"...Kanye wants maligned folks to get what they deserve. Poor black folks from New Orleans deserved more so Kanye said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."But then...
Beyonce deserved more, so Kanye said, "Taylor, I'ma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the greatest videos of all time."
Queer brothers deserved more, so Kanye said, "I been discriminating against gays … and I wanna come on TV and tell my rappers, just tell my friends, Yo, stop it, fam ..."
Black kids in Chicago deserved more, so Kanye said, "Man, killing's some wack shit."
Listeners of American popular music deserved more than formulaic noise so Kanye West offered us eight years of GOOD music. In those eight years, Kanye managed to collapse, carve and distort disparate sounds rooted in the black musical traditions into newly shaped inescapable musical experiences. His work did more than challenge conventional composition. Whether it's College Dropout, Late Registration, 808s and Heartbreak, or Watch the Throne, Kanye's work literally dared us to revise our expectations of sound."
"Kanye West, that box-jawed American virtuoso who told the white man the truth, is eons better at his job than Les is at lying and I am at writing, but when it comes to exploring women (you know, "females," "cats," "bitches," "hoes," "pussies," "Kelly Rowlands," "hood rats," "good girls," "sluts," "light skinned girls," and now "Perfect Bitches"), Kanye West ain't really using his voice or his art right. This actually makes him just like almost every other virtuoso and mediocre American man I've read, watched or heard.
Kanye West is better than those jokers, though.
He's good enough, brave enough, conceptually genius enough, compassionate enough and now rich enough to use his voice to explore with prickly honesty, and dramatic irony, what black women are and the ways he encourages, and is encouraged to, obsessively dismember, soulfully mutilate and straight diss the fuck out of women in order to move units and feel like a manlier man.
At what point does listening to artists obsessively encourage manipulative relationships, sociopathic deception and irresponsible sex with women doubling as accessorized pussy become not just destructive, but really, really boring? If Kanye West won't, or maybe even can't, explore the meat of that question, isn't he too great to exploit it?"
All fair points.
And I agree...but then, the revelation
I think in his rap in this song, Kanye is the most honest about, and with himself, than he's been in much of his misogynistic narrative. Because it's here that he rejects society's assumptions about what "healthy" relationships are - admits the truth about what he wants and can offer to a woman. For that, I applaud him.
And even though Laymon veers off on a different rant, he illustrates from his own experience the nugget of what makes for a real feminist: being honest about how you relate to women; admitting that you are a shithead like everyone else, and that you still need to be loved and held in an intimate relationship. "Deserving" just clouds the issue. If you want to relieve yourself of the burden of real equality in your intimate relationships (and, because you're a shithead just like everyone else, of course you do), you can make yourself a martyr or a murderer of women. But don't think for a second that women aren't coming to the table with their own distrust, deception, and desire to avoid accountability for those truths about themselves.
The goal isn't even moral propriety (how archaic). Cause even your selfish do-gooding is morally questionable, right? (At least, you think so.)
As Ye says: "We formed a new religion/No sins, as long as there's permission"
I'm glad Kanye knows what he wants, he (just like all us other shitheads) deserves at least that.
