The world is talking about Kanye. So I’ll join it, but of course I’ll join in from a different perspective. This won’t be a I hate Kanye rant and this won’t be a Kanye is God praise report. This also won’t be a standard music review. However, this will be something like all of those things wrapped into one question.

The Life of Pablo is a good album. If you say it’s trash or it’s classic you’re wrong. It’s just a solid body of work. Kanye’s mouth is really what makes the music worthy of conversation, but a lot of the music on this album by Kanye standards is marginal. Say what you want about Yeezus, but at least that album forced a feeling. I’ve also listened to Yeezus more times than TLOP. End of day, what should we expect from an album named after a common name of a man of Mexican heritage? Pablo’s good. Pablo will work. Pablo’s no Cesar Chavez though.

I kind of blame over-invested Kanye fans for what’s happening right now. Kanye has been trying to “Jim Jones the masses” for over a decade now. Those of you who took that trip and drank that Kool-Aid are now angry, bitter, “I miss the old Kanye” haters now. Where’s the love of the person YOU ALL SWORE BY as making the best music in the world? Every album is like a debut album and a new sound of sorts is always being used, so why did you stop caping? Why did you flip on Kanye?

As a person who experienced at least 8 “Summer time Chi’s” and drove those nights on Lake Shore Drive, I get it. Kanye is dope. he is great, but now people hate the evolution of the music by the same person. Kanye’s been arrogant, an a$$hole and always felt like his music was better than everybody else’s. You just stopped believing him. Why did YOU change? Is the real question.

Kanye’s first two albums, he felt he had something to prove. He sung his own praises and said “this is classic and worthy of perfect scores” and legions of you said “You know what, you’re right!” and made College Dropout an “Instant Classic” and looking back over 10 years later I still don’t see it.

Late Registration, 2005, I thought Kanye West was the best rapper alive. No one can change my mind on that. So on that album alone, I’m with you.

Is the problem that the jig is up on Kanye? Maybe. You can’t scream how important you are to culture, music and the world when you don’t have the stats to back it. That’s always been Kanye’s problem though. His first album was fueled by “F**k everybody who didn’t sign me after they heard Jesus Walks”, which is still not one of the top 5 high points of that album! Album 2 was “I should win Grammy for album of the year cause Gold Digger was the biggest song in the world” and it’s some truth to that, but you can’t make it seem like that song is changing lives in a Ghandi matter when Mariah Carey’s single is played at every wedding ceremony and reception across the U.S.

SIDEBAR: You’re not making anyone famous who been averaging 5 million albums sold since 2006, with 2 of those albums less than a solid 2 million away from going diamond. If you didn’t know who Taylor Swift was before Kanye disrespected her, that means you don’t know about music. You are hard pressed to find a Rapper who is bigger than a Country Singer any year of music. Nobody has been moving units like Taylor Swift this era rap wise, besides Eminem and even then, you got to count world wide sales, cause in the U.S, Taylor Swift runs ish and even Beyonce got to say it. Sales, Tours, Merchandise, Power, Taylor had that since “Fearless”. Listen to any Top 40 or Country Station in any city during any hour and tell me when you don’t hear a Taylor Swift record. I doubt we talk soon. Taylor Swift is strictly pop music now.

Taylor Swift got 53 Million dollars and is a not so silent lover of hip-hop and art. I’ll end that with, know the person you about to disrespect.

I personally think Kanye feels he has to prove himself again and doesn’t know how. Is Kanye a great creator? Yes. Has he impacted the music industry? Absolutely. Is his contribution as big as he wants us to believe? That, I don’t know. Kanye is flooding our timelines with Rich People problems, with Rich People price tags while the greatest thing to happen to the general public is gas being under $2 a gallon. 53 Million!? We happy to be filling for less than 20 dollars again!

We can’t feel sorry for the guy who “has a problem with spending it before he get it” anymore. Cause we all gave enough to where that shouldn’t be an issue.

You can’t over invest in man. You can’t ride a wave for personal salvation and validation. I’m sorry if you over invested in Kanye and the last few years have hurt you. If that’s your hero, I know this hurts, but it’s really not him. It’s you growing out of wanting to believe in a man who was, what he was, when he got here. Shout to Jay Z.