Batfink's Beep -- 02-05-06

On canned rebelliousness and Kanye West

February 5, 2006

Jonah Goldberg has a piece on National Review in which he points out not just the intellectual and moral bankrupcy of Rap and its media distribution machine, in particular as it relates to Kanye West, but also the inanity of those who are chump enough to actually buy into it.

West, of whom I had never heard before he was on the news after the Katrina benefits for turning one of them into a chance to call Bush a racist on live TV, is apparently a rapper, and, taking the word of Mr. Goldberg about his 8 Grammy nominations (whatever they are) apparently a relatively well-received one. The rapper, whose unusual first name is the result of the Ebonicization of the Italian word 'cagnara', meaning 'a pack of yapping dogs', has certainly been getting the full-court press treatment, which has now culminated in a cover story in Rolling Stone, complete with cover shot and article comparing him, no kidding, now, to Christ.

Goldberg makes the point that this publicity machine action is nothing new, and that neither is the celebrated Kanye 'attitude':

West is simply the latest example of decades of hucksterism. Under the headline "The Passion of Kanye West," the rap star graces the cover of Rolling Stone posing as a bloodied Jesus with a crown of thorns. I particularly enjoy the publicity around the piece. Clearly borrowing from the same press release, publications across the country proclaim that the "outspoken rapper defends his brash attitude inside the magazine."

Ah, yes. It's about time. After all, it's so rare to find a rapper with a brash attitude. Normally they're shy, retiring types overflowing with modesty and humility. I was particularly enamored with the "aw, shucks" Andy Griffith personalities of Niggaz Wit Attitude and the late Tupac Shakur.

We're supposed to believe that West has been persecuted for his anti-Bush tirades and his determination to keep it real. But his biggest complaint is that people criticize him for being arrogant. "You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?" he asks.

It is an interesting notion, to be sure, for the press to sell, the idea of the foul mouthed, brash, keep-it-real, ...filthy rich rapper. Like he's so different. It reminds me of high school, where any kid you asked was a complete individual, who made his own rules and blazed his own trail instead of following the crowd, but somehow, they all just happened to look alike, dress alike, talk alike, and so forth. As Goldberg says, it is interesting, and telling, that the kids are actually buying it:

It’s all such an obvious con game. We hear so much about how kids today are cynical, skeptical, media-savvy, and so forth. But if they're buying this hooey, they're idiots.

Amen, Jonah. But teenagers have always been the smartest, most savvy people out there. Just ask them. I am reminded of how stupid I was when my daughter was 16. I didn't know anything, and she knew everything. The odd thing was, as she finished out her teens and eventually reached her early 20s, I became smarter and smarter. Eventually, this person, who had known everything just a few short years earlier, was actually asking my advice. So maybe there is hope that the suckers who buy into the image of Kanye West, just as those who went before bought into the mass-produced poot peddled by previous generations of dumb adult marketers, will eventually stop being so darn savvy, and become dumb adults like the rest of us. But by then they'll surely be a lot poorer than they might have been had they gotten dumb sooner.

What a world.

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