“Misery loves company.  So does masturbation.” – Unknown

I’ve been circulating Kanye West albums as of late.  All of them.  Yes, even that one.  That one could be one of three albums, depending on who you ask.

If you ask the Kanye Purist, the Kanye West fan that loves the very being that is Kanye West, from the music to the Jedi robes he has designed (?), then that album is 808s and Heartbreak.  808s is the album that had Kanye nearly abandon rap for the cold, mechanical embrace that is auto tune and being in a pretty bad time.  Look at what he was going through at the time: his mother passed away (Rest in Peace, Donda West), he and Alexis Phifer called off their engagement and, in effect, their long term relationship, and perhaps most importantly the scrutiny of being a celebrity was starting to truly bear down on him.

For the sake of clarity, let me elaborate: in no way am I discounting his mother’s passing when I say the scrutiny was the most important thing going on with him at the time.  Rather, the scrutiny of being a celebrity had been building and evolving for the longest.  I’m implying that the passing of Donda West intensified an already hypersensitive situation.  To be fair, that doesn’t sound better, but it is explanation.

For the Kanye Hater, that kind of person that sees Kanye as that perpetual “asshole”, that album is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.  While lauded as one of, if not THE, best albums of the 2000-2010 decade, it also stood in the eyes of many as a victory lap for a self-professed dick who did whatever he wanted and offered no apologies for it.  This is, of course, referring to the Taylor Swift incident where he did to Taylor Swift what ODB did to Shawn Colvin.  Don’t remember that?  You don’t remember when ODB interrupted the presentation, with his outfit that “costed” him a lot of money, and proclaimed that Wu-Tang was for the children?  Well Kanye didn’t do it like that: he just wanted to let people know that Beyonce’s video for “Single Ladies” was the one of the greatest of all time.  Dick move?  Of course.

Finally, there’s the Kanye Sympathizer.  This is now the rarest form of hyper Kanye West fan.  These are the people that fell head over heels in love with The College Dropout and went to college looking like hipsters round the time of Late Registration.  These are the fine folks that hold a special place in their heart for 808s because they felt for Kanye’s pain, for Fantasy because it was triumphant, and even Yeezus because “Bound 2” was part of it.  All that being said, that album for them is Graduation.  When that album came out, many just didn’t get that same sense of magic from it that Kanye’s first offerings seemed to give.  Some blamed the album, some blamed Kanye, it was hard to tell, but if we’re going to be honest about it: it was the birth of Kanye’s stadium rap obsession.

Now you may wonder where I fall in the spectrum of Kanye West fans.  In terms of the hyper Kanye West fan, nowhere.  I prefer to think of myself as a selective fan of Kanye who can enjoy some of his stuff, dislike some of his stuff and have the good graces to acknowledge that something may not be to my taste, but that doesn’t discount it as bad music by any means.  That’s my overall feeling of Yeezus in fact.  I can’t listen to that album again: by and large I get a headache just thinking about it.  But credit where its due: that was a solid album.  I just don’t like it.

Much like the fans, Kanye himself wears plenty of masks.  Metaphorically, I mean.  Virtually every song of an album has Kanye in a different voice, wearing a different hat, speaking in a different voice that can make us nod our heads, clap in relation, scratch our domes in thought or, my personal favorite, communicate with the opposite sex to varying results.  With this in mind, I do have a favorite Kanye West hat.  It’s one of the rare hats that prominently shows up on every one of his projects, no matter how fresh, accomplished, cocky, depressed, triumphant or nonchalant he appears.

I call this Kanye the “I masturbate to fantasies of myself” Kanye, and you know what?  That Kanye is amazing.

First and foremost, stop gasping.  If you aren’t gasping, stop laughing.  If you aren’t laughing, stop acting shocked.  Kanye West has an ego that would plug a black hole, or at the very least Ann Coulter’s mouth (can you imagine THAT war of words?).  He doesn’t take criticism too well, every other line of his shy of 808s is a line where he brags about his own greatness, he makes the most outlandish statements about his own self-worth on the grandest stages, he married a mod… wait, how is this any different from Trump again…?

Because of the music!  “I masturbate to fantasies of myself” Kanye isn’t the most lyrical Kanye, though that Kanye did produce one of his finest lyrical offerings.  “Masturbate to myself” Kanye DOES exert the most forceful and assertive persona though.  “Jerk Off” Kanye is either the most confident rapper alive or the most insecure, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he was both at the same time.  “Wrangle my own trouser snake to my own trouser snake pictures” Kanye lets you know he’s great, even when he’s telling you how he may not be all that great, and acknowledges that people may not like it.  But he doesn’t care, and he knows that those people that don’t like it may very well still listen to him regardless.

See, “I turn Super Saiyan and get naked in front of a full body mirror” Vegeta Kanye is the essence of old school hip hop personified in a man who seems to walk away from the prospect of even acknowledging fault.  See, hip hop is ultimately always been and will be about three words: Look At Me.  Whether dealing with graffiti, break dancing, DJing or rapping, you’re dealing with someone who wants the spotlight on them and them alone, and I don’t care how “gangsta”, “indie”, “conscious” or even “comedic” you are: if you are a rapper from yesterday, today or days to come, you want the spotlight firmly on you.  And you take no prisoners and offer no apologies.

“I gave myself my dick in a box for Arbor Day” Kanye is simply amazing.  This is the Kanye that gave us “Breathe In, Breathe Out”.  Was it the best track from his debut album?  Few would say so, but you enjoyed the hell out of that song.  When his second album came around, this particular Kanye was starting to become a permanent fixture.  Whereas he had a line or two every now and then, he decided to steal the show entirely with the penultimate track “Gone”.  For a long time, many people considered Kanye’s second verse here to be his finest, and with good reason.  It was a sprawling, breathless “I’m Kanye West, dammit!” moment, something that would go on to transform into a trademark, and likely what he’ll call his seventh or eight yacht.

All the same, “My Ding-A-Ling-A-Ling” Kanye showed up in full force on the underrated Graduation.  It was one thing for him to be so present on lead single “Stronger”, but the entire album was such blatant, delightful self-indulgence that it was an audible smorgasbord of lines and verses just ripe for the picking.

“I’m like the fly Malcolm X/buy any jeans necessary.”

“(sample)Did you realize… you were a champion, in their eyes?/Yes I did!”

“You say I think I’m never wrong/You know what?/Maybe you’re right.”

Such ego!  If you had an ego even remotely that big you’d take lotion with you into even a public bathroom!  Kanye reached a level of loving his own self that Kendrick Lamar couldn’t so much as touch with his Grammy Award winning single so many years later.

BUT!  Kanye also reached the first of many plateaus here.  “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” is, undoubtedly, my favorite Kanye West track.  Everything works.  The backdrop, the lyrics, the bravado, the imagery, it all comes together in a way that you don’t just feel like Mr. West is saying that he’s great: he accusing you for nothing saying the same.  And even worse, you feel some kind of way for not agreeing with him.  He could replicate this with “Power” later, and the overall tone of Yeezus would also have such a feeling, but nothing distilled that self-serving “Auto-fellating” Kanye hat more than this track for a good while.

Why do I like this Kanye more than any other?  Because when you peel away the layers that are Kanye West, you got a weird, if honest, creature that offers nothing but a word or two in true comprehension.  That’s not to say that Kanye is hard to get: he’s not.  He’s human like all of us, just a rock star that one could argue has surpassed a lot of those we’ve come to idolize.  Elvis.  Chuck Berry.  The Ink Spots.  The Beatles.  Michael Jackson?  Don’t get me wrong: you may not LIKE my assertion but how often do you see people rocking Ringo Starr sneakers?  Being a rock star has less to do with the music you make and more with the image you maintain after making the albums.

But this Kanye represents that attitude we all need in some regard.  That love and confidence in self.  Is it expanded to a ridiculous degree?  Oh my, yes.  But sometimes you need to be extra to really appreciate it.  So make no mistake: my fandom for “I’d have sex with my clone” Kanye is based in something legit.  But its necessary.  And that bravado, at least a small portion of it, would do all of us a lot of good.