Kanye Is Still Fresh

G.O.O.D. MUSIC / DEF JAM - 2021

Kanye West. It is not lost on me that I am not in the remotest way the target demographic of Kanye West’s musical empire. I am a middle-aged mother who wears sensible, New Balance walking shoes, likes polite people, strives for the beauty of God, and prefer my days quiet and free from drama. For me, Kanye West was just one of many in a nebulous pack of rappers I sometimes heard singing on the radio, strutting their stuff like blingy peacocks, singing with a shocking and gratuitous sexuality that blatantly objectified women, and amassing dizzying fortunes that shouted to the world “he who dies with the most bling wins.” Yes, I am afraid I would have tossed Kanye West over my mind’s shoulder, without a second thought, as sheer, rapping, hip-hoppery. He would not have even been a blip on my radar, except for one thing. I have a son. And Kanye had a mother.

This son is my last child of seven. In true youngest child fashion, he has learned to internalize much and to speak little. In very truth, with six other exceptionally verbal, sparring, precocious older brothers and sisters, he could not get much of a word in edgewise. So, he sought peace and kept his thoughts to himself. I assumed he was just naturally so, but I would have been wrong. He very much wanted to be heard. When each of his brothers and sisters one at a time peeled off from the home road to seek their fortunes, my youngest son and I spent a whole year together one on one. And then he began to talk. And talk turned to Kanye. While driving around he would make me listen with such an insistence in his voice that it surprised me no end. Kanye is a genius, he would say over and over. I was dubious. Reuben continued to insist that there was great wit within the grit of Kanye’s music. With the release of his Gospel album, and the many complaints raised by his fandom that this was not true Kanye, Reuben found his own voice and declared loudly, “Oh, but it is. It is all of a piece with what went before and what would come after.” Reuben texted me this one day:

In 2018 he had his very public “reversion” into the Christian faith which has given every irritating, shallow, youth pastor a reason to play Kanye and feel as if he is ‘connecting’ with the kids. All of these annoying attachments aside, though, this album is poignant and powerful because of all the places Kanye has been musically and personally. His lyrics have always been packed with humor and almost gratuitous sexuality and toxic male bravado. That is what sold and sent him to the moon initially, so it was not as if he felt he should corner a different market for streams. This one seemed organic, yet admittedly very raw. On his first openly Christian themed album, ‘Jesus Is King’ released in late 2019, it was easy to see how this stylistic divergence might leave his usual listener a bit less impressed with the production or lyrics but was undeniably the most vulnerable he’s appeared in his music. On the track ‘God Is’ he sings with raspy and beautifully unaltered vocals, “All my idols let them go, all the demons let them know, this is a mission not a show, this is my eternal soul.” This is a man who has been at the heights of hip hop and experienced the accompanying luxury but renounced it for the recognition of something MORE.

That my son would write such a thing made me wake up and notice. I listened to that album from start to finish and slowly and reluctantly began to realize there was another Kanye under the bravado. Then came the latest 2021 release of a new album. Reuben simply said, “You will like it. It is for his mom, Donda. Listen to the first track.” My initial thought was, “Kanye had a mother?” Someone who is so clearly larger than life, loud, brash, with success flashing off him like blinding bling? We think someone like this just appeared on the scene. We forget they are as small and human as we are. But everyone has a mother, and Kanye had the best. Her name was Donda.

Donda. That sounded like a heartbeat when you said it out loud. And truly it was. She turned out to be the surprising beat of Kanye’s life. I sat and listened. It is one word spoken fifty-eight times, one time for each year she had lived on this earth. Donda. It is said with repetitive insistence at first like a little child would tug at a sleeve, then it pleads long and low perhaps perplexed, then it softens into contentment held in its embrace. And then it fades with one last helpless, “Donda.” It made me cry. All that it is to be a mother was in that simple, genius of a track written by a son. The other tracks I did not quite understand, but this one, this one I did. Who was Donda?

It turns out Kanye’s mom was incredible. She had a doctorate in English Education from Auburn University and taught at Chicago State University where she eventually became the chair of the English Department. A single mother, she brought up Kanye alone from 11 months on. Her good friend Ulysses Blakely, who helped Donda raise Kanye into his later teens, said, “this child was plainly and self-evidently extraordinary.” He went on to marvel that as a child he heard Kanye go for weeks speaking in haiku and his watercolors were so professional you could hang them on a wall. Before Kanye went to kindergarten, Blakely taught him mechanical drawings and the ins and outs of shading. Within a week or two, Kanye was drawing superheroes with a skill far beyond his age. He had a power of attention so strong that he carried through on many a project that would be abandoned by a child his age. In short, Kanye was a savant. And as a true savant, the overabundance of creative energy that filled his soul would strain his finite body. He developed Bipolar. How does one mother such a savant? Like many a mother, Donda had to figure that out. She was strong, demanding, and protective of him. In 1987 she moved to China where she taught at Nanjing University. She gave Kanye a widening perspective on life that went far beyond a limited American perspective. Kanye found his life, his self-confidence. He loved it. He studied Tai Chi and breakdanced for his Chinese friends. When they returned to Chicago, and college rolled around, Donda insisted Kanye finish. Kanye had other plans. He found Hip Hop and discovered that he could rap – and rap with sustained genius – much like his younger haiku days. Reuben writes:

Kanye began as a backpack-kid producer on the southside of Chicago. His creative interests were heavily supported by his mother. She consistently preached the importance of a high school diploma but inevitably recognized how talented he was. He gained local notoriety for his beats but when Jay Z, at the height of his musical influence being the owner of roc-a-fella record label, found this young savant he was blown away by his persistence and work ethic. Kanye was not satisfied with just being a producer, however. He knew he could rap in addition. It was not long before his debut album ‘The College Dropout’ became the hottest thing in hip-hop and him along with it.

Donda had to help him navigate this chosen passion. She knew this world and its pitfalls, especially for one like her son who despite his bravado was fragile and needed her guidance and protection. She was so smart. She didn’t pull him back. Force was not an option. She surely knew what a career in hip hop would lead him into. But maybe she knew that to fulfill whatever mission his genius possessed, he had to go through that and she would be there to catch him on the far end. She agreed to be his manager if only to keep him safe from the pitfalls. Kanye openly adored her.

Then the unimaginable happened. Donda suddenly died and left Kanye’s world. She had a heart attack after complications following a routine elective surgery. No one expected this, least of all Kanye. He was devastated. He could hardly handle this sudden loss. He handled it the only way he knew how. With creative output. He wrote her song after song. He wandered in many a manic episode in the press, no longer protected by her strong mothering spirit that kept him steady so he could release all his pent up power. Kanye was in deep mourning for years.

Reuben once again texted me,

This triggered a great burst of creative output for him. In addition to the output, however, I think it planted the seed once again of a Christian perspective as she was a dedicated church-goer.

Then came his latest creative work in her honor. Donda. What comes through is a catharctic confession of sorts. I do not presume to understand all the lyrics but the few I caught were deep, painful moanings that all of this was not enough. It was empty fame and show. This world of bling, of bravado hiding despair, of wealth and fame that lead to death anyway. The fact that we are all guilty as sin. Perhaps this is what Donda was for. She was there to let Kanye ride the fame all the way to where it would end and then lead him through her death into God’s remedy – for our benefit. Kanye is like a living icon of the world. His whole life is there for everyone to see. He hides nothing from our eyes, always willing to speak his mind even when we do not want to hear or see ourselves in him, even when his Bipolar gets the better of him. His is an honest assessment of the failure of worldly success to satisfy in visible, audible form. Did Donda know this when she let him go so long ago? I think she had a presentiment that this would be his mission.

Kanye did one more thing. He gave my son a voice, or perhaps the understanding that one must speak for and to the others. And so it is only fitting that I give Reuben the last word:

The album Donda, released last Sunday, brings the richness of of his production genius and ear for lyrical pockets to the fore. It is very fresh Kanye. He carries the same skill but has now mastered the new lane which he first embarked upon in “Jesus is King”. In my opinion, the greatest critique of Kanye is the exact reason that his art has not suffered with his age. He never kept his life separate from the tabloids and the music. Everything he experienced was on full display and by being so intertwined allowed his music to stay a direct reflection of his life and feelings. The death of his devoutly Christian mother was not handled exclusively in his heart but in the studio. His struggle with the ultimate and his purpose here is not tucked away for a late night to ponder like many of us, but is played out by the heartfelt music he gives. It is not a life I desire in any way, fearing to be so open and brash with the internal combat. Yet, isn’t it that courage that gives the greatest capacity for sustained integrity in one’s art?

Reuben Trull is a 19 year old Sophomore studying philosophy at Thomas Aquinas College. He is a singer/songwriter and loves searching the meanings in music of all genres.