The Kanye West Experiment: Late Registration

 

Late Registration is up for the month of May and I’ll be the first to say Thank God. Though I loved College Dropout, the limited number of songs on that album had me experiencing the slowest, most painful death. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun, at times. But if I mindlessly chanted the end of Kanye’s Workout Plan one more time at work, I’m sure my boss would have had no qualms firing me.

 

If you’ve just found my column, let me explain:

 

I’ve decided to start the Kanye West project, a self-prescribed experiment I’m conducting because I’m interested to see what happens. It will take place over eight months, during which time, I will only listen to one album to see how I’m affected. Whether I sleep less, eat less, or want to text my ex more than I already do, this will be an analysis on how I feel during each: College Dropout. Late Registration. Homecoming. 808’s. Dark Twisted Fantasy. Yeezus. And Life of Pablo. Will one make me sadder than others? Madder? More in love? Likely, yes. Of course, it’s up to you to decide if those feelings and actions are tied to any given album.

 

I’m just here to report on how I live and what I know.

 

A simple layout of the rules:

 

1. I must bring headphones with me everywhere. If I’m in a bar eating or at the club dancing, I must have at LEAST one earphone plugged in, as to abide by the rule of Kanye always playing.

2. Podcasts and standup specials are exceptions, as they are only people talking and not singing. If I am watching a TV show, I must have headphones in blasting Kanye, as TV shows tend to play music.

3. I will be adding quotes from my friends for every week I record my thoughts, as they are the true surveyors of watching me crumble to pieces.

4. I will tie each week to a song that stuck out to me the most, as well as a lyric I can’t get out of my head.

 

The weeks will be different. Depending on how I feel, the focus may vary. Some may center around how sad or fed up I am, other’s may pick apart his music. Whatever the case, every one will be uniquely individual, just like Kanye. They will be authentic to my experience, and how the album unfolds for me over time. 

 

If you know me, wish me luck. Even if you don’t, damn. Still wish me luck. I got seven months more of Kanye to go through since he just announced another album.

 

I’m already so tired.

 

May: Late Registration

 

Week One – Crack Music

 

“We’re talking about Kanye West allowing the culture who put their trust in him for the last thirteen or fourteen years- we’re talking about him and allowing his image and everything he’s ever done to be weaponized by people who don’t give a fuck about these people, who look down on them, and I don’t understand what we can be gaining from this other than the fact he has an album coming out.” –Van Lathan, Senior Producer at TMZ

 

We’re not friends in real life but maybe someday, we will be.

 

 

The investigation regarding Kanye’s personal well-being is in full swing and people everywhere have thoughts. What’s specifically upsetting about his new political stance is that it isn’t political. Or at least, so he says. He’s preaching from a “why can’t we all get along” position, buddying up with somebody his former self would consider the enemy, hoping to build a bridge between the two sides. Every critic, including Van Lathan, points out how troubling this is for his figure. His music, especially older albums like College Dropout and Late Registration, are contingent with politics. The art he’s created comments on power structures in modern politics. From Ronald Reagan perpetuating class disparity by funneling drugs in to impoverished black communities to George Bush and the Anthrax outbreak of 2001, Crack Music addresses it all.     

 

How we stop the black panthers

Ronald Reagan cooked up an answer

 

Late Registration is incredibly unsettling to immerse oneself in, especially given everything going on. It’s like watching someone right before they get in a car crash without being able to tell them to stop texting. If you put the phone down for a minute, you’d be able to see the tree waiting to twist you in half at the end of the road. If you stopped tweeting for two seconds, you’d see a group of marginalized people who rely on you shaking their heads in disbelief. But when you’re driving at 80mph, you leave more highway behind you than ahead. I wish I could let Kanye know all the things that will unfold for him, but that’s not how this works. You can’t give people advice if they’re going to do what they want to anyways.

 

You also can’t time travel.

 

I feel like I’m looking through someone’s high school yearbook while they watch overhead, breathing down my neck. “Look at that time I won homecoming king” Ye says to me, pointing as I open to a page he has bookmarked. “Everyone in the school has to vote you in to be homecoming king, did you know that? Everyone in the school.” It doesn’t take away from his later art, because every album is unique and stands on its own, but it certainly adds a level of mystery to understanding the new Ye. During the Late Registration days, he stood for something. And we all loved him because of it. How can he weave such beautifully intricate lyrics, examining society from every angle, and then claim thirteen years later he’s not making political statements?

 

I’m stuck living in someone’s creative past as they seemingly fuck up their own future, which is uncomfortable for a lot of reasons. Currently, the biggest takeaway is my own personal fear of what’s to come. We continue growing, as artists and people, then at some point, we reach our peak. The best version of who we’re meant to be. Is it only downhill from there? Nobody tells you when you’re experiencing the peak. The moment you’re going to point out in your high school yearbook to strangers over time. “Look at that time I won homecoming king” You’ll say. “Do you see that?” Maybe we all miss our peak because we’re living in memories. Good. Bad. The kind you look back at when you’re driving 80mph down the highway, leaving more road behind you than ahead.   

 

Crack raised the murder rate in DC and Maryland
We invested in that it's like we got Merril-Lynch
And we been hanging from the same tree ever since
Sometimes I feel the music is the only medicine

 

Week Two- Heard Em Say

 

“You can make an exception for HAIM”- Riston Bergen, encouraging me to live my damn life and go to this concert I bought tickets for

 

            I started to breakdown this week and bought tickets to see HAIM and Lizzo. I figured I deserved a reward for being true to Kanye for so long and, at this point, was starting to get incredibly angry for no reason. Migraines had started setting in the week before to the point I couldn’t get up in the morning. Then when I got up, I immediately wanted to lay back down. A real no-win situation. So, when Elsie asked if I wanted to go to HAIM and Lizzo, I said yes. In a mood where I didn’t fucking care anymore, I agreed to go.

 

            Plus, this album is drying out my skin.  

 

I’m drinking more water but apparently, none of it is getting to my hands. My palms have turned to scales. If you touch my arms, all you’ll feel is sandpaper. This album has taken an obvious toll on my body, more than College Dropout, and it is showing. To me, it is showing. I got two zits on my face, a previously unheard of occurrence for me, and immediately tried to pop them despite my friends telling me “not to do that.” I lost all the weight I gained with College Dropout, even though I continue to eat like shit and, above all, I’m incredibly mad. Mostly, because I’m constantly re-living my past breakup and that’s never a good place to be when Adam Levine is featured on a track.

 

We all know Maroon Five is the epitome of “white girls in love” music.

 

I went to HAIM and Lizzo expecting to enjoy myself and I did. During the middle of the two acts changing, however, I felt like I was going to pass out. My knees began to buckle and I had to drink all of Nish’ water to maintain focus. It’s not unheard of to see people passing out at concerts. Everyone is sweaty, the air in the room is a million degrees, but for me, it never happens. Not when I’m sober at a concert. I considered asking Nish and Elsie to take me home at least 17 times before HAIM came on and even when they were performing, I was miserable. The next morning, I woke up with a migraine worse than ones I’d ever had before. Luckily, it was a Sunday so I could roll around in my own filth.

 

 Late Registration has brought an onslaught of terrible migraines. Even casually, if I hear music outside of it, the next day I am blinded with headaches that incapacitate me for a good twenty minutes. I’m cranky, whiney, and miss my ex.

 

What’s new.

 

They say people in your life are seasons

And everything that happens is for a reason

 

Week Three- Gold Digger

 

“Jamie Foxx won an Oscar for Ray. He was in this music video?” – Eric Wiig

 

Gold Digger was my first introduction to Kanye. The single was featured almost every morning on VH1’s video countdown and, to my catholic moms’ dismay, I wanted so badly the life reflected in that video. The flashing lights. The Jamie Foxx. The understanding of an education outside of abstinence only sex. I would wake up every morning to dance with the two rock stars only five inches away from me on TV, bordered on both sides by super-hot women.

 

It was my first introduction to media portrayal of women. A handy thing to learn about at age nine.

 

As you probably guessed, I have been masturbating to the music video Gold Digger nonstop. Everybody has a “get off” playlist and without mine, the well has been running dry. I’ve been restricted to Late Registration which, frankly, has less to offer sexually than Kanye’s later albums. Not that it’s not a great album, but it’s more a comment on society than a “let’s drive fast cars and fuck Kim Kardashian.” It’s politically charged, emotionally driven, and overall a beautiful work of art. Every song has something to say about Kanye’s journey through life in a society structured against him. Besides Gold Digger. Gold Digger’s a sexy romp.

 

Masturbating to any song outside of it would feel like my own version of defacing the American flag.

 

I’ve been having a bit of an identity crisis when it comes to sexuality. It wasn’t prompted by this album, but is more of an “I’ve always been bisexual, and accepting it has been a long process over the years.” This spring, especially, has been difficult coming to terms with the fact. I’m writing a feature about Catholicism and it’s forcing me to rethink everything I’ve ever been taught. Catholicism is exceptionally heteronormative and being told “don’t think about the girl from Spy Kids like that” for four years was the worst thing my brain could have gone through.

 

I felt weird watching Gold Digger when I was little. How my eyes lingered on the women in pin up. How I’d trace the outlines of their legs as they open and closed them. What always attracted me to the video, outside of physical attraction, was how hard the women worked to grab Jamie and Kanye’s attention. To me, they were the attention. Dressed in corsets and beautiful lace bras, they were doing more than these two men snapping their fingers singing. Somersaults on screen, bending down to touch their toes. Everything about them oozed confidence, a confidence I still wish would settle in at some point in my life. The confidence to wear lingerie. The confidence to pursue women. All of it is overshadowed by the insecurity of being who I am. I don’t know who I am, only who I’ve been told to be for so long.

 

How are you supposed to be confident when you don’t know who you are?

 

I know this dude’s balling but yeah, that’s nice

And they gone keep calling and trying

But you stay right girl

And when you get on he leave your ass for a white girl

 

Week Four- Gone

 

“Why are we listening to this?”- my mom

 

            Overall, I am a month and twenty-six days in to this experiment and it sucks. Whenever my friends go out dancing, I hang behind because I don’t want to risk being hit on with headphones in. I’ve isolated myself to the point I facetime my mom on Friday nights

 

            Never in my life have I wanted to quit something more than this project.

 

           

 

I started this month off optimistic and ended it on mood stabilizers.

 

Late Registration is possibly one of Kanye’s more underrated albums. Mixing beautifully woven lyrics with upbeat jams, this sophomore album bridges the gap between old Ye College Dropout days while making way for new Ye 808’s and Dark Twisted Fantasy. Homecoming may be the off ramp, but Late Registration is the highway getting us to