Is Kanye West a Literary Man?
About six months ago, the Literary Man made the discovery of a musical artist named Kanye West, who was, unbeknownst to the Literary man, a world-wide hip-hop superstar hailed as a “demented genius” by critics around the world. Most days the Literary man doesn’t get out much: he reads, he writes, he contemplates the literature of the world. But lately he’s been listening to (or rather, catching up with) My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and the following question seems, somehow, unavoidable: is Kanye West a Literary Man?
Possible Demented Genius
The timing of this dialogue is neither timely nor explicitly relevant to literature, or is it? Track One, “Dark Fantasy,” contains no fewer than forty literary allusions, which, if extended another two hundred lines or so, would be comparable to T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” Let’s examine a few, to wit.
Kanye lyric: Mercy, mercy me that murcielago. Literary precedent: James Joyce. This is basically the literary blending of pun, homonym, and cognate, like, the hip-hop offspring of these three tropes, as Murcielago is the name of a well-known sports car, but it sounds like Kanye’s saying “Mercy where I’ll go,” or maybe “Mercy and I go,” which is kind of an interesting play off the meaning of the word: sportscar + mercy = where will I go? Who comes up with this shit? Well, Kanye, evidently.
Lamborghini Murciélago
Kanye Lyric: And my chick in that new Phoebe Philo. Phoebe Philo is a pretty big-deal fashion designer. We can all agree that fashion is a form of art, yes? Though this might not be a literary allusion, per se, it’s still adding another layer of texture to the track.
Kanye Lyric: Sex is one fire, I’m the king of Leon-a Lewis. There’s probably a musical term for this, but the Literary Man is literary, not musical, and hence doesn’t know it: basically, Kanye sings “I’m the King of Leon,” the American rock band from Tennessee, but then he stretches the “Leon” into “Leona Lewis,” effectively qualifying the previous bit. Leona Lewis is (who knew?) is “a multi-platinum selling artist and three time Grammy Award nominee. Her most successful single, “Bleeding Love“, reached number one in over thirty countries around the world” (thx Wikipedia). She’s also very good looking. The wordplay here is even more intelligent because Leona Lewis is British, and they (sometimes) have kings there. King. Leona. Kings of Leon. Head = spinning.
Kings of Leona Lewis
Kanye Lyric: Too many Urkels on your team, that’s why you’re Winslow. This one doesn’t require too much explanation, but it is completely awesome. “You’re Winslow” of course literally implies that you are Carl Winslow from the brilliant 1980s sitcom “Family Matters,” where the character Steve Urkel forever implanted himself in the impressionable minds of America’s youth. Urkel, even today, is a word synonymous with irredeemable social ignominy. However, it also sounds like Kanye’s saying “your wins are low,” in reference, of course, to the whole mention of “team” in the line. This is good stuff, people.
Kanye Lyric: I saw the Devil in a Chrysler LeBaron. This one’s a pretty straightforward allusion to the John Hughes masterpiece “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” starring John Candy and Steve Martin.
John Candy, i.e. the Devil in a Chrysler LeBaron.
Kanye Lyric: kissed an heiress and woke up back in Paris. Thus concludes our analysis of the allusions in “Dark Fantasy.” It all in the end comes back to Paris Hilton. She’s an heiress, and, sure, it’s possible that Kanye’s kissed / slept with her. And of course Paris is also a city where one might s’est réveillé. Pun! Pun! Pun! Paris the pun!
Literary Men can do better than Paris.
Of course, this list isn’t mean to be exhaustive, just exhausting. If you can pull out any additional instances of interesting wordplay, let’s play. With words. In the comments. You might also wonder how Kanye would do with our Top Ten Hottest Authors.
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Loved The article! All of his lyrics are “good stuff” but I really enjoyed how articulate you were in breaking this down. You should dedicate this site in analyzing all of his songs. That would really be exhausting and entertaining!
Thanks, Sharice, for reading! If you can think of additional Kanye songs that we should analyze, let us know! There are so many good ones, it’s hard to pick out which ones are most deserving of attention.
If you really wanna make a case for Kanye as a literary man, you might wanna take a look at ‘Lost in the World’ and do a side by side reading of its lyrics with T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’. They’re both very different from each other but share eerie similarities. E.g. “Let’s break out of this fake ass party turn this into a classic night” parallels the request in Prufrock to “go then, you and I” to “sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells” away from the (fake) “women [who] come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.” at the fake parties that the voice in Prufrock has been so hesitant to attend. It’s awesome =).
This sounds awesome! Thank you for the suggestion. We might very well continue our Kanye articles with Prufrock, as you’ve suggested. Sounds like a great idea. . .
No problem. Thank you for the article, it’s very well written! I’m excited to read the other articles on the site.
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Before I start, I want to clarify that I’m not arguing that rap is an art form, and I’m not even arguing that Kanye West isn’t talented. I do, however think this article is ridiculous. The author calls a lame reference to an ’80s sitcom a “literary reference”. And punning on Paris Hilton’s name? SNL did a five-minute sketch about 11 years ago punning on her name, and more cleverly so than Mr. West (done by Jimmy Fallon if you want to look it up). And the bit about the Murcielago is rubbish if anything’s rubbish. It’s totally fabricated in the mind of the author, and more of a stretch than any interpretation I’ve seen in recent memory.
As I said, not bashing rap or Kanye West, just the article. The article is either satirical or horribly misguided. If Kanye is to be a “literary man”, then wouldn’t it make sense that literature be referenced? Seeing a John Candy movie and watching TV when he grew up doesn’t quite make him a literary man. Nor does sleeping with a talentless heiress and then talking about it.
As per the previous comments about T.S. Eliot, what makes this “literary” is the impressive, varied use of allusion — an established literary form (and favorite of Joyce) — to layer and contextualize “Dark Fantasy.” You’ve got to admit that the “Too many Urkels on your team, that’s why you’re Winslow” bit is just excellent. Yeah, you’re probably right the Paris part is pretty lame / easy, but so were some of Eliot’s references to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which any educated European would’ve understood as readily as we 21st century pop culture worshippers recognize. Still, we’re pleased that you’ve commented and partaken in the dialogue. Kanye’s certainly a polarizing entertainer.
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And here I thought–until the comments section–you were writing satire. Kanye West a genius? Of 80s sitcoms, perhaps. And he probably liked those only because there were so many applause tracks. Oh, ok, I’ll give him this…taking away a po lil white girl’s night of celebration certainly gave him a lot of press. Great free advertising. Genius at presenting himself. I’ll stop now…