I only had a year to live" - which is something no doctor would actually say because its a massive legal liability, but it fits our personal narrative. Who were these people Kanye had to overcome?
It was genuine. He worked hard to get good at making beats, to the point he got signed at Roc-a-Fella Records to make beats for big artists at the time (Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, etc). He was super known for that in the industry, but Kanye insisted on one specific term of the contract - they gotta let him release his own album. Which they hesitantly allowed, because they thought he was just gonna fail and go back to what they thought he was good at, making beats for other rappers.
They didnt want him to be a rapper, but not for some malicious reason. They loved his beats, but thought no one would care for his songs that were nothing like the mainstream rap at the time, especially since none of them were about bling/drugs/gang stuff. That's just what was selling. And Roc-a-Fella Records wanted their star beatmaker actually making beats for their star rappers, not "pursue dreams". So they allowed him to make that album, thinking the sooner he is done with it, the sooner he will get back to beatmaking.
All of this is confirmed by tons of other people affiliated with Roc-a-Fella Records (like Jay-Z and others) at the time.
I mean, it's the same story now that's been told since the time all of this was happening, and Kanye was indeed having issues with his first album getting even published. And it is also true that pretty much everyone expected his first album to flop.
Unless literally everything said about the matter by everyone involved was an extremely consistent lie that they all conspired to perfectly maintain for 20+ years and ongoing, I find it very difficult to agree with your statement.
The entertainment industry is built on fictional stories, his overarching theme is "victim". I'm sure the people that benefit from being associated with Kanye in even the slightest way are perfectly happy to support the narrative he tries to spin, they might even believe it.
Even among fans, early Kanye was never considered a great rapper (although he was always considered an elite producer). It always felt clear to me that he'd be around and doing big things in the music industry for many years, but I kinda assumed he'd be much more behind the scenes and focusing on production.
Parent commenter is reading too much into Kanye's first struggles to become a rapper in light of this Parler purchase. But parent commenter is right that no one saw Kanye as a rapper initially. Back then, Kanye was only known as a beatsmith and producer, not someone to actually be on the track.
Kanye has a song off his album College Graduation where he talks about his initial troubles[1]
This article is from 2011, but today on Spotify Eminem still has more monthly listeners than Kanye West (53M vs 51M). Eminem also has several songs that have over a billion streams (one with >1.5b), while Kanye has just one and it's at exactly 1b.
This discounts Kanye's production work as well and might discount many of his collaborations, but I expect Eminem to still have more listens on spotify.
However, in terms of influence on hip hop and pop music as a whole, I think Kanye is above Eminem and it's probably not close. Unfortunately, that's a lot harder to measure.
If we're talking overall influence, it's Dr. Dre and then everyone else can get far back in line.
Kanye likes to claim that his music wasn't about gangster rap and that's why he was sidelined for... a couple years... meanwhile, Dre not only made NWA and Snoop Dogg but managed to convince the entire rap world that a poor white kid with drug problems and abuse issues was the next huge thing by doing things that nobody had ever thought to do before.
Kanye’s 808 & Heartbreaks has been claimed by many rappers from the 2010’s and onwards to have been a major influence. He really went all in on autotune and introspective lyrics. I much prefer Dre but his influence is waning.
The specific claim was "the most popular rapper/hip hop artist of all time". For that claim, I don't see a good reason why the last decade should weigh more heavily than the decades before.
The first time I remember hearing about Kanye was on Jay-Z's Black Album, "Kanyeezy you do it again, you a genius", the criticism lobbed against him in the early aughts was that he was a brilliant producer, but not a rapper, and then College Dropout came out, and changed that. It's really a shame to see all of this, Kanye is one of my favorite musicians of all time.
This is a very dry comparison between the two, as it only looks at numbers. Is Nickelback has far better commercial success than Rage against the Machine, but I don't think most people would rate Nickelback higher than RATM. Stronger may be Kanye's best selling track, but it's his easily least influential.
From this perspective - my intuition is that the likelihood a Kanye West led Parler will be successful is substantially greater than that a rap career will be successful. In some sense West is moving on to more plausible investments as he gets older.
West has had success as an entertainer and as a businessman - I believe he has a successful shoe company. He's famous. If he thinks he can take on Parler, that seems like a crazy challenge but one he is well equipped to take on. I would certainly believe in myself - even if I thought it was low probability I'd feel certain that it was possible.
I don't know if I think it's likely he can make a success out of Parler. That's a very tall order. But I definitely think he's got a better shot at it than whoever has run it to date.
Completely agree. Put another way, it was far dumber for Parler's current founders and investors to try and create the Nth twitter clone in the current year than it is for Kanye to try and run it. Assuming he paid a reasonable price - buying Parler is probably faster, simpler, easier than creating your own app, which Kanye might not have the expertise/team to feel comfortable doing.
In 2006 I saw Kanye West perform at a music festival. This was while he was touring for his second album.
I got an early taste of his mental illness. He started maybe 5 songs, each of which he would cut short in the middle to rant about the sound being off. He was completely unhinged and rambling each time. After 20 minutes he simply walked off stage and that was that.
Ever since then, I've found that his illness has been very evident in the art itself. It precludes me from enjoying it, and there's been a number of times I've felt terribly sad seeing these signs celebrated by those who don't see the connection (which is not to suggest that they should).
All that said, I've never even considered this perspective, so thank you for sharing it. It makes a mountain of sense, and makes the whole situation that much sadder (and more complex).
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. This is a very sad, very public case of mental illness combined with the paradox of success. There's no way, healthy or not, that he wouldn't think he knows better than everyone else for exactly the reason you describe. Anyone in his position would be fighting back the naysayers. The major difference is that Kanye has had enough failures and stumbles now that his whole "god" and "GOAT" persona is publicly falling apart and he doesn't know how to handle it. The mental health issues are just exacerbating his inability to reconcile his personal ambitions with reality.
Just think about it... if you've been a success for so long and suddenly aren't, who would you blame? If you didn't say anyone but yourself, you're not Kanye.
It's almost as if there is something that happens once you have a major, incontestible success, that you come to believe that your victory had little to do with luck and more to do with destiny or some inherent quality that you possess, and therefore the one masterpiece is a shadow of what is to come.
I don't want to get off topic here, but talking about Kanye West as "arguably the most popular hip hop artist of all time" should also come with that argument attached to justify such a grandiose statement. I mean, I need to see some Claire Danes w/red yarn vibes to even begin to understand that position.
You can talk of Kanye and Swift in the same sentence (never had a struggle meal, I see your nick Taylor ;) ), but Kanye vs. Nas? Jay? J. Cole? Sheeet, even Em? I don't even know if there are metrics that could make that statement valid unless you restrict it to some weird "early 'aughts" sub-generation.
I challenge thee to numbers, graphs and beyond all - cultural import! <gauntlet slap>
But the interesting thing is that you can see how the rankings favor more recent people, with 80s and 90s artists also up there and with far longer careers, but eclipsed by the more recent people.
This is a great point. People become calcified and stuck in their ways as a survival mechanism! Times change and circumstances do too thus the axioms floating around in our heads deviate from "reality" like a lifeboat floating away while we pretend everything is normal. This is not only a lesson for the extreme rich - but everyone.
He's been delusionally egotistical for nearly two decades. I think he's always been a self centered asshole, the schtick was just more palatable when he was only talking about the trivialities of the music industry.
It’s interesting that you feel entitled to judge the mental health of a Black man who is probably at least two to three orders of magnitude more financially successful than you are.
At least try considering the possibility that his lived experience is valid.
Now image you've done what seems impossible despite countless people telling you it wont work out. You are in the top 1% of fame. Now someone tells you your other ideas are wrong. And that you cant actually achieve x goal. And that you don't know what you are talking about when you talk about y. And that you are sick and need to take meds to fix yourself.
Would you believe them? Or would you believe yourself?
I think Kanye is sick and needs help but I can see almost anyone falling into the exact same trap hes fallen into if they lived his life.