Topic: Kanye West

I guess the reason why I never joined the legion of faceless voices on the Internet and hated on Kanye is because I always felt that my bitter hatred could be directed at more deserving targets - its sort of like the Michael Vick situation, sure what he did was wrong and he should be punished to the fullest extend of the law(blah, blah) - but as long as there is a Jena Six out there, a war going on, and deaths rates around the country are skyrocketing, I just can't get myself all riled up over some dead dogs.(Maybe the fact that I'm not an animal person contributes to that, well - I am down for a good old fashioned Tijuana Donkey-show though!)

But honestly, since Kanye seems to truly love the art-form of Hip Hop - I always gave his incessant babbling and him being a whining malcontent a pass, I see diamond encrusted smiles and "phone-it-in" rap verses to be more of a hell-worthy trespass considering the current Hip Hop landscape. Besides, I sort of dig his album - him being on some Frank Sinatra "I'm doing it my way" shit, the way you can tell by listening that he won't allow any of his guests outshine him, even the way that the only time Mos Def is used is on a song called "Drunk and Hot Girls"(Brilliant I say, letting all those women who feel that cats like Mos and Common walk on water - at the end of the day, they wanna fuck too ladies!)

But if you want to really see how low Hip Hop journalism has actually sunk(as if it was ever stellar to begin with), just read a few of the reviews for "Graduation" - sure most of them are glowing, but it seems that all of the reviewers feel comfortable in saying that Kanye's lyrics are his greatest weakness which I find interesting. Sure, he isn't Rakim - but the source of that criticism is rather interesting when you do some research on the writer in particular and find out that they once sang the lyrical praises of cats like Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne, and Chamillionaire. Writers can't treat Hip Hop like its the fucking special Olympics, giving the glass licking microphone wielders a medal just for completing a coherent sentence to a beat but penalize the able-bodied MC for not living up to your lofty lyrical standards? What part of the game is that exactly? Get the fuck outta here!