The lights are off, and outside our apartment there’s nothing to be heard but crickets chirping and the occasional car driving through our small town, New Salem, Massachusetts. Yet inside, in the pitch black, my mom and I jump up and down, blasting Kanye West. My mom points at me and at the top of her lungs sings, “’You gon’ touch the sky, baby girl!”
Thanks to my mom, I’ve been an avid listener of Kanye since third grade. No matter how I was feeling, there was a Kanye song to match my emotions. Sad? I listened to “Heard ‘Em Say.” Defeated? “Bring Me Down.” Hopeful? “Street Lights.” Angry? “Power.” I listened to him alone on the bus to school and with my best friends everywhere we went. His music was an integral part of my life for years.
I want to declare without shame that I love Kanye, but I’m not sure if that statement is completely accurate. I will always love his music, not only for its bold, empowering themes but also for all the memories his music gave me.
The first concert I ever went to was on Kanye’s “Yeezus” tour with my best friend and my mom. We seat hopped through the weed-stenched TD Garden until we were a mere few hundred feet away from the stage. We sang to “Bound 2” until we lost our voices, and on the 1 ½-hour car ride home, we listened to “Yeezus” over and over again as we reminisced.
Years later, during my first year at UCLA, I went to a concert on Kanye’s “Saint Pablo” tour with my roommate, hoping the experience would be as magical as the first. But over the months leading up to that night, Kanye had been feuding with a variety of celebrities and continually disrupted his shows with lengthy and controversial rants. I kept asking myself if I could separate his words and actions from his music. On the night of the concert, I left The Forum in Inglewood feeling conflicted.
It’s nearly impossible to go through life without being occasionally disappointed by celebrities whom we normally admire. But can we really separate their words and actions from the parts of them that we love? Should we even try? These are the questions I ask myself when I reflect on how my relationship with Kanye has changed, only to end up at a crossroads of conflicting sentiments. It’s hard to find peace with this constant internal conflict, but as a fan, I find it reassuring to know that this discomfort is a result of normal psychological processes.