Album: The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Space
Song: Your Hand In Mine
The guy has great stage presence. Has a broad sense of theatricality and showmanship. And his flow is admirable, from time to time. His rhymes are pretty good too. So why do I hate Kanye West?
"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
"There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing." - Maya Angelou as quoted in Neal Zero, The Truth in Words
As a society we tend to overvalue cynicism. It implies a type of world weariness born from hard earned, perhaps bitter, experience. As such it implies wisdom. As such it implies intelligence. And it carries with it a cool cachet.
Close your eyes and picture a cynic. I see only the pretense of cool, of intelligence, and of wisdom. I see someone trying very hard to impress, more interested in the pages of Vogue than the pages of Mother Jones. I see someone with a chip on his shoulder, eager to prove his knowledge but lacking the subtlety to contextualize that knowledge. I see someone more than willing to proselytize and to preach but someone ill equipped to listen closely. I see someone desperate to succeed, but only in fields that popular culture values important. I see Kanye West.
Okay. Now wipe that picture from your memory, and watch this: Explosions in the Sky, Your Hand in Mine. I see a group of people who don't care how they are perceived. I see a group of people willing to create something beautiful simply for the sake of beauty. I see youthful idealism, perhaps even Romanticism. I see nerdy earnestness. I see a group of people with whom I would like to sit and discuss music and art and whatever else we might feel passionately about.
Here's the studio version of the song, if you're interested.
Rondino?
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