The G.O.O.D, The Bad, and The Kanye
The G.O.O.D, The Bad, and The Kanye
Or: How Kanye West's DONDA Listening Experience Pushed Me Further To The Left
I wasn’t expecting to attend Kanye West’s DONDA listening party/concert/mega church service/whatever the hell you want to call it on August 16th, 2021. I did initially buy a ticket to be fair, but I did so for the explicit purpose of flipping it to a hypebeast to ensure I would have enough funds to not have to choose between paying rent or having food. I'm normally not big on resale culture, but the bills gotta get paid somehow especially when you’re used to living paycheck to paycheck. So once the deed was done and the bag was secured, I was perfectly content with spending my Thursday evening just lounging around in my apartment cooking dinner and watching anime like I normally do. Then I got blessed.
On the day of the event, a colleague of mine who could no longer attend the event offered to give away her ticket, pro Bono. I viewed the opportunity as fate, and accepted. While a part of me was initially looking forward to not going just because of the strong feeling in my gut that I would come out of it with a headache due to Ye’s tendency to stir controversy whenever he can, there’s still a part of me who’s listened Kanye as my all-time favorite artist since I was seven years old. His art had played such a key role in the transformative years of my life, that In high school I used to be one of those guys who made being a Ye Stan my personality. In the past, whenever he would be in the news for his usual brand of outlandish takes and behavior, I would come to his defense as if a grown-ass man (who doesn’t even know I exist) making more money than I could ever imagine would actually need the help from a nerdy teen like myself in order to make a living. It wasn’t until the last few years though where that his behavior just became absolutely indefensible for me, namely his backing for a vehemently fascist and vile human being like Donald Trump and other far-right talking heads like Candace Owens, all in the name of “free thinking” and pushing back against social norms (which really doesn’t make much sense considering the norms of this country is already rooted in white supremacist-capitalist-patricarchy, but I digress).
Going against the grain is generally fine and dandy in my book, except when it comes at the cost of supporting a mindset that actively abuses and punishes people for simply existing with an already marginalized identity, whether it be for their immigration status, gender identity, or skin color. Despite the existential dilemma I was presented with, I figured “fuck it, might as well see what’s to this.” Can’t properly critique something without knowing the proper context of it, amirite? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Upon arriving at Soldier Field and making my way toward the entrance, I noticed a homeless man sitting on the steps asking for change. I also saw the hundreds of people walking past him because they were in such a hurry to get to their seats in time for an artist who doesn’t even drop his albums when he says they’ll drop, let alone starting his shows promptly. Depending on just how long the man had been sitting there, anywhere between a couple hundred to tens of thousands of people could have walked past him, not even so much as acknowledging his existence at all. People definitely definitely could’ve afforded to give him some throwaway money if they bought tickets to witness one of the largest spectacles of capitalism and celebrity decadence since, well, any of the previous times Kanye rolled out an album in the last decade. I know we’re all conditioned to walk past these people on the daily, especially with how prevalent it is to not carry cash these days as currency is shifting to become entirely digital. I had even just received a notification from the crypto investing group chat I’m in that the market was expecting to see a pump any day now, which just goes to show I’m just as guilty of participating (and thus keeping alive) the late stage of capitalism we’re currently living in. I’m not heavily invested in crypto to be honest and I actually despise the concept of it all, but similar to how I originally flipped the ticket I bought for this event in the first place, it’s helped me make ends meet, something that I know the homie on the steps was just trying to do himself. Taking in everything that was happening around me at that moment, I grabbed my wallet and gave him $3, which was all the hard cash I had leftover from grocery shopping the day before. He was highly appreciative of the gesture, we dapped up, and I told him Godspeed.
I turned my back toward him, and made my way through the security gates. The following are my observations on the events that unfolded.
The G.O.O.D:
Once I was finally inside, I saw a plethora of different types of people walking all around me; old heads wearing church clothes to teenagers in Off-White, BAPE or Supreme to hood dudes wearing true religion jeans and air forces 1s to rich people wearing designer clothes I can’t pronounce or even recognize. I saw virtually every type of person and creed in that stadium. So often people try to pinpoint stereotypical Ye fans as one type of person, which is usually as some hypebeast from the suburbs. In reality, there is no ONE type of person who enjoys his music. Demographically speaking, everyone loves Kanye’s music. This is just an observational fact of the matter.
A friend of mine was sitting not too far from my section so I figured to say wassup real quick to him. As soon as I got near him, the light in the stadium immediately darkened and everyone started to cheer in anticipation that the show would start now… except it didn’t. Even though I wasn’t at my ticketed seat, the seats next to homie were free so I plopped down anyway. There were a few more premature fakeouts where the audience would cheer into a standing ovation thinking the show would start whenever a shadowy figure they assumed was Ye emerged from one of the tunnels on the side of the field, just for it to be a stage worker making sure everything was in place. In the center of everything was the most unique stage set-up I’ve ever seen: a replica of Kanye’s childhood home standing on a large dirt pile with a crucifix adorning the roof encircled by large speakers. At one point, perhaps due to the audience growing more restless after waiting close to an hour past the listed start time, repeated chants of “Yeezy” filled the stadium which made me feel like I was in a weird dystopian version of the movie Gladiator. Obsessive celebrity culture always leaves feeling a bit uneasy, but I just sometimes forget just how much people really fucking love Kanye West. It’s understandable though. As I mentioned earlier, I was an overzealous fan myself for the majority of my lifetime before settling into a casual music listener of his for the sake of my mental health after consistently being disappointed by his personal antics the last few years. I wouldn’t be who I am today without his music being an integral part of my life’s soundtrack, and I still very much appreciate his musical contributions to the world, but nowadays I opt to give the energy I once gave him to lesser known artists that deserve it.
After waiting for more than an hour and a half for the show to start after it’s start time of 9pm, someone near me said “At this point, I’ll believe it when I actually hear music.” Then, like clockwork, a woman’s voice just ominously repeated “Donda'' on the speakers, and the crowd erupted. The show was finally starting as a video montage of Kanye’s late mother played on the jumbotron screens before the album’s lead song “Jail” started playing and Ye stepped out on the front porch of the house. All black vehicles and dudes in all black fatigues began to march out the tunnels from the sides of the field and started doing laps. As Ye crooned via autotune over guitar riffs saying “Guess who’s going to Jail tonight,” I was transported to the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy era, my personal favorite album of his. Then, for some reason, DaBaby’s voice started playing on the song as DaBaby himself also stepped onto the front porch. I shit you not, the audience literally boo’d during this moment. (note: Kanye would sure enough end up cutting this version of the song from the final album before including it again as a bonus on the deluxe version)
Other than that lone verse though, the album is actually impeccable. Kanye knows how to make good music, man. His previous self-titled album Ye was a bit of a disappointment for me, but DONDA felt like he got his groove back. It felt like the Kanye West I grew up listening to non-stop as a shorty was back, I’m not gonna lie. There were multiple times throughout the night where I just closed my eyes and blocked everything happening around me out, as I just nodded my head and listened to the music as if I was listening to it alone in my room. Sonically speaking, I knew what I was listening to was just special. Whether the song that was playing had an aggressive drill-style beat with Fivio Foreign rapping his ass off in “Off The Grid” or the sweet-like-honey Fugees sample on “Believe What I Say” or one of the many heavenly gospel tracks that could lift spirits back to life.
My personal highlight of the night was when the show took a brief detour from playing DONDA in order to play the song of the summer in “GD Anthem” by Rooga. Rooga popped out the house as everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in the stadium turned up. I saw beautiful women throwing up the forks and white dudes with long blond hair headbanging like they were at a rock show. The guys on the field that were previously running laps stopped what they were doing and started dancing too. A young lady that was next to me asked if that was 21 Savage that was playing and I was just like nah, and she just shrugged and started vibing. Rooga getting shine was definitely cool for me to see, and hopefully we’ll get to see more of him in 2022.
Overall, Kanye is a master at orchestrating sound and bringing out the best in his collaborators. My favorite feature was definitely Westside Gunn who absolutely FLOATED on “Keep My Spirit Alive.” I was doing the stank face beneath my mask the entire time during his verse. Other standouts for me include Baby Keem— who I firmly believe to be the future face of music and his feature on “Praise God” solidified it— as well as the ever elusive and pious Jay Electronica, and fellow hometown hero Lil Durk. My favorite song was probably the Roddy Ricch assisted “Pure Souls,” which felt like the perfect balance between turn-up and spiritual hymn as Kanye raps about how he grew up going to flea markets to buy bootleg clothes to now being able to theoretically give a dollar to every person on earth with thanks to his billionaire-status (side note: it’s certainly a weird flex to rap about having enough wealth to donate it to everyone on earth but opts to hoard it instead but we’ll get to that later). The sole woman artist featured on the album, a dancehall artist from the UK named Shenseea, comes in at the end of the “Pure Souls” to deliver an absolutely beautiful outro that stirred something within me on a spiritual level.
The Bad:
(Deep sigh) Marilyn Manson, dude? Really? I’ll admit, I was unaware of the allegations against Marilyn Manson at the time of the actual event. The only things I knew about him at the time is his song “The Beautiful People '' thanks to my time growing up listening to Q101 on the radio, and that he supposedly removed part of his rib cage to give himself fellatio thanks to spending too much time on the internet. When I first saw him on that front porch, I wasn’t even sure if that was him at first. I just turned to my friend beside me and said “Aye, is that Marilyn Manson?” and they just said yeah. I thought it was weird to have Marilyn Manson up there for no real discernible reason at the time but literally everything about the entire event was weird for no discernible reason so I just shrugged it off. Then I found out the next day he had a multitude of cases against him for sexual assault. Throw in the fact that Kanye also had replaced Jay-Z’s verse on “Jail” with DaBaby and had him join him on the stage just a couple weeks removed from his recent controversy over homophobic comments he made at Rolling Loud that ensued in him losing festival placements, as well as having Don Toliver, who also became the subject of a recent sexual assault allegation about 2 or 3 weeks prior to the event, it seems to me that Kanye brought the Allegations Alliance together in order to make some type of anti-cancel culture statement. This is merely speculation though, since he has yet to make any type of public statement addressing it.
The idea of embracing those who have been scrutinized publicly for their opinion or way of thinking can be admirable on paper, had he chosen those whose view points are actually admirable. If I’m being honest, this is really what’s most troubling to me in regards to who our society gives blind praise to. Kanye certainly knows a thing or two about being “canceled.” Among the video montages of footage that played on the stadium screens, clips of Ye’s famous “George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People” moment was among them. Kanye at that time was harshly scrutinized for merely pointing out the obvious: the role of the U.S. president is more of an imperialist-in-charge than a leader of the people. So it makes sense that he would align himself with people who experience similar backlash for challenging the status quo. However, to align yourself with people whose views/actions directly dehumanize and harm the lived experiences of others, quite simply, is not it. There certainly are people in this society who have been unfairly punished for pushing back against the norm. One that immediately comes to mind is journalist Marc Lamont Hill who got fired from his job at CNN for endorsing the freedom of Palestine from the apartheid state of Israel. Hill also has debated Candace Owens before, so it might be safe to assume that Ye is at the very least somewhat familiar with him. Why not align himself with a man who advocates for the liberation of oppressed people from the clutches of tyranny similar to the once young Mr. West who got on national live television to do the same thing against the U.S. government’s blatant disregard of it’s own Black citizens?
One might think that Kanye, who felt Nike disrespected him by not giving him his royalties simply because he’s not a professional athlete, and who also was one of the first rappers to denounce homophobia in hip-hop in the mid-2000s, might reach out to Lil Nas X. The openly gay artist has faced pushback from the moment he arrived on the scene, first for his hip-hop fusion country song that was removed from the country billboard charts for no real reason other than the fact that the anthem was too “urban” (which we all know is code for Black) to be deemed country, a genre which is predominantly white and conservative. This is a minor infraction compared to his more recent controversy that comes from releasing a music video for his single “Call Me By Your Name” that features him giving Satan a lap dance which had conservative talking heads going BALLISTIC. Tied to the video as well was a limited edition sneaker release that Lil Nas X coordinated by customizing Nike shoes that featured a drop of his actual blood embedded in them. Nike ended up suing. But nah. Instead he opted to invite DaBaby. DaBaby doesn’t even make good music anymore bro lmao so like what the fuck. And before one says that Ye wouldn’t invite someone who used satanic imagery as marketing, this is a reminder that he had Marilyn Manson up there head bobbing to the GD Anthem.
I know these are all meaningless hypotheticals. What's done is done, so we now can only reflect on it. I only bring attention to his choice of friends because they say you are the company you keep. So when you strip away the glitz, glamour and legacy of Kanye and his art, and he’s just a man on his front porch with his “friends” of questionable morality, just what does that exactly make him then? What does that make us for watching?
The Kanye:
The amount of times I’ve brought these observations of mine to others during the process of writing this essay, only to be met with responses from those wanting to advocate on behalf of the devil and say “I separate the art from the artist” or “We don’t know him personally so how can we judge?” is bothersome. For one thing, I can separate the art from the artist. The entire first section of this essay gives praise to the body of work that Ye delivered. It’s truly an impeccable listening experience. However, just because someone can deliver a phenomenal piece of art should not absolve them of the valid criticism for the harm they’ve caused to others. Second, observations should not be misconstrued with unfair judgements. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then I’m sure as hell not gonna act like it’s a white fucking dove of purity. To many, Kanye West is one of the most brilliant and important creative minds of our time. To others, Kanye West is a narcissist in need of aggressive psychiatric therapy. What I am simply trying to offer is the idea that both of these things can be true at the same time.
Ye is merely symbolic of an overarching existential dread that hangs over us all. I’m unsure if I want to live in a world where addressing the obvious flaws in society is met with a “just shut up and enjoy the show” and/or laissez faire attitude. I don't wanna live in a world where people are more concerned about looking good than doing good. I'm tired of the people hoarding most of the wealth in this world, which in turn causes conditions that are killing us due to lack of equitable funding still being praised for any morsels they give back in the name of tax write-offs disguised as philanthropy. We’re almost two full years into a pandemic that still continues to kill thousands of people globally everyday. Climate change is accelerating at an aggressively fast rate while billionaires and the corporations directly responsible for almost ¾ of the world ‘s CO2 emissions are having pissing contests over who can colonize space first instead of using funds to end hunger and malnutrition in the United States (which would only cost an estimated $25 Billion— roughly 9% of Jeff Bezos’ and Elon Musk’s combined net worth). Kanye says he can give a dollar to everyone on earth, but instead invests his time and resources to create a grand spectacle that is just a distraction of all the fucked up shit that happens on the daily as a result of capitalist interests syphoning funds away from the public good and into the pockets of billionaires like West, Musk, and Bezos.
The best ways to make a profit in this country comes from selling one of two things: religion and dreams. Kanye has mastered the art of selling both, and DONDA, in all of its musical and holy glory, is really the embodiment of just that. The listening parties he held for the album may have inspired listeners to do something greater with their creative endeavors for sure, as art generally has that type of power, but did it truly offer anything else to us other than an entertaining escape from our grim reality for 1 hour and 47 minutes? I mean at one point the man set himself on fire while wearing a fireproof suit and I briefly thought that we all just witnessed an elaborate suicide just for the flames to be extinguished as he walked down the dirt pile to the waiting arms of Kim Kardashian wearing an wedding dress that probably costs more money than most people’s yearly salary. Did mfs really just pay money to be witnesses for an elaborate ass wedding vow renewal?
At what point do we start holding Mr. West accountable for genuine harm he’s caused simply by taking the side of the oppressor? When do we start holding the oppressors responsible for upholding this depraved economic system accountable? When do we start holding ourselves accountable for allowing the spectacle to go on? What the fuck does accountability even begin to look like???? These are all questions I raise, only because I genuinely don’t know the answer, and I ask them with the hope that someone somewhere out there does. No one is perfect, yes, but to try and shield those already in power from valid criticisms as if they are infallible beings for the products they spend money to produce is just plain disgusting
I just know it’s not right. It’s not right that a 60,000 seat stadium is packed for a sold out show that’s being live-streamed for the world to see all the while there are people forgotten by the rest of society sleeping on park benches just outside the venue’s doors. People can’t even be bothered to give as much as a dollar to a homeless man, but are so eager and willing to throw hundreds of dollars from our hard earned, over-exploited labor to an eccentric billionaire making himself the center of the pop culture universe for one night in Chicago. Throughout the evening, different Bible verses were displayed on the jumbotron. I took note of these verses so I can go back home and look them up. Most of them were pretty typical words of encouragement that I was used to hearing growing up in a Christian household. I am curious though to know what is Kanye’s take on one of my personal favorite verses, Mark 10:23-25, from the parable of “The Rich and The Kingdom of God”:
23Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
24The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Had every person in Soldier Field that night simply given the man sitting on the steps that I mentioned at the start of this essay a dollar, he easily could have lifted himself out of whatever situation he was in. Instead that cash flow was directed to someone who already has enough bread to last 100 lifetimes. So what does it say about us then about the people we choose to uplift in this society merely because we’re fans of what they produce, regardless of their morally questionable actions? What does that say about where our priorities lie? Truth be told, I think we’re all guilty of the same crimes as the ones I’ve been accusing Ye of. Once again, I want to reiterate that in this essay, Kanye is merely just a symbol of an entire culture that values profit and power over people and peace. It is this Western-Capitalist culture as a whole that is the true target of my ire and rage. We are not perfect, and there's nothing wrong with that. But they say that an apology without change is just manipulation (not that Ye or his team of the Accusation Avengers have offered one). In this sense, I think we've all manipulated ourselves into believing that everything is fine, when deep down we all know it's not.
At the time of attending this spectacle and writing this essay, I had just finished Junji Ito’s Manga adaptation of the famous Japanese novel No Longer Human, which kinda helped me process my thoughts after attending the DONDA listening session. The story follows a young man who experiences severe repeated trauma at an early age, and grows up to become a prototypical starving artist. Due to his trauma, he develops a dependency on drugs and alcohol, mistreats the women in his life, and whenever it seems like he’s gonna turn the corner and learn from his ways, he relapses.
Of the many themes this story addresses, one of them is that society is merely just the individual in constant conflict with one another, while pretending that said conflict doesn’t exist. The rate at which our society (and us as individuals) operate under the illusion of normalcy, which quite literally goes against our own collective best interest, makes me uncomfortable because it also makes me feel overwhelmingly powerless. Everything can be so simple, yet nothing in this plane of reality ever seems to make sense. The fact that I even dedicated this much energy into writing an essay about a singular event that may very well have no impact on the grand scheme of the universe other than providing us with a temporary dopamine rush almost makes me sick, yet it’s the only thing I know how to do. It’s the only thing that can help me make sense of anything.
So, after all the flashing lights that I witnessed on that fateful Thursday night, my biggest takeaway from it all can best be described using the final words that close out the story of No Longer Human:
“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness… Everything passes.”
Edited by Jack Riedy
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