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The deep stories behind the controversial artists’ music
The deep stories behind the controversial artists’ music
By Kaya F.
By Kaya F.
Kanye West performing during The Saint Pablo Tour in New York City. - Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
It’s no secret that Kanye West - now more formally known as Ye - has gone through many ups and downs in his music career. Throughout this, Kanye provides fans insight into his feelings and what he goes through with lyrics in many of his songs and albums.
Firstly, an example of this is his famous album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (MBDTF). After Kanyes’ 2009 VMA (Video Music Awards) incident with Taylor Swift, he was universally hated and despised, receiving many harsh comments online. Kanye took a long vacation to find himself and write an album. He created MBDTF to show the darker side of being a celebrity, being in the spotlight, and how he feels about himself and his mistakes. In West's song, Runaway, in this album, his lyrics say:
"Never was much of a romantic
I could never take the intimacy
And I know it did damage
Cause the look in your eyes is killin' me”
These lyrics are Kanye expressing his fear and inability to commit to relationships fully. He talks about how due to his high opinion of himself, he will likely never change his personality no matter how much he loves someone, and nobody will ever be good enough for him. Therefore, his lyrics speak volumes and are a message that women who want genuine relationships should “run away” and men who want a genuine friendship should “run away” because he doesn’t want to hurt them because he knows he is - as he says in the song - a jerk and more.
Moreover, I Love Kanye, released in 2016, was a song in the album The Life of Pablo after Kanye was beginning to be seen as a controversial figure. Many said all over social media “I miss the old Kanye” as he was seen to get more problematic. This song was a response to show that he knows that people miss the old Kanye but he can’t go back because he's completely gone. This song was a reference to his ego combined with how he's changed. However, he doesn't talk about the new Kanye. In this song, he mocks old fans by repeating what they say:
“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”
Much of Kanye’s music is also dedicated to his dead mother, Dr. Donda C. West, to show his appreciation for her. Before she passed away, West spoke of Donda in an interview with MTV: "This is my mother. I love her. She is my best friend in the whole world. "My mother let me work on music, she helped me out, and she used to drive me to the studio. She was really my first manager,” telling viewers how much she means to him. Unfortunately, Donda passed away after undergoing cosmetic surgery, and West’s albums: Donda and Donda 2 as well as his songs Only One and Hey Mama are dedicated to her and were used as a way to cope with her death.
Only One is about Kanye's mother who speaks to him in his dreams after she passed away. "As I lay her down to sleep, I hear her sing to me." Kanye is going to sleep and he starts hearing his mother speak to him. She says "Hello Mari how you doing?" (Mari is his mother's nickname for Kanye). For the rest of the song, it's just his Mother speaking to him. Nori is a nickname for Kanye's daughter, North. The line "Tell Nori about me" is Kanye's mother asking him for a favor and to tell North about her and the advice and words she is trying to tell him like "Remember who you are, no you're not perfect, but you're not your mistakes".
It is clear that after Donda’s death, Ye started to struggle a lot. He changed his name from Kanye West to Ye to symbolize his new character and released an intense and personal album about his mental issues, called Ye. Ye was released on June 1st, 2018, and is mostly focused on his Bipolar disorder (BPD), as seen on the album cover.
Kanye West and his mother together during the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards on August 29, 2004 - Frank Micelotta/Getty Images
Rapper Kanye West’s album cover of Ye - GOOD/Def Jam
Alexis Petridis for The Guardian wrote the album “...packs a lot into 23 minutes. It is bold, risky, infuriating, compelling, and a little exhausting: a vivid reflection of its author." It was also described as "an album about Kanye's state of mind, his family, and a narration of what's been going on in his shaky a** year.”
A song from this album that encapsulates the meaning of the album is its opening song - I Thought About Killing You. This track is filled with screams and deals with heavy themes of death and violence as this is something that happens in his mind a lot regarding his illnesses. He also shares his dark and deep thoughts through the lyrics:
“Today, I seriously thought about killing you
I contemplated, premeditated murder
And I think about killing myself
And I love myself way more than I love you, so…”
Overall, we can conclude that despite the easiness of disliking Kanye after all his scandals over the years, his lyrics speak for themselves, teaching people lessons, revealing the hard struggles of many people’s everyday life, and spreading awareness about topics many go through, and this is an inspiration to many and will stay in history - just like he said:
“I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice,” - Kanye West, November 13, 2022.
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