Photo by Erez Avissar

Each passing month can be marked by a new defining turn in Kanye West’s audacious act(s); attempting to walk on water is perhaps the merest of them. However, Kanye’s gall is rarely off-target. He often presents the unspoken thoughts we never utter, either out of fear or better judgement. For many, West’s candor is courageous; for others, it’s insolent. One audience considers him a perfect icon, while another believes he and wife Kim Kardashian are the epitome of what’s wrong with celebrity. But in Jon Caramanica’s recent New York Times Magazine profile, West proclaimed himself something else entirely: "an activist."

To those familiar with the widespread efforts of justice-advocacy or looks to someone like Dr. Angela Davis as an example of activism, this statement seems like the sort of hyperbole that’s become Kanye’s albatross. Yet, while he’s not an activist in the traditional sense, his entire career makes clear he is motivated by, and steeped in resistance.

-=-=-=-A decade ago, Ye was fighting to be taken seriously as a rapper, and even after The College Dropout became accepted as the exalted, paradigm shifter it is, he was still forced to claw his way into conversations about "elite rappers." Along the way, he became the voice for a legion of kindred spirits: regular people who refuse to let anyone deny their aspirations, no matter how fantastical or extravagant they are. There’s a playful defiance to the album’s opening track, "We Don’t Care", while "Last Call" is a 13-minute oral history of his transition from producer to MC, against all odds. Even the album’s title is a blatant reference to Kanye hurdling the accepted requirements for success.

From The College Dropout to Graduation, each of Kanye’s early albums include songs chronicling his rise in the face of adversity. While his tribulations most certainly exist on a much smaller level than historic or contemporary battles for Civil Rights, they’re a similar driving factor for his self-worth. The certainty of triumph, the broadcast of struggle (no matter in what rarefied quarters they occur in), the sheer, striving resilience of Kanye is a constant assertion of his humanity, of his right to exist and succeed as a black man in an America that denies them. He’s adamant about engraving his position among the genius ranks. And he should be.

That’s why he stands tall on Late Registration’s triumphant Curtis Mayfield-sampling "Touch the Sky", and experiences a moment of self-realization as the people’s advocate on Graduation’s "Champion". On "Champion", he acknowledges a degree of social responsibility ("For me giving up’s way harder than trying"), while also pointing out the irony of "the dropout keeping kids in the school." Accomplishments and ego have always been his diamond-encrusted body armor, and its radiant shine was at its brightest during this period of his career.