At this point in my life, I’ve learned better than to idolize any man. I can’t even count the amount of times I found myself disappointed by them. But despite my disappointments, I always found myself turning to one man, Kanye Omari West. There has never been a time where I felt like I couldn’t find solace in the almighty lyrics of Ye. I wouldn’t call him my hero, but I definitely accredit him with helping me find the meaning of true self and helping me discover how to maximize my struggle by chasing my dreams and ensuring I get the best outcome. The musical genius that is Kanye has given us many gifts, All Falls Down, The Glory, Spaceship, and I Wonder just to name a few. My connection to Kanye goes way beyond lyrics and 808 beats, and moves to a more personal level. I identify with him. For me, he represents a larger picture. He grew up on the southside, and grinded out everyday to make it out of there, just like me. I acknowledge that, and more importantly, I respect that. As far as I’m concerned, Kanye has really been the only person truly from the Go that has come up from the black Chicago experience and actually put the city on the map. Of course there’s Common and now Chance and Vic are getting some traction, but Kanye for the longest was THE face of Chicago hip-hop. I feel like that’s why I’ve always taken on this “defend Kanye at all costs” attitude. But when he went off the rail with his comments about the election, defending him became extremely difficult to do. Before he spoke out about the election I had always been the one to stand up against people who dismiss him as crazy, but honestly, I ran out of excuses.
When I first watched the video of him saying he would’ve voted for Trump, I found myself sitting on my bed not being able to speak for a minute. For the first time, Kanye actually disappointed me. Of course he’s said some things in the past that I don’t agree with but they never stung me like that. Because of the hatred that Donald Trump and his “campaign” represented, it just felt like a slap in the face that Kanye could ever say this. But the reality of it was that Kanye did actually say this. The video shows him stating it as clear as day. It was no surprise to me that as soon as the video hit the internet Black Twitter was baking Kanye. I was seeing tweets left and right from saying “We’re giving him to the white people in the next racial draft,” to the infamous “He’s cancelled.” That was a rough moment for me because for the first time I could not participate in the Black Twitter festivities. No matter how disappointed I felt, I couldn’t bash Kanye.
Fast forward about a month or so and Kanye has now since deleted all of his pro-Trump tweets. I’m assuming it’s from all the backlash that he initially received. But if deleting his tweets was his way of apologizing, I’m not accepting it. I don’t even think a verbal apology at this point would elicit my forgiveness. That day, Kanye hurt me on a personal level. It was for the first time that day that I Kanye did more than just push the envelop, he took it extremely too far. Kanye was supposed to be one of us, a southsider, for a lack of a better term, a real n-word. And with the way Donald Trump talks about Chicago, and characterizes all its black habitants as thugs it just felt like he turned his back on all us that he spent the first few years of his career shouting out. He turned his back on me, and that hurt my heart. His music is feeds my soul, but in my opinion, his actions contradicted everything his music stands for, especially his earlier songs. I thought I’d be defending him until the end, but I couldn’t defend that.
So yeah, he might have deleted the tweets and the video may be long forgotten by Black Twitter, but I can’t move past that. I’m still hurt.
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