Whether or not the MTV Video Music Awards truly "matter" to you (or anyone), whether or not it was a next-level shitshow (‘twas)—what’s not up for debate is that that if Kanye is there, something memorable is bound to happen.
As West stood onstage accepting his Video Vanguard award, his name emblazoned in white behind him, he spoke at a careful, measured pace, wondering whether or not he’d have crashed the stage on Taylor Swift, toting a half-full bottle of Hennessy, back in 2009 if he’d had a daughter then. He adopted a remorseful tone, but left the quandary open. He then ruminated, at length, over the idea of fighting for artists, sometimes in the wrong way. You could hear the glint of lament in his voice when he describes being booed by 60,000 people, and how his incident from six years ago was ground zero for the idea that Kanye West is arrogant.
Last night, West uttered two of the most self-evident sentences he has ever spoken in his decade-plus as a mainstream artist: "I’m confident. I believe in myself." Of course, he goes a little over-the-top at times, comparing himself to Steve Jobs, Ralph Lauren, and various other geniuses of art and industry. He also comes from a hip-hop background, where the "everybody’s a winner/ there’s enough room for all of us" mentality is thrown out of the window. Rap is a competitive sport, and as they say in most sports, if you’re not in it to be the best, you might as well not even be there. But Kanye transcended rap music long ago, whether you like him or not, he’s at the forefront of popular culture at large. And the thing is, he’s been saying he was going to since the beginning. Is arrogance simply the statement of truths yet to happen?
False humility is just another way we put on airs; we’re supposed to pretend we don’t deserve to be successful, or that we’re not as good at a certain thing (or number of things) as we are. Society pats the backs of people who are falsely modest, because it makes them feel more like one of many, even if they have an extraordinary talent most of us will never possess in our lives. If people acknowledge themselves as having a special, once-in-a-lifetime talent, society vilifies them, even if what they’re saying is the gospel truth. Especially when it comes to black men.
"I just wanted people to like me more. But fuck it, bro!"
How many conversations have you had with people where they refer to a confident black man as "self-important" while a white man gets an adjective like "brash"? Do you have friends or family members who have clearly called out Kanye himself as an "arrogant ass" after one of his bold statements? Why does it only seem to happen to artists of color? Like, when Noel Gallagher says something self-aggrandizing, most of us just laugh it off as "Noel being Noel." But Kanye could say the exact same thing and it invokes a level-three shitstorm among those he rubs the wrong way.
Confident black men are constantly held under by society, frequently told to not say much and accept what society (i.e. the whims of white men in power) gives us. This is a tactic to hold us "in place," to make sure we don’t "overstep our boundaries" (i.e. gain a level of influence as to overthrow the people in power, which, again, are a bunch of white dudes). We as black men are treated as secondary, even though our efforts have created some of the greatest art forms our society has been given. And when we hold onto our dignity by believing in ourselves, we are conditioned to hold it at a distance so as not to upset those nebulous powers that be.
Because if we black people actually did show the full confidence of a generation of trendsetters (jazz, rock'n'roll, hip-hop, fashion, visual art, and a plethora of other mediums of art), it would disrupt the status of white men as the gatekeepers of American culture. They would prefer we didn’t believe in ourselves so they could give us little slivers of praise and award the real accolades to white artists who have half the talent and cultural cachet in order to bring them up. We as black men are always under the white man’s thumb, but Kanye West created a body of work to where he could escape.
"We’re not going to teach low self-esteem and hate to our kids. We’re gonna teach our kids they could be something. [...] We’re going to teach our kids to believe in themselves."
During West’s 13-minute call-to-arms for artists to defend their artistry by believing in themselves, he didn’t have to assert the merits of his talent, because he had already spent the past 11 years doing so, having his ego swiped at continuously while persevering and proving everything he said he was going to do from the beginning. He wanted to be the biggest pop star in the world. He became that. He wanted to be a fashion icon. He’s well on his way there. He wants artists to stand up for themselves and what they believe in, because he cares about fostering the future of art. He was probably being facetious when he said he’s going to run for president in the 2020 election, but even if he wasn’t, he has enough belief in himself to make his campaign something special.
What will it take for people to stop conflating confidence with arrogance when it comes to black men? We’ve spent our lives with a strike against us for intimidating society’s hierarchy simply by having darker skin; we just want to believe in ourselves and not catch flak for it.