BY COLE WHITE | Opinion Editor | Kanye West: even the mention of his name can spark outrage, as if he’s the Donald Trump of Hip-Hop. It’s all for good reason. He’s an egotistical, megalomaniacal, pretentious clown.
But to be honest, I still enjoy his music.
I know numerous people who hate his work based solely on conviction. He interrupted Taylor Swift. He spouts crazy thoughts on twitter like “give me $53 million” or “Bill Cosby innocent.” He’s generally an unlikeable guy. Yet his albums continue to be critical darlings.
The sad truth is that his unlikableness is something that, in this day and age, we’re going to have to get used to. We have to get used to it because we live in the social media age, where egos are stoked by “likes” and “shares” and it’s much harder for artists to hide their own unpleasantness.
Kanye’s antics aren’t anything new—great art often comes from terrible people. Here’s a short list.
Charles Dickens is a world renowned and beloved author. He dumped his wife for an 18-year-old mistress after she had the gall to get fat.
Steven Tyler of Aerosmith was a rock god. He also took legal custody of an underage fan so he could have sex with her.
Dr. Dre founded the groundbreaking group N.W.A. Then he savagely beat a female reporter and attempted to throw her down a flight of stairs for having the audacity to interview Ice Cube.
Johnny Cash is a country music legend. He also set fire to a national forest, which ended up killing half the endangered California Condor population.
Chuck Berry was one of the greatest guitar players of all time. He also really enjoyed videotaping women in the bathroom.
Want more? Dr. Suess hated kids. John Lennon was a neglectful father and hit women. Elvis Presley was really into underage girls. John Wayne was, unsurprisingly, incredibly racist.
Suddenly interrupting a Grammy speech seems pretty tame.
Yet I’ll still listen to “Imagine” or “Folsom Prison Blues.” I’ll still read “A Christmas Carol” and watch “The Searchers.” I’ll still enjoy them because they are still great works.
How do all of those people get a pass? They had the good fortune to become famous before the internet age. The saving grace for most of our beloved artists is that they never had the ability to tweet their crazy horribleness to millions of followers at the flick of a wrist.
I’m not going to say that Kanye deserves any less scorn and derision for his public antics.
What I will say is that at least Kanye is completely upfront about his terribleness.
Artists are just people. Some are worse than others. Kanye may be an insufferable person, but he’s still great at what he does.
Art is a service like anything else. We just want to be entertained. If a Kanye song comes on in the club, you may whisper a snide remark but you’re still going to dance to it. It’s the same reason you don’t ask whether your mechanic is, for example, racist. You just want him to fix your car.
The internet has changed everything. And the fans are going to have to adapt to that. Eventually we’re going to have to decide if we’re able to separate the creator from what they create. We have to ask if we can differentiate the entities. If we can’t, we may run out of art to enjoy.