Kanye had the opportunity to do something pretty much none of us ever will. He had the opportunity to change an entire musical genre and change the prevailing attitudes regarding it around the whole world. He had the attention of everyone back in '05, everyone, and it really looked like he would do it. Yes, I am disappointed. You can say he has a right to do what he wants, and you can say I'm whack for expecting anything more of him, or say he's just representing what his life is really like, or say he's just trying to make money and nobody wants to hear consciousness anymore or whatever, but I will always think of Kanye as a huge waste of potential. Imagine if MLK went from his “I have a dream” speech to drinking and womanizing every night and acting ignorant. Now of course, Kanye isn't anything close to what MLK was, even if he would have tried to be, but I feel this exaggeration makes my point clear. Kanye went from the one person who could have uplifted hip hop and black culture in general, to just another reason why racists are convinced, “you can take the monkey out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the monkey.”
I sincerely hope Kanye rethinks his influence on millions of peoples lives. He still has time.
