“I miss the old Kanye, straight from the 'Go Kanye/Chop up the soul Kanye, set on his goals Kanye/I hate the new Kanye, the bad mood Kanye/The always rude Kanye, spaz in the news Kanye… See I invented Kanye, it wasn't any Kanyes/And now I look and look around and it's so many Kanye's/I used to love Kanye, I used to love Kanye.”
(So go some of the incredibly self-aware, self-referential and retrospective lyrics in the song, “I Love Kanye,” from “The Life of Pablo,” Kanye West’s latest artistic venture, released this weekend.
The album is a radical departure from the works of the artist Kanye refers to as “the old Kanye.” The rapper suggests in the unproduced a cappella track, that this album is a result of an evolution of his “invented” persona. We are warned that, although we may prefer “the old Kanye,” we must accept the fact that we’re now faced with “the bad mood Kanye,” a product of this moment in his artistic journey and in his life.
In listening to the album, it feels as if Kanye is asking us to change our perception of who Kanye West is, who he was and where he’s headed. The revolutionary mind behind “The College Dropout” is now a suburban father of two, co-starring in a docu-soap reality show on E!, championing an over-priced fashion line, losing Twitter battles to his ex-girlfriend, a member of the Kardashian family.
Kanye’s life has drastically changed, and his music has followed.
Yet, so it is with all artists and their art. Just as art is reflective of its time, so, too, is it an extension, or even a mirror, of the artists themselves. All artists operate within the reality of their own life circumstances, outside of the influence of their contemporaries or even of their own artistic journey.
Kids, marriages, divorces, deaths, critical and financial success, drugs, age, world issues; it all affects an artist as much as any of us. The significant difference is that most of us—as we evolve—don’t release a steady stream of words, images or music to chronicle our lives for the world to appreciate.
Some artists are able to surf on the crest of their circumstances, separating their art from the violent waves of change that affect their personal lives. They build on their careers and evolve as artists, regardless of their respective conditions. Dickens. Rauschenberg. The Eagles. Woody Allen.
However, these are the exceptions, as most artists get caught in the waves, resulting in art that can’t help but embody the way they feel at any given moment.
I think about Pablo Picasso—probably because Kanye intended for us to—and his ongoing departures from and arrivals upon various artistic approaches. Some of Picasso’s most highly-praised work was born out of his “Blue Period,” during which he was profoundly depressed after the suicide of one of his close friends. Picasso painted from the depths of despair, his personal despondency inevitably embedded in his product.
And then Picasso’s mood elevated after meeting his soon-to-be French mistress, leading to what is called his “Rose Period,” in which his work was equally glorious.
Artists are human, and more often than not, much more in touch with their feelings than civilians—or they like to think they are. They can’t help but express themselves and their personal narratives in their art, and upon us. Some artists’ lives change dramatically and their art reflects those changes gloriously, albeit often erratically.
That’s Picasso. That’s Alanis Morissette, writing songs about the PTSD she experienced after the mind-blowing success of “Jagged Little Pill.” That’s Chance the Rapper finding God after acid, that’s author Cormac McCarthy desperate to protect the son he had at an advanced age, in the father-son journey on “The Road.”
Other sensitive creative types get churned up in the choppy surf of their own life circumstances, and their resulting art isn't merely erratic; it suffers and too often fails to retain the listeners, readers and fans who had once enthusiastically accompanied these artists on their paths.
That’s Andy Warhol getting stale and bored, and Lil Wayne and Steven King getting way too high.
From the perspective of the listener/reader/viewer/critic/consumer in all of this, well ... we don’t pull much weight on the front-end. We’re at the whim of the artists. Whatever they’re feeling or doing or being—or trying not to feel or do or be—inherently finds itself in the art we’re given.
Where we find our voice is in our response. We have the all-important choice of whether to consciously follow an artist further into their journey by caring about the art. Whether we believe in it. Whether we like it.
I love Kanye. I love his unapologetic ego. I love his resourcefulness and willingness to spotlight others. I love the truth he spills into his words and his production and the chronicle of his journey that is his discography. I love Kanye’s continued ambition, his willingness to review, reinvent, redesign and test us.
But I don’t know if I’m able to show that love for the “bad mood Kanye” I’ve been introduced to in “The Life of Pablo” just yet. I appreciate the artistry, the collaboration, the emphasis on production, the continuation of his narrative. But the album’s reactive and flat, trendy, lacking the raw, proactive power I felt when I met “the old Kanye.”
Who knows? Maybe it just has to do with who I am at this exact moment on my journey as a listener. Either way, I personally hope that he surfs out of this wave, I hope it was therapeutic.
All we can do with any artist is empathize with him, as he handles life’s tiny ripples as well as its big breakers, only later to sort out exactly how we feel about the art that comes out of that set.
I do hope Kanye finds his Rose Period. With or without the French mistress.)
Jackson Prince is a Trinity freshman. His column runs on alternate Tuesdays.
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