Life is hard. It is hard for everyone. It is even hard for celebrities. Despite quite a bit of monetary success and an illusion of security in that regard at least, celebrities often have serious problems - problems they may not have had while they were lesser known. The eye is always on them - making many celebrities develop image problems they wouldn't otherwise have.
Drugs invade their life - their newfound wealth allows for a drug temptation that they simply wouldn't be able to afford otherwise. People are jealous of them, there are demands from others that they never would have had while poor or middle class. The expectations of a repeat of whatever made them famous in the first place are very high. A mix of that and the loss of his mother in a botched surgery years ago seems to be plaguing Kanye West. Whatever it is, it's really bad. The music that Kanye has released to us is really bad in every sense of the word. People who went along with it should feel guilty for not intervening with a man who is obviously not well.
My last essay on Kanye was pretty successful - even with a non-music audience over at the political website Dagblog. I got 226 views. People seemed to like it. I may be on to something here. Kanye West, with Yeezus, has released the worst hip-hop album ever made and possibly one of the worst pop albums in recent history.
Alot of celebrities have problems. Elton John, Hulk Hogan, Halle Berry and Eminem all have admitted to entertaining suicidal thoughts or coming close to or even attempting it. The latter nearly died - his dark stage after losing his best friend Proof to a gun fight really sent him in to a dark world. Life is hard for everyone.
But with Eminem is a significant difference from Kanye. If you search around for it, you can find alot of unreleased music that Eminem recorded while he was in "a dark place" - it leaked but never got officially released. Throughout all of it he talks about feeling like he's going crazy ("The Apple") or worrying about what his daughter would think. On "Going Through Changes," he raps about becoming overweight from binge eating but we never see pictures of that. While he may be a little nutty, he seems always to be keeping himself afloat to a degree. Kanye doesn't have this at all.
Maybe it's drugs? I'm not sure - Marshall was on plenty of drugs as well. Kanye seems unaware that he is becoming very strange. He seems unaware that people don't like his behavior. He seems unaware of many things. His appearances with Kim Kardashian look like he is in another world entirely. His bizarre and scary music isn't like the unreleased work of Eminem - it is more like the weird, scary work that Michael Jackson released starting with Dangerous like "Blood On The Dance Floor:"
The titles are even similar - while Michael put out a song called "Blood On The Dance Floor," Kanye released "Blood On The Leaves" with his new album Yeezus. Both got ridiculously egotistical - while Michael literally had a statue of himself built, Kanye is making albums with titles like Yeezus and song titles like "I Am A God." Both were and are seriously mentally ill and somewhat unaware of it. MJ seemed to treat his problems with ridiculous levels of drugs - it's very possible Kanye is doing the same, instead of facing them head on and changing - the only real cure.
Like MJ's "Blood On The Dance Floor," Kanye's new music is really creepy and uncomfortable to listen or watch to. It sounds like some sort of torture. Isn't torture illegal? Why did people go to jail for Abu Gharib and Kanye gets off putting out music like this? It doesn't have the entertainment value that creepy music like Rob Zombie, Nine Inch Nails or Marilyn Manson has. "Black Skinhead" sounds like Nine Inch Nails if Nine Inch Nails wasn't good. It's just creepy and scary.
Someone in Kanye's camp would be wise to intervene. We need the Kanye who gave us "Jesus Walks," beat out 50 Cent in sales and produced hits for Dilated Peoples and Common back.
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