“It is important that we question the nature of reality and how we regulate ourselves, the policeman in our own head.”
Russell Brand said those words, reflecting on, of all things, Kanye West's intriguing interview over the summer on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Ye has continued to mystify and frustrate America as of late, but I think, like Brand, it's worth taking a closer look back.
I learned about Kanye West when someone told me he rapped his first single, "Through the Wire" while his jaw was wired shut from a near-fatal car-crash. And, like plenty of others, I've been a fan since.
How could you not like an artist that gives Zach Galifianakis the spotlight in a cornfield for his music video "Can't Tell Me Nothing"? Or that samples Will Ferrell in Blades of Glory for the mega-hit "Niggas in Paris" with Jay-Z?
Kanye's hyper-aggressive Yeezus was something else. It was a record I'm sure our grandparents would say is the work of the devil. He was an artist pushing every limit.
Vox did an amazing piece of how Kanye West has changed the game of hip-hop and all sorts of music highlighting the most powerful element: the human voice.
And with all that being said, even before that fateful car crash and risk-taking debut, Kanye started making beats because he had a video game idea featuring a penis hero and vagina ghosts. That made me like him more.
But of course it's clear Kanye is not always making sense to everyone. How can he? He is an artist after all. And more and more we're noticing how his mental health affects that art.
Russell Brand of all people brought this to my attention with a YouTube segment he calls Trews: True News. Brand studies Kanye West on the late night talk show appearance, or as one YouTube commenter wrote, Brand "David Attenboroughed Kanye West".
Like Brand, the fact that Kanye endorses Trump interests me less than what he says about reality itself. Kanye says, "We get too caught up in the past and what everyone is saying and what everyone is tweeting and sometimes you just have to be fearless enough to break the fucking simulation." Russell Brand wonders if this is like The Matrix. Is Kanye seeing or questioning something we're not?
Kanye explains:
“Simulation: A 2 year old jumps on a coffee table and someone says ‘That’s a coffee table, don’t jump on that.’ So it went from something that makes him feel like Superman, he’s got his cape on. He’s 2 years old, he doesn’t give a fuck about a coffee or a table, and he’s starting to calculate all these things and by the time you’re 40 years old, you’ve got a wall full of coffee tables calculating you into traffic, calculating you into your career choice.”