By Tom Guntrip - You may not like Kanye West. You should, however, want to be like Kanye West.
By Tom Guntrip
@gunnerzzzzz
People have role models. They have inspirations and influences. The way they talk or do certain things may be based on someone they admire, or trying to be the opposite of someone they don’t particularly like. When people look for advice on they should do, or when they need help in times of need, there is one message that seems to be sent out repeatedly.
“Be yourself. Just be you.”
People get lost sometimes. They forget who they are, or stop being themselves to fit in or cope with something. They change, even if it is only temporarily, and that can throw some people off. Sometimes it can change everything, and irreversibly so. I got lost once, and it cost me. I needed help to get back to where I was and instead I got destroyed. I turned to my friends and they told me to just be myself. At the same time, Kanye West was beginning his one-man war on the modern world. It was brilliant, and actually quite helpful.
We should respect Kanye West. Yes, he’s a bit of a d*ck, but he’s following the same advice that some of my friends gave me. He’s a genius. He understands music and how to make it way better than most of the world. Here’s a quote from a well-renowned hip-hop producer ‘Hit-Boy’, showing the ability that Kanye brings to the table.
“There was music going on in every room. I had a room where I was cranking out beats, and then I’d go into the main room with Jay and [Kanye] and play beats for them. Kanye is really hands-on. I would come in with a beat and he’d be like, ‘Take this out, slow it down.’ It would make it sound 100 times better.”
Hit-Boy is no slouch when it comes to producing, and yet even without the exaggeration, it’s evident how highly he rates Kanye as a producer. He’s shown he’s a musical genius. He’s passionate about it, pushing the boundaries of what he can do, in both music and culture. He showed his ambition to smash his way into the shoe market with Yeezy’s and branching out into fashion, especially after his rant in his first interview with Zane Lowe and his efforts to explain himself in the second one. Kanye has repeatedly shown his ambition to change the world and be the best he can be, to be himself. He expresses himself exactly how he wants to, and he maybe doesn’t see why we misunderstand it. He probably thinks he is being clear enough and we are deliberately getting his message wrong. He is being himself and if we can’t accept him we don’t matter. That’s advice people get quite often – “you don’t need them, forget about them, if they don’t like you then get rid of them”. Yet he still wants us to like him? To appreciate him? To accept him and allow him to express himself? Maybe his insecurity shows through here, and so does his mortality. When he hid his smile for the cameras intruding on his personal conversation, was that because he wants to portray himself as something else, or because he his scared of losing his image? Probably both. Yes, he has an ego, and yes, he is very much all about himself, but the way he shows his love for Kim (however bizarre sometimes), and his fierce determination to protect his privacy and that of his family (something I very much agree with) can show he really feels.
Kanye is being himself, and while you may not like him or agree with what he says, if you’ve ever given the advice to someone to be themselves or if you appreciate ambition and culture, then you have to respect Kanye West.