Remember when Kanye was good?

With every week there seems to be another shitty/tragic chapter in the ongoing fall of Kanye (I suppose I should be calling him Ye officially now, but nah). So, why write about someone who’s basically gone full Nazi? Well, he’s still one of my all-time favourites and he was pretty consistently great for about 15 years.

Before we get to the music, I did want to write a bit about his decline because it is bizarrely fascinating. Kanye was always a controversial character, but it never felt malicious. It was either him being a ‘jackass’ (to quote Obama), with the likes of the Taylor Swift stuff, which was pretty shitty behaviour but ultimately felt quite trivial. Or something like ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’, which felt like him ‘fighting the power’ and highlighting real issues.

There was always a sense that he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. But as he attained increasing success, I got the sense that some of that energy became a bit mis-directed. There were his issues with the fashion industry as he got more involved in that world. I’m sure there was barriers he faced, but a really successful man essentially complaining that he felt he should have more power didn’t feel like a particularly meaningful cause. But things like that were fairly easy to brush over.

2016 was where things really started to go wrong. When your favourite artists face criticism or do something wrong, there can be an instinct to defend them or look for the innocent explanation. In 2016 that became a bit more difficult, but not quite impossible. The ‘slavery was a choice’ thing undoubtedly came across poorly, but it felt more like Kanye grasping at an idea that he didn’t quite express right, rather than being malicious. Even the red cap, Trump support stuff felt partly like Kanye being a natural contrarian, and partly a false sense that Trump represented a rebellion against conventional power structures, rather than the reality of him pretty much embodying them. But with the descent into outright anti-semitism, these sort of excuses and ‘yeah, but mental health issues’ don’t really cut it anymore.

What I find so bizarre is the contrast between Kanye and the figures in the weird right-wing world he seems to have fallen into. These talentless controversialist-types whose whole persona is basically their grift, that’s their money-maker. Or really flawed, un-masculine men who role-play as alpha-males to overcompensate for their shortcomings. But Kanye was a massively commercially and critically successful artist in his field, was pretty successful in the likes of his fashion side-projects, and was married to one of the hottest women in the world. He was a legit success story. And he basically gave it up so he could say fucked up stuff and hang about with racist incel dorks.

Anyway, that’s my take on the fall of Kanye, but this is a music blog so let’s move on.

Kanye West – Never Let Me Down feat. Jay-Z & J.Ivy

The song I wanted to talk about is from his 2004 debut album. I’d call it a classic, but it’s also arguably a deep-cut. It never got a single release and therefore isn’t as well-known as the hits from the album. It works as a kind of companion to one of those hits, ‘Jesus Walks’, with similar religious subject matter, and the fade out of that song actually segues into the opening of this.

I previously wrote, in a review of Kendrick Lamar, about how the best artists can somehow make the un-relatable feel relatable. And that applies here. The song touches on drawing strength from religious beliefs, which really holds no interest or relevance to me, particularly back as a 15 year-old in North-East England when I first heard it. But this song breaks through that, the experiences and convictions expressed feel powerful and you can connect to it, without directly relating to it.

Kanye only actually has one verse here, with features from Jay-Z and J.Ivy. Kanye’s strength was never particularly in being a technically-great rapper, although he did often have some of the best lines and was just more interesting than most of his peers. His strength was the all-round package he brought, with his production skills, plus his eye for talent and knowing where they could shine. This song is a good example of that.

The chorus is a sample of ‘Maybe it’s the Power of Love’ by American rock band, Blackjack (who featured Michael Bolton). Here, it’s either been pitched up in classic Kanye style or has been re-recorded so it’s like a hymn, with the final chorus having the effect of a gospel choir.

Jay-Z was just coming off The Black Album and in the midst of a short-lived retirement. He was at the point where the ‘best rapper alive’ moniker was arguably most accurate, but he’s the weakest performer here. That’s not to say it’s bad, his verses sound good but the content doesn’t really add anything to the theme of the song. It’s fairly standard rap boasts, which are technically fine, but lack the impact of the other verses. I do like the ending though as he gets a second verse, which is a more chilled extended outro. It feels like it offers a comedown after the song has reached its emotional peak.

Kanye takes the second verse. Remember, this album was really his first time in the limelight, having previously made his name behind-the-scenes with his production credits. He raps about his mother’s involvement in the civil rights movement, relating it to his personal experiences and criticisms of then current-day America. It’s politically-conscious and thoughtful; it’s difficult to draw a line from this to modern-day Kanye. But at that point it was Kanye stepping out of the shadows and outshining one of the top names in rap.

J. Ivy is kind of the wildcard here. A relative unknown, this might have been a star-making performance, except he’s actually a poet rather than a rapper. His verse is brilliant, I remember being pretty blown away by this and then being disappointed to find he didn’t have any songs of his own. His verse is full of the most explicit religious imagery and references. It’s the kind of thing which would probably turn me off generally, but the delivery and lyricism is so good that it’s undeniably powerful.

This song is an epic, it’s one of Kanye’s best, and shows a master at work, even at that point in his career.

I normally try to put extra recommendations at the end of my classic reviews, but current Kanye isn’t really deserving of the hype and Jay-Z doesn’t need it. So if you enjoy this, maybe go look up J. Ivy, who I’ve now discovered does have his own stuff out.

No Frills Reviews