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Listen to the album “Yeezus” by Kanye West. It’s weird. No one has ever sounded like Yeezus, either before or after it came, which makes it a truly unique album. Yeezus is weird, and it’s weird for real. What does that mean? Well, many other things may be weird in a conventional way (that could actually be argued to be pretty normal), like that local weird person who always screams, that’s some weird guy shit but it’s also a pretty predictable situation. In the same way you could probably predict how a “weird song” could sound, but: You could never have predicted Yeezus. Because it’s weird for real. And that’s the magic of Kanye West as an artist, you can’t predict his music, and neither his life actions, because he’s always authentically weird.
Being weird is kind of what art is. In my last text I proposed that entertainment in its highest form is being in a good mood to make others come in a good mood, but art is something different and also needs a definition. As an artist you don’t have to be happy, but you have to create something new. That’s why I value Kanye West highly as an artist, because whenever he does something I always go “Wow, this is new. This is art. Art = new“. Then I continue: “This is something I haven’t seen before, something that could never have been done by anyone else than exactly this person.”
That’s a feeling I also get whenever I watch the artist Grimes and her spectacular outfits: “This is new and unique and something that no one else but her could have created.” She always looks, talks and behave in a unique and not copyable way, and has a similar artistic spirit where everything she does feels new and creative. Unfortunately, she recently got a lot of hate on TikTok for sharing some experimental ideas about improving society, for example things like “radical wealth redistribution through gaming”. People thought it was dumb and said she didn’t understand the actual struggles of poor people (because she dated Elon Musk, who is rich?), and therefore her ideas were too futuristic and ignorant. Now, I’m not here to try to prove anyone wrong or right, because here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter. What matters is that people saying experimental and stupid stuff is great. That’s what artists are her for! Making, doing and saying new stuff. It’s actually a privilege to hear innovative thoughts instead of the usual “I think this because it’s reasonable” *everybody agrees because they’re reasonable* for a short moment. The thoughts may not be good, but they’re new. Grimes also got criticism for her breakup song about Elon Musk (because it was “cringe” and “unrelatable”?), but she really does everything right as an artist, because a song about breaking up with the world’s richest man is something totally new and never done before. “But we can’t relate to it!” Yeah, that’s the point.
The more weird, the more creative, the more new, the better the art. Or at least the better you are at fulfilling the mission of art. This is why artists shouldn’t be slayed for saying stupid stuff, and I even think they should be praised for it. When Kanye West started loving Trump back in 2018, people only judged what they saw and refused to understand context. Because of course praising an obviously insane president looks stupid if you see it from a straight angle. But watching it from the side: Being as weird as Kanye during that period can inspire others to be weird! You don’t have to (and maybe shouldn’t) fall in love with Donald Trump, but you can do all those things you believe in but no one else understands, because Kanye West did it and proved it was possible! When Kanye is sleeping with a bulletproof vest in an arena while finishing his album, or tagging his ex-wife in Instagram stories begging to get her back after their divorce, I get the feeling that everything is possible. And that I also could do those things. I won’t do exactly those things, but I’ll do something, because Kanye West made me realize that I can. (Then he stepped into real politics and weakened my point, because being stupid only works in art and not in politics.)
Now, listen to this rap verse by Lee Jung Hyun. It gives me the same feeling of weirdness that I talked about in the beginning, that Yeezus gave me. She just sounds so weird and non-earthly. It’s weird in a completely new way, that isn’t a copy of something else and that no one else could make a copy of. And it will probably always stay that way. That verse will never not be weird. Some things are just too weird to ever be understood. That’s why I’m not interested in explanations of Kanye West’s behavior as “marketing stunts”, because they’re way too good for that! They never miss and they always shake the world. Kanye’s most eccentric moments are way too good to ever stop baffling people. No one will probably ever fully understand why he did all those things, because Kanye isn’t really ahead of his time here, he’s in his own time doing his own things. He’s not doing that kind of thought-provoking art that criticizes current times and becomes reasonable later when society has changed, no, he’s doing something totally different. All future generations will look at Kanye West with confusion in their eyes, and that’s cool, and that’s why I wrote this text.