Evechanel

In a way, Kanye’s entire discography is leading to this (probable) point—his first two records were about reaching the top, Graduation was about loving life there, 808’s and Heartbreak was how the top can fuck up your personal life, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was about growing restless at the top, and Watch the Throne found him and Jay-Z negotiating the idea of why there weren’t more black men at the top. And now, it seems, Kanye’s taking stock of the world as he sees it from upon high, and deciding that he doesn’t like what’s flashing in front of his Fendi frames. The fact that the biggest black entertainer in the country even made those two records and debuted them on the beyond-white bread Saturday Night Live is huge. This isn’t Das Racist razzing a few privileged white kids at Music Hall of Williamsburg. This is Kanye West going into a million white people’s living rooms and saying, “Look at the terrible things your people have done to my people and are still doing to my people. We are not going to take it. I’m so pissed right now I wouldn’t even be here if I didn’t have something incredibly urgent to say. Fuck you.” That’s a powerful act, something that you can put up there with things that Bob Marley or Tupac did. I know that’s outlandish, but one day we’ll be holding Kanye West up next to those guys, so we might as well start now.