Meditation – Yeezy's (Impossible) Love in Fugitivity's Strings: A Meditation on "Runaway"

Kanye's debut trilogy of music- The College Dropout (2004), Late Registration (2005), and Graduation (2007) - modeled his ascension to the pinnacle of Hip Hop on truancy, a turning away from America's expected path of formal education. Black folks enter professional machineries of all sort...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of hip hop studies 2019-07, Vol.6 (1), p.48A-137
Main Authors: Manigault-Bryant, James, Manigault-Bryant, LeRhonda
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Celebrities
Intimacy
Meditation
Pusha T (Terrence Thornton)
Rap music
West, Kanye
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Kanye's debut trilogy of music- The College Dropout (2004), Late Registration (2005), and Graduation (2007) - modeled his ascension to the pinnacle of Hip Hop on truancy, a turning away from America's expected path of formal education. Black folks enter professional machineries of all sorts to make it up and over mountains of struggle, but once enduring the fires of training, whether in College, or in other networks, what awaits us on the other side of financial and commercial success can resemble more of a nightmare than a dream - a dark twisted fantasy. The symphonic feel of "Gone," supplicated by powerful lines from Cam'ron and Consequence, concludes with Kanye, lifted by strings, admitting his consideration to leave the rap game behind: "I'm ahead of my time, sometimes years out / So the powers that be won't let me get my ideas out / And that make me wanna get my advance out / And move to Oklahoma and just live at my aunt's house / Yeah, I romance the thought of leaving it all behind / Kanye step away from the lime / Light." [...]he realizes that assuming the role of a sensei in the rap game would be contributing to the mechanistic production of replaceable Hip Hop artists, and also depriving the world of his irreplaceable talent.
ISSN:2331-5563
DOI:10.34718/xaa3-5k94