The West Wing
THE BLURB BIT BEFORE THE ACTUAL CONTENT (IS IT CALLED A FOREWORD?): This is an essay I submitted for my Writing Short Non-fiction class at Swinburne. Originally I spent three weeks working on an essay about my holiday to the Philippines. Then the VMA’s happened. So two days before the due date, I decided to scrap that essay and write this one about Kanye instead. I submitted it last night. It’s worth 40% of my mark for the semester. Only Yeezus knows if this was a good idea or not, but I’ll appreciate your thoughts too I guess.
Why Kanye West Would Probably Make a Good President
Phoenix Trinidad
The hollering of seven thousand white teenage girls fills the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles as they chant his name like a religious ceremony. Blue lasers and spotlights scan the room like they’re frantically searching the crowd for an escaped prisoner, only to find the most popular figures in music pop culture. The voices that are heard on your local commercial radio station sit patiently, dressed head-to-toe in thousands of dollars worth of designer label clothing, watching closely as a figure in a plain brown tee and comfortable sneakers approaches the stage. Most of the the crowd are applauding enthusiastically, some attendees seem to be grinning with anticipation, while another small percentage look oddly nervous, but who can blame them? After all this is a live televised broadcast of the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, and the man approaching the stage is none other than the awards show controversy veteran Mr. Kanye West.
‘Listen to the kids!’ Kanye opens what would become an uninterrupted, unscripted ten minute rant on live television, and probably only his second most memorable moment at the MTV VMA’s. Kanye’s most memorable and most notorious moment was in 2009 when he crashed the stage, interrupting pop singer Taylor Swift’s Best Video acceptance speech to express his belief that Beyonce deserved the award instead. The incident sent the Internet and social media into a meltdown condemning Kanye and forever cementing him as an outspoken, ego maniacal villain.
‘You know how many times MTV ran that footage again because it got them more ratings? You know how many times they announced Taylor was presenting the award because it got more ratings? Listen to the kids bro! I still don't understand award shows.’ Kanye continues, having just carefully placed down his shiny (and probably plastic) 2015 MTV Video Vanguard Award, giving his hands the freedom to physically accompany his emotional speech. His uninterrupted tirade sprawls on, denouncing consumerism and the manipulation of the media, while praising artistry and encouraging the millennial generation. Finally Kanye finishes his rant with a classic Kanye moment by once again sending the Internet into a meltdown live from the VMA stage.
‘And yes, as you probably could have guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020, to run for president.’ Kanye drops the mic and struts back to his seat, the sound of applause roaring in his ears as he drowns in the lights from not only the camera-flashes and spotlights, but the backlight of nearly every smart-phone in the world simultaneously opening the Twitter app.
In November 2014, I celebrated my 21st birthday with my girlfriend by walking around the Melbourne Zoo and snapchatting various animals. After a long drive home, I arrived to find a large, blue tarp blocking the entrance to my carport like an oversized tent-flap. Somehow I’d forgotten the occasion and didn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary, as previously I’d seen my dad using the same tarp-hanging technique when he was using the carport to host a poker game with his buddies. However after walking through the small opening, I was suddenly greeted by the loud, unmistakable booming trumpets of Touch The Sky and a small battalion of people staring back at me while wearing cardboard Kanye masks. At first, I thought I’d crashed the car on the way home from the zoo and entered some strange Kanye-themed coma dream, but I quickly realized my amazing girlfriend and sister had decided to throw me a Kanye-themed surprise party.
Evidently my friends and family were privy to my odd obsession with Kanye West. Earlier in the year I had spent a few months working on a collection of digital paintings featuring Kanye, which soon went viral after being shared by Complex Magazine. After my surprise party, Touch The Sky is now forever associated with my love for my family and friends, turning my Kanye fandom into a stranger, more emotional connection. This admiration of Kanye often garners amusingly surprised reactions, mostly in the form of a simple question:
‘Why?’
Why do I idolize this man? Why do I look past his outrageous antics? And if Kanye were to seriously run for president in 2020, why would I consider getting a US citizenship just to have the opportunity to vote him into office? Perhaps my perspective is slightly skewed, however I truly believe that Kanye is just as misunderstood as he is impulsive.
In the 24 hours since his announcement to run for office, a lot has been said - albeit the majority in expletive-ridden Facebook comments - about the idea of Kanye West becoming the most powerful man in the world. And while Kanye’s crazy announcement was most likely a publicity stunt for his new upcoming album and tour, or just a classic case of Kanye being impulsive, the reaction of the public is enough to provide a fascinating insight and examination into the culture surrounding Kanye and his reputation. Putting aside his obvious lack of political experience (which let’s face it, if Arnold Schwarzenegger can make the transition from Kindergarten Cop to public office, then political experience isn’t exactly a required prerequisite in the US system) Kanye West would probably be a great presidential candidate.
In the hip hop world, Kanye has been a POTUS-like authority figure since his first album. After creating beats and slaving away as a producer for most of his early career, Kanye finally received his big break on the production of Jay Z’s critically and commercially successful album The Blueprint. It was also around this time, he was involved in a car accident that shattered his lower jaw. This near-death experience inspired Kanye to drop a game-changer in the form of his 2004 debut album The College Dropout. At the time the hip hop world was still vibing on the G-Funk West Coast wave left by Dr. Dre’s 2001, all of a sudden Kanye drops an album full of soulful beats and contentious yet passionate rhymes. The College Dropout reinvented the genre of hip hop with tracks like Jesus Walks, a club-hit focused genuinely on Jesus and Through the Wire, where he raps about his near-death experience while still wearing his reconstructive mouth gear.
There’s a method to his madness, and a reason Kanye is often referred to - a lot of the time by himself - as a creative genius. Since The College Dropout in 2004, Kanye has consistently reinvented himself, while his sound and lyrics have moved with his life correspondingly. His lyrics address issues like the exploitation of Africans by Africans in the blood diamond trade, fame and celebrity culture, to his personal relationships, institutional racism, the violence in his hometown of Chicago, and the culture of consumerism in modern day America.
Yet Kanye’s proven talent, intelligence and self-awareness goes largely unnoticed. In the music video for Bound 2, Kanye is seen riding a motorbike with a very obvious green screen backdrop, juxtaposed with stock footage of galloping wild horses and rocky American landscapes. Despite the video being an obvious satire of cheesy, white Americana culture, topped off by the fact that he premiered the video on The Ellen Degeneres show (whose primary audience is white middle-class women), the video was received as “laughably bad”. The reaction may have been anticipated by Kanye, but it’s hard to imagine that the same artist who spent an alleged five thousand hours of work into one track, would somehow not realize that a video that features him dry-humping his naked wife on a motorcycle would somehow be badly received by the audience.
That’s not to say that Kanye doesn’t draw negative attention to himself, as it’s clear that his notoriety has mostly stemmed not from his artistic work, but from his apparent lack of self-control on live television. In fact, Kanye’s first real stumble into the world of presidential-related politics was during a fundraising campaign for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people.’ West states bluntly while his co-host Mike Meyers stares blankly into the camera. The broadcast quickly cuts to Chris Tucker, whose lost reaction causes a few awkward seconds of dead-air only to be saved by the auto-cue, a device which has gone largely ignored by Kanye for most of his career. However, putting aside his admittedly bad sense of timing and occasion, Kanye was still just using the only platform he had at the time to bring forth discussion about the Bush government’s mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. His method may be flawed, but his message is truthful and honourable.
‘When I express my opinion, I always get in trouble for something, and it just makes me feel like they don’t want nobody to express no real motherfuckin’ opinion. This is very motherfuckin’ awkward to me.’ Kanye explains, donning a diamond-encrusted mask while performing his signature on-stage, obviously-off-the-cuff speech at the 2014 Life is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas. ‘I think I’m just lazy. ‘Cause when you have to put on some type of facade and make up a bunch of lies and shit, you gotta think about that shit so hard and you gotta remember what the lie was. And I just be like, “Fuck it, I’m a just go ahead and tell the truth. ‘Cause I don’t wanna have to remember no shit.”’
Kanye is a man with ideas and he’s not afraid of tearing down the cultural podium that he’s built for himself in order to express those ideas or see them through. Perhaps Kanye has been playing the long game and he’s been aiming for the presidency all along. Who better to represent a country that’s known for having such brash, self-loving patriotism to the point where it starts to seem like a parody of itself? Or perhaps Kanye is just a really talented guy whose impulsiveness gets the better of him on live television. Perhaps the world isn’t ready for President Kanye and perhaps ‘No one man should have all that power’.
But maybe we’ll be ready in 2020.