While every rapper this side of RA the Rugged Man voted for Obama, hip hop is still a conservative culture. In fact, as far as its celebration of capitalism, praise for God and disdain for homosexuality is concerned, it has lots in common with the G.O.P.
More to the point, mainstream hip hop doesn’t seem particularly interested in evolving. Rapping about rims, parties and chicks with big butts has worked thus far, the logic seems to be, so why change?
Kanye West used to fit into rap’s conservative mold quite nicely. This was a man who came up under the mainstream label system with Jay-Z as his mentor, a man who — for all his lyrical and entrepreneurial gifts — has shown little inclination to shake things up.
West’s first monster hit, “Jesus Walks,” meanwhile, brought Christianity into the mainstream like nothing in hip hop’s history. And on later albums he stuck largely to the rap playbook as well, rapping about conniving hos (”Gold Digger”) and featuring big breasted white women like Pamela Anderson in his videos. Sure, he may have felt bad about exploiting diamond miners in Sierra Leone, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up his Jesus piece.
Still, there were always hints he didn’t buy into hip hop orthodoxy completely. Take the preppy, pastel-accented clothes he wore, which caused emcees like Beanie Sigel to accuse him of being gay. (Plenty of others probably would have spoken up, too, except that they needed his beats.) Rather than simply denying he was a homosexual, West went on to denounce homophobia in rap.
But in recent months West has begun challenging practically everything rappers take for granted. He started by releasing something of an anti-rap album, 808s & Heartbreak, which featured mostly singing. Next he announced that he lost (or at least toned down) his faith. “I don’t believe in religion and people that are about giving it all up to Jesus,” he said. And then he dropped the bomb - declaring that wanted to pose nude sometime in the near future.
Slathering yourself full of oil a la Nelly and Curtis is one thing, but posing nude? That’s, um, groundbreaking.
“I [want to] break every rule and mentality of hip-hop, of black culture, of American culture,” he went on.
Now, there’s no doubt that hip hop — not to mention black and American culture — could stand to be more tolerant and open-minded. But by transforming himself from a conservative follower to an off-the-deep-end liberal, he seems to be breaking the rules simply to break them. In fact, he sounds like a disgruntled teenager.
Then again, Kanye has charmed us before by being immature, such as when he rushed on-stage at the MTV Europe VMAs after losing to Justice and Simian. So maybe we’ll learn to love this rebellious phase of his life.
But that still doesn’t mean I want to see his nude pictures.
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