Print1. Kanye won our hearts.
In 2004, Kanye the pauper hailed in from Chi-town, a relatively dormant hub of industry activity. He debuted with a huge slice of humility (apparently enough to last his whole career), giving us The College Dropout, which was an honest, novel, and unequivocally solid album. “History in the makin’!” Kanye cried as we smiled and nodded, too busy bumpin’ to “Slow Jamz” to notice the flame he was lighting under our asses. Still, the semi-conscious album was real—Kanye spoke to us, joked with us, and smoked with us. It was love.
2. Kanye won our minds.
Kanye crowned himself as prince in the form of the those awful “Kanye Sunglasses” (which I owned in yellow). But it wasn’t until 2008, with the release of his fourth album, 808s & Heartbreak, that we began to conceive of his sphere of influence, into which we were inextricably absorbed: He got the Bushwick hipsters, Tennessee trapstars, Columbia frat stars, my suitemate, and the remainder of the population seemingly above it all. He even got people to administer the borders of his proliferating empire: Kid Cudi, Daft Punk, Chris Martin, Nas, and Jay-Z (more on that relationship in a moment). It was all strategy we began to appreciate and came to admire, but he hadn’t yet instilled the fear of God in us.
3. Kanye always wins.
And so he is risen. He got Jay-Z, the ultimate veteran, to acknowledge him as an equal (Watch the Throne was a supposedly retired Jay-Z’s acquiescence to sharing the throne with Kanye); he got Riccardo Tisci (rumor or not, he’s penetrated the impenetrable world of high fashion—not for his fashion, thankfully); he even got Kim Kardashian to throw out her wardrobe (which comes with a slew of misogynistic implications—and not one person I know has come to Kim’s defense). Kanye is our Chuck Norris. The ultimate trump card. We’re actually watching the throne, right now. Kanye will never have to take one bite of that humble pie, because he’s draped your baker in gilded robes. Kanye is king. And Kanye. Always. Wins.