No one in hip-hop has ever been penalized for talking too much about himself. Proto-MCs in 70s dance clubs were bragging about their rap skills before anyone was even sure what made for good rapping, and from those roots sprang the most explicitly autobiographical pop music in history. You don’t need to read the book or watch the movie to learn about Biggie’s teenage crack-slinging career, Jay-Z’s childhood in the Marcy projects, or the forensic details of 50 Cent’s shooting.
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And you can get a good feel for Kanye West’s backstory in maybe three songs from his first album, if you pick them right: raised middle-class in Chicago, he bailed on college and the bourgeois dream to pursue music, overcoming a shortage of street cred to rise to the top of the rap game. Lacking a gangsta’s gritty past and a studio gangsta’s willingness to invent one, he ran out of autobiography pretty quickly–he’s only just turned 30–and so began channeling his desire to write about himself into lyrics focusing on his own genius and the struggles success has brought him. The sort of cocky MCs who obsess about their position on the totem pole rarely seem capable of self-regard more sophisticated than imagining themselves martyrs–they’re keeping it so real that people want to take them down, the fantasy usually goes–but Kanye dissects himself with a clear eye, exploring his own faults more thoroughly than any mainstream rapper before him. Even more remarkably, he does it without resorting to the cliche of the repentant thug or the customary spasms of self-doubt brought on by a fallen homie.
“Big Brother” may be the most intense song about how deeply friendship can affect a man that I’ve ever heard, and it peaks when Kanye details what he sees as snubs from Jay: “Big Brother got a show up in Madison Square / And I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah, we gon’ be there,’ but / Not only did I not get a chance to spit it / Carlene told me I could buy two tickets.” Kanye’s complaints may seem petty–he’s basically hurt that Jay-Z didn’t recognize him as a genius right from the start–but he nonetheless makes it obvious that his desire to equal Jay’s success and earn his respect was a big part of his motivation for coming out from behind the boards to take a shot at superstardom.
