The best line from Jesus is King, Kanye’s new gospel album, comes halfway though its brief 28 minutes. “I thought the book of Job was a job.” It’s classic Ye—self-deprecating, stupid-corny (in a fun way), and a little sad. It’s honest about the cause of his recent hard times: himself. Five years ago he was claiming celebrities are the new slaves. I think processing that in good faith made us all a little stupider. His candor now is refreshing.
Kanye is part of us all, for better and worse. A song like “All Falls Down” comes on now and—wherever you were circa 2004—it all floods back. In 2019 we don’t know what to do with him. That feels weird. I felt especially tied to him, in the worst way. His narcissistic rise and fall soundtracked the “wilding” of my own teens and early twenties. I don’t know—we were on the same cycle. But I don’t think it’s just me. Normies didn’t channel their worst aspects through him like I did. But the body politic has felt similar bouts of mania and collapse all the same. After the 2008 recession and the ensuant despair, Ye’s near-madness felt like a shared struggle. Now we’re stepping out from the rubble and confusedly shaking our heads. The trouble comes in absent-mindedly putting the whole thing behind us. Doing so—in a word, giving up on Kanye—means an equal abandonment (however sad, understandable) of ways we used to connect. Forgoing an autopsy means from now on we’ll recognize each other a little less.
Kanye has always been grandiose. But the self-esteem of his early days felt generous. His psyche definitely curdled into narcissism[1] only after his mother’s death in 2007. Peak Yeezy season— from 808’s and Heartbreak to Yeezus—produced the greatest albums of the long 2000s. But I can’t relisten to them now without feeling like I’m settling back into a dark, nasty place. Kanye’s narcissistic “false self” evolved out of a flight from unbearable trauma. Delusional pride festered over a kernel of aggrieved vulnerability. That narcissistic self can achieve wonders—but it needs constant feeding. True narcs are on a death spiral away from reckoning with their own baggage. Most turn to feeding on others.
I might be wrong—but Kanye never acted out the predatory, manipulative part (unless you count trying the patience of his fans). Sure, he was an asshole. But his M.O. wasn’t hurting others. Instead, he’s what I’d deem a good narcissist. The good narcissist employs the same defense mechanisms as “bad” ones—psychic flight, splitting, false selves. But some shred of humanity seeps up from the frozen bottom. Narcs like Ye make the ethical, unconscious decision to feed on themselves. The predatory narc can operate as long as they find victims, willing and otherwise. But you can’t feed on yourself for very long.
Soon, you’re all dried up. You roll around abusing yourself in your squalid little bed of demons. But there’s nothing left to wring out. Your state then is a far cry from the earlier, Luciferian glory. You become a shriveled up old Satan, “chugging beers and scratching your balls.”[2] That’s how Kanye’s two post-Yeezus albums sounded to me. Life of Pablo had some bangers, but if felt empty—fake. The secular gospel choir of “Ultralight Beam” was thrilling—but a couple listens in and you realized there wasn’t much substance behind it. LoP remains some younger fans’ favorite album. For me, though, it was the sound of a man lying to himself. Kanye was trying to force the engine of narcissism—the one that had let him reach stratospheric heights—back into ignition. Luckily, though, he’d hit rock bottom. You can keep circling the drain in endless petty relapses. Or, you can figure out how to be real.
Ye was duller, but felt like a step in a healthier direction. Before listening to it again for reference, the only moments I could remember were the opener– and the creepy one imagining his daughter in full womanly form. But his feet, however wobbly, and his heart, however psychiatrically overmedicated, felt like they were finally on solid(ish) ground again. The short album length reminded me of a recovering liar who’s confining himself to brevity and substance. It’s not an album I’ll return to soon. But it also isn’t one (like Yeezus) that makes me want back on my self-destructive grind. That’s not any kind of critical stance, I know. But, for whatever artistic failure it represents, for Kanye the man it felt like a step forward.
Ye wasn’t fully coherent. But other factors made the album hard to really hear. I’m referring, of course, to the hat. Kanye started wearing his MAGA right before Ye’s release. The album’s whole reception was charged with that controversy. I’m still not convinced I’m hearing the songs today fully over my own brain’s cognitive dissonance. I can’t say I was shocked—more surprised, or maybe vice versa… In 2017 I’d written a painful fever-dream of a piece spiritually linking Ye and Trump. I was selfishly pleased my piece had found accidental prescience. Still though, I thought to myself, as Kanye last week gloatingly recounted liberals’ reactions, “Just, no, man…”
What does Kanye’s switch to MAGA-land signify? Shortly after the overwhelming backlash, Kanye tweeted that he didn’t intend for his “statement” to promote hateful politics. That sounds like a chickenshit evasion, and it is. But I don’t think the hat has to do with whatever politics Kanye has nowadays. And (now) I don’t think it’s the bromance of two spiritually depraved monsters. Kanye collapsed and is recovering in his own (arguably wrong) manner. Trump’s not a “good narcissist.” He’ll keep feeding on others forever. His psychic damage is so vast and malignant it’s devoured the Republic itself to keep fed. Trump’s got the power in their weird, mortifying friendship. Look at the pictures, and Ye is near crying in Trump’s arms like he’s embracing some long-lost father. Recovery isn’t always politically correct. And its manifestations need not be applauded. Ye’s politics, like those of most people, are bound up more in weird psychosexual tensions than in rationality. In our age of hyper-affect, reactionary politics provide homeostasis for many. For the leftists of r/stupidpol and Red Scare, I’d wager voting for Trump would be a downright therapeutic experience. Maybe in considering Kanye, the “irl” Left can start to square up with horrifying shit like that.
For what little it’s worth, Kanye is regaining his voice. The gospel framework vibes with themes past. But Jesus is King doesn’t have any tracks like “Jesus Walks.” Ye has lost the energy to bridge America’s spiritual divide. He’s taken residence in one of the opposing camps. Pop fans (of all political bents) won’t get back the uniting Ye of College Dropout. He’s warped, scarred now. He’s lost the cultural limelight and lots of fans. But that loss is payment for the opportunity to be real. I hate what “real” is in his case—and all “realities” are decidedly not morally equivalent. But even as a broke-ass leftist Millennial—I have to feel for the guy, on a human level. I mean shit, that’s me. The story here is bigger than Ye’s self-sabotaging partisan stances. His imperfect redemption is contingent, flawed, messy— a lot like everyday life.
Ye is still on his whack grandiose streak. “I’m undoubtedly the greatest artistic human who ever lived.” Right… But the fever, the truly evil sickness on intra/interpersonal level, I think, is past. Compared to 2013, he’s a (relatively) harmless old guy at the retirement home talking big and hitting on the nurses. He’s often a creep. I wouldn’t take his word or follow him if my life depended on it. But in his craziness he’s found a certain serenity. If he sticks to his lane, perhaps it’s best to just let him be. Learn from Trump, and let his 2024 Presidential bid pass without much excitement or comment. In my heart, I hope Kanye grows into the crazy eccentric guy living alone on the edge of town, whittling woodwork, paying off karmic debt…
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Sometimes in life you wake up and find yourself alone, shunned. There’s blood on your hands. Your own, another’s?—it’s hard to tell. Probably both. Your community has exiled you. They were right in doing so, to keep you from hurting yourself and others. The last thing you remember—how long ago?—was the calamity. Somehow that event brought you here. It’ll take a lifetime connecting the dots. But you start again. You use the tools immediately in front of you, broken as they are. The home you build is an offense to the neighborhood. It’s okay though. It’ll do for now. You’re exactly where you need to be.
NOTES
1 See Kristin Dombek’s The Selfishness of Others on the pitfalls of seeing narcissism in everything. The term’s overused as a catch-all for behavior we don’t like. Still, I think it can be useful in understanding one’s own falseness, and sometimes in understanding the pain of others…
2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEIceHIxvtI