Kanye is Sorry for What He Said and We Must Forgive Him
As he makes his way back Through the Wire
The first time I discovered Kanye West was back in 2003. My brother had already introduced me to Jay Z and like him, I was smitten by the street lyrics and stark beats that made being a New Yorker something thrilling and worth the one meal a day.
Kanye was mine. I found him out on my own and I was glad I did. Fuck! He wasn’t particularly handsome, but just like his mentor, his looks paled in comparison to the talent that didn’t quite know how to contain itself. This wasn’t bravado or even the quest for greatness atop the heap of legends that surpassed the needle of the Empire State Building.
This was the actual real deal being formulated for whoever was necessary enough to comprehend why legends already know what they are before they give you a chance to define them.
Since then, time has been a motherfucker. As always, it passes by silently but the loud echoes of what we once believed in chimes through with authority, as we demand the ones we trusted with our identity to continue backing our claims.
Kanye is not living up to the expectations that were assigned when he crashed his jaw and spewed out verses that were audible and dope — despite not being medically allowed to utter a single word.
He gained entrance into a world that was coded with the understanding that if you belong — you stay for life. Blood isn’t required for receipt. You just have to keep on giving the best that you’ve got. And when you have to wriggle your way Through the Fire — you may be able to make it Through the Wire.
That has snapped your mouth shut.
It’s 2016. A lot of fucked up shit has gone down. Aside from the fact that our hero managed to conceive an album that to our knowledge has to be the best thing since best things became a thing — (Monster is the track on that gem — in case you’re lost) he also willingly conspired his future with a social media harlot who fucked another guy for public viewing so she could fuck over our guy to your disdain.
Okay, she’s not a harlot. She’s an independent woman of today — a modern-day feminist who has the body and face that she bought and conceptualized on your dime — which gives her the right to selectively delegate nude selfies for little girls to fawn over — as they imagine the physique they will grow into — that will guarantee them the power to be what their parents created.
Happy now?
The rapper and the Reality TV heiress were a match made in heaven and to our horror — the artist who once told the most powerful man in the world where to go in case he needed to jack off — was now a part of a system that was formulated to order us where to go to — in case we needed to jack off.
The victim remains in custody.
He has become a relic of his former self. A shell that was open for amusement and entertainment until the stakes got too high. He decided to forsake his maker and the legions of fans that adhered to his decision to be a College Dropout.
His mother unwillingly abandoned him, which as we know is life’s way of reminding us that good things never last long enough to fulfill the promise of that carelessly fashioned American dream.
America is Great again.
And Kanye fucked up so badly due to what he said and did but we must forgive him. We have to believe that he is under the spell of a decision gone awry. We know what desperation looks like. It is the voice that peeps out with a yell that can’t be suppressed by the ideology that what we know and believe will save us when the hours grow darker without the threat of sunlight.
We are in the dark.
Some of us have been baking longer than others but the truth is that I get how and why Kanye became Kimye with Trumped up fantasies of how to escape the symptoms of rhetoric that only White men can shit out without passports.
He made it through the wire once and he will do so again. Trust me.
This isn’t a lost soul that has submitted to the scribes of White assholes that aren’t satisfied until they are being hailed with bullets of allegiance. He hasn’t been inscribed with the code of disarray that makes being Black less black and more the shade that doesn’t inspire.
Kanye is fucked up because we are fucked up — and we are not able to secure his release from the realm of elitism due to our adherence to clicks and licks and the fantasy that the numbers will add up to accord all the reasons why existing demanded the configuration of atoms that still perplex the galaxy.
You are no better with your Instagram slots and Facebook snaps that gives Snapshat permission to release the un-real you.
Things have changed.
We can’t master the instruments of our time just because we got tossed the manuscript to douse all that we believed in.
You believe in Kanye because you feel sorry that he cowered under duress and you hate him for emancipating you.
Forgive him for now and collect penance later. He is making it through the wire with cuts and scrapes that every Black man succumbs to without fail but allows for the future us.
We are all sorry for the Black man who blacks out and then comes back to life with recollections that haunt.
For a lifetime.
Update: Kanye cancelled the rest of his tour dates and checked himself into a facility to seek help for self-deprivation and depression.