You know what he’s talking about.

I know. Cuz I know you. (I’m you.) You just took 25 flicks of the same pose under the sunlight you caught by your window; your skin looks mad good and you won’t post even 1 of them. You were gonna write that short story about a dystopian future as a metaphor for the military industrial complex; you had 5 pages the day you first thought it, but stopped cuz you were scrolling IG and saw a poem that said about the same in 7 lines. You were gonna send him an email telling him that you are more than one thing, that you are strong but still hurt, that you can stand alone but are not a pillar, that you want something more, but you never did. It was gonna be beautiful. But then the world happened.

Ye opening “ I Thought About Killing You” with “the most beautiful thoughts are always inside the darkest… mhm — mhm — mhm — mhm — mhm — mhm — mhm — mhm — mhmm,” is what a bipolar person would say. The chord progressions, filtered vocal samples, and tones of the synths (on this song, and throughout the album) told me that, too. Hell, the album cover says “i hate being bipolar it’s awesome,” a contradiction on its own, scribbled onto a — not exaggerating — breathtaking iPhone photo of the Teton Mountain Range in Jackson Hole, WY. I’m going to throw my TV out and have the original photo framed and hanged in its place. Before this week, the cover was going to be a picture of the disgraced surgeon to perform on his mom last, titled “LOVE YOURSELF.”

ye is beautiful. Not Instagram beautiful. But wiping the tears off her face because she’s crying and she doesn’t know why beautiful. So if you hear “killing you,” “premeditated murder,” “someday the drama’ll end,” and conclude, “wow, dark,” that’s analytical veneer, especially when the production is geared towards the opposite — celestial, spiritual, innocent to the point of saintly. If Chance had this production, it would be overkill, (and the album would suck), but Kanye casually talking about ending his life while going on about the extent he’d go to for his family over the prettiest arrangements I’ve heard in some time, is the kind of true-to-life juxtaposition that all of us with Asian, Caribbean, and Central American parents can relate to. “I love you so much. You don’t know what I’d do for you. I’d kill for you. You’ll see when I’m dead.” And we’ve heard this so much, the only worthwhile response is, “Hahaha, how’s Rimi Auntie?”

The political statements, if you tried to find them, aren’t in the bars, but the contrast between what Ye says and the world surrounding him. The hooks are delivered by someone else, written as a universal 3rd person narrator, concept-focused, and lush in accompaniment while the verses are Ye spazzing disjointedly as Hidden Hills’ own Lil Pump. On “Violent Crimes,” I’m taken from 070 Shake’s beautifully sung, hesitant compromise with fathers as a future North/Chi West, to Ye rapping “N*ggas is savage, N*ggas is monsters, N*ggas is pimps, N*ggas is players” with a MAGA hat on. ye presents this binary of the old world — singing is real art that covers important topics (read: white) and rapping is guttural expression, and anything beautiful to come from it is unintentional (read: black). ye is built around the hooks and that feels intentional, with collaborators stepping in on choruses as an analogue for putting the MAGA hat on. It’s like he’s saying, now that you see me as not-black, maybe you will see me for my ideas (the value of these ideas outside the album are debatable, but as ye choruses, they are divine.) And whether Ye is rapping, or someone else is singing, the album is still all ye.

For some, whether or not you listen to the album has become centered around whether you think Kanye West is a good or bad person. But who’s to say? If he’s no longer speaking for you, does it mean he’s speaking for Trump? Should he even speak for anyone other than himself? (He’s got a gentle mental.) It’s not crazy to you when I say that life is seeing the goodness in the bad, the badness in the good, and wondering if it has to be all or nothing. Every person, including you, has positivities and negativities, and if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be real. It would be a façade. ye is full of examples poking holes in this good/bad binary, this is how I read it:

“See, y’all really shocked but I’m really not/ You know how many girls I took to the titty shop… I still bring the bad bitches in the city out”

Translation: Perhaps you expect me to feel remorse for continuing to fund cosmetic surgeries, considering the way my mother passed, but to be honest, it’s a part of who I am. I’m hella down to pay for women’s breast enhancements, (perhaps for the added pleasure during sex, or to do provide value to someone I’m into, or even both); potential complications are a sad consequence of the positives. This is also my response to Ta-Nehisi Coates who wrote “I think of West confessing to an opioid addiction, which had its origins in his decision to get liposuction out of fear of being seen as fat. And I wonder what private pain would drive a man to turn to the same procedure that ultimately led to the death of his mother.” Go fuck yourself, Ta-Nehisi.

Translation: Perhaps you expect me to feel remorse for continuing to fund cosmetic surgeries, considering the way my mother passed, but to be honest, it’s a part of who I am. I’m hella down to pay for women’s breast enhancements, (perhaps for the added pleasure during sex, or to do provide value to someone I’m into, or even both); potential complications are a sad consequence of the positives. This is also my response to Ta-Nehisi Coates who wrote “I think of West confessing to an opioid addiction, which had its origins in his decision to get liposuction out of fear of being seen as fat. And I wonder what private pain would drive a man to turn to the same procedure that ultimately led to the death of his mother.” Go fuck yourself, Ta-Nehisi. “This what they mean when they say ‘for better or for worse,’ huh?”

Translation: I know I fucked up, Kim, but I’m also your husband. I had enough goodness in me for us to grow closer and marry, but this is the bad within me right now, which coincidentally makes up who I am as a person.

Translation: I know I fucked up, Kim, but I’m also your husband. I had enough goodness in me for us to grow closer and marry, but this is the bad within me right now, which coincidentally makes up who I am as a person. “It was all part of the story, even the scary nights, thank you for all of the glory”

Translation: People will lionize our accomplished celebrity family, and this grants us notoriety, attention, and capital, though I’m afraid we have to accept the negativities that come with it, which may continue to strain our internal family dynamic.

Translation: People will lionize our accomplished celebrity family, and this grants us notoriety, attention, and capital, though I’m afraid we have to accept the negativities that come with it, which may continue to strain our internal family dynamic. “I hope she like Nicki, I’ll make her a monster, Not havin’ ménages, I’m just bein’ silly”

Translation: I want you to be as great as Nicki, but it’s silly to expect you to conquer your own womanhood that confidently without also owning your sexuality, which is a central aspect of how woman are seen in our society.

Translation: I want you to be as great as Nicki, but it’s silly to expect you to conquer your own womanhood that confidently without also owning your sexuality, which is a central aspect of how woman are seen in our society. “how you [Ye] the devil rebukin’ the sin?/ Let’s pray we can put this behind us”

Translation: My past actions are enough to embody the antithesis of goodness (God), but I still seek refuge in His guidance, I still pray (an active decision to humble myself and seek Good), despite who I am.

The contrasts provided here are pretty accurate of the post-Trump world we live in. The world where some will have you believe that Trump is the harbinger of all things bad, as if systemic oppression wasn’t a 10-acre mansion before him, as if Trump wasn’t the most centrist of the 2016 Republican Party candidates, as if all of our politicians aren’t comfortably and brazenly in bed with corporate lobbyists, as if the wall between where we are now and a truly equitable, thoughtful society is the difference between 39.6% and 37%. The informed among us know better, and shit, even the proudly ignorant can tell you the Illuminati orchestrates world events to manipulate global economic factors in their favor. This is the world where nothing you do or say matters.

I felt this when I came back to “Lift Yourself,” the soulful, revolutionary beat that Kanye could have given to Kweli or Mos Def in 2005, or anyone with any sort of a solution right now. For better or worse, when people miss the Old Kanye, they miss the rapper who could make conscious rap that made them feel good. But how can anyone think about The Long Road To A Better Society nowadays without feeling anything but anxiety, dread, hopelessness, and complete apathy? And why do we pretend like conscious rapping is what’s missing, considering the complete indifference of most of its listeners over the past 10 years? Artists like J Cole, Kendrick, Big KRIT, Chance the Rapper make well-constructed, well-meaning music like a House of Religion that keeps you just numb enough to not feel attached, and just enraged enough to not feel culpable, but their work stops at a lament for the most basic of us, far from any call to action. Bodak Yellow is more empowering than works by those artists. Conscious rap in 2018 is like the movie industry — reboots and sequels of things that inspired us once, redrawn for nostalgia, and sold to us like we’re treading new ground. Meaningless. How is “poopy-di scoop/ scoop-diddy-whoop/ whoop-di-scoop-di-poop” any different?

In this context, I can hear why Kanye isn’t ashamed like we want him to be. I hear it again when he’s talking about his bipolar disorder—it’s not his disability, it’s his superpower. The disease that brings him to depressing lows is the same that brings him to manic highs. “I got the mind state to take us past the stratosphere / I use the same attitude that done got us here.” This album isn’t sad, it’s what happy is for bipolar people. Joy has to come with an asterisk when depression is already penciled in.

When I read about how uninformed Kanye is on political topics, I understood the context to look at his work through — a conceptual, non-political one. I don’t think Kanye wore the hat because he wants a travel ban on immigrants from Muslim countries, or a 10-foot wall, or to ban transgender people from joining the military. I think Kanye sees the same lies and indoctrination we all do, and he (misguidedly) chose the side of the more candid. It’s not about what’s good or bad, nothing is free from corruption. It’s about moving past the mind state set in by these unnervingly helpless times, towards action and creation. Anything is better than this.

You know this.

You know this because you know you’re not the most handsome of your friends, but you’re going to love yourself anyway. You know this because you know you’re not the smartest, but people are going to hear your voice anyway. You know this because you have something to say to him that might chase him away, but you’re going to tell him anyway. “People say, ‘Don’t say this, don’t say that’/ Just say it out loud, just to see how it feels.” Fuck it.