In Praise of Assholes

Kanye West and 50 Cent are the two biggest drama queens to hit pop music since Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop, and that's not a bad thing. Hip-hop, still the voice of young black America, is only going to get louder and prouder as it goes along, if only because that demographic's voice is so hushed elsewhere. Barack Obama's campaign manager claims his candidate's currently muted voice is due to his belief that America isn't ready for a fire-breathing black man, and our nation's prisons and graveyards are full of the proof. But nature abhorring a vacuum, Kanye and 50 have rushed in to fill the void in that last safe space for such characters. A sister I know once told me she had no respect for a black man who wasn't arrogant. Maybe the advent of Mr. West and Mr. Cent warms her heart; maybe not. Regardless, there is, of course, that bothersome question: loud and proud and arrogant in the name of what? Wealth, fame, and gossip? Hmmm. While traveling about the country speaking in the 19th Century, Sojourner Truth, our beloved godmother of "The Struggle," used to sell post cards of herself, rationalizing her enterprise thus: "I use the shadow to support the substance."

These are the days when we ask whether there's anything but shade being served up as black popular culture. With respect to West's new Graduation and 50's new Curtis, one could easily come to feel that hype is being sold to support hype, so please don't believe the hype. But as Melville, another 19th-century godparent of truth, set forth in The Confidence Man, America is nothing if not a land where hustlers, grifters, con artists, and slicksters grease the wheel of populism, where the shadow often is the substance and where even those who've come to peddle the righteous truth realize they need to get some hustle up in their game. On a recent PBS report about Europe's love-hate relationship with America, a bizarre sidebar took us into the studio apartment of two French rappers of Arabic descent. Dudes wore fat gold chains, shined diamond grills, and gushed repeatedly about how they viewed both American MCs and Herr Bush as idols because their "game was so tight," repeatedly and ferociously invoking that phrase. They believe the hype, conflating Bushology and blingology as the new-model American dream. Cent has also spoken admiringly of Herr Bush's aggression. Real knows real.

West and Cent are both now as well-known for inciting beef as for recording and performing. You could think they both make records just to sell hype as opposed to the other way around, but they're also both formidable, state-of-the-art, 20th-century pop tunesmiths who take the job of writing delectable hits as seriously as any Brill or Motown scrivener ever did. One old-school hip-hop maven recently lamented that she can't believe she lives in a world where "Kanye is even a factor," largely because he can't really rap. Cent she loves, reminding those of us less titillated that the man does have charms to stir the distaff breast. But although it's true that West will probably never end up on anybody's list of even the 100 greatest MCs of all time, he's clearly got an exceptional ear for hooks, both musical and lyrical. Furthermore, he's got stuff to say that isn't the standard fare, stuff that still has undeniable mass-ass appeal. He also has a unique personality — that combined with moxie will still get you somewhere in this country.

West and Cent share are two of the most unrepentantly obnoxious figures in American pop culture since Cheney and Rumsfeld. The difference between them being that West is loud, bratty, and obnoxious but seemingly harmless while Cent is laconic, bratty, and obnoxious but genuinely sinister. His now-legendary Hot 97 interview, calmly warning a histrionic, hyperventilating Cam'ron about the dangers of his mouth writing checks his ass couldn't cash was as surgical, chilling, and devastating a threat as you've heard since Pacino played Corleone. But somewhere during 2005's The Massacre, Cent realized he didn't have to make records for gangsters, wanksters, or even guys anymore, that he could just be the lone N.Y. kingpin who made records strictly for the ladies. Those with truly savage breasts and literal cojones would have to find their high-testosterone hip-hop elsewhere — Cent could care less for your love anymore. Certainly not after cashing in those Glaceau stock options; if hip-hop is now more defined by the corporate game than the street game, that lucrative little coup just might be the definitive hip-hop act of 2007.