Make Love in My Car | Episode 2: It’s Genius, I Guess
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Make Love In My Car is a regular music column by Kendra Allen. The name of the column is a reference to the song “Make Out in My Car” by Moses Sumney. The slight change in meaning is intended to amplify the camaraderie, comedy, and closeness of riding in a car with a great playlist, whether alone or with someone else. In this episode, she writes about Kanye West.
A note from Kendra: Ok. So. I’m doing the thing: writing about Kanye West. I’ve listened to a lot of Kanye West in my car. The first time I heard Kanye West was in a car when I was nine and my uncle thought he was a Christian rapper. I feel like I gotta say Kanye West in every sentence when talking about Kanye West. I feel like Kanye West would like that. I’m not here to bash Kanye West. Kanye West has always felt like a case study of success more than he’s felt successful to me. People call Kanye West a genius all the time. I think that’s gotta be a lot of pressure on Kanye West. I think Kanye West loves those names, understands what they require. I think Kanye West loves those names more than he loves his art. I think Kanye West super fans love those names and his art. I wanted to write about when I started to really notice where genius ends and begins through the lens of Kanye West’s most unacclaimed album, Yeezus. This piece—like Kanye West—is probably gonna be all over the place, it’s too complicated to tie down. I wanted to know where Kanye West’s perceived genius ended and where Kanye West began. I wonder if Kanye West knows the answer.
It’s the first week of summer, senior year just ended, and Yeezus just dropped. It’s been a three-year hiatus since Kanye West gifted us what is considered his magnum opus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. But Yeezus is different—we know this before we ever hear it. The anticipation of its release has been especially high. There’ve been months of controversy around the album title, critics and children referring to it as blasphemous and satanic. During one of our senior activities to the skating rink, I sit at a small table with too many boys who think their musical opinions are gospel as they discuss the optics of the album’s rollout.
One of them says this nigga has really lost his mind and thinks he’s God.
One of them says Kanye West IS music and they don’t care what he calls himself as long as he continues to make said music.
One of them says they can’t bring no album titled Yeezus in they mama’s God-fearing home.
I say I just hope he rapping well, but I get what the last one means.
The album title is jarring and the album itself ain’t just something you can play whenever because all that noise can easily get on somebody’s nerves. And Ye’ chanting “GOD!” over and over at the end of “Black Skinhead” is not gone necessarily help his argument. But we don’t know that yet. We don’t know anything yet. The only thing we can assume about this forthcoming endeavor is that—like the others—our concept of sound will shift.
About a week before Yeezus is released, my friend Oak gets wind that the “New Slaves” installation Kanye’s been putting up around the country is coming to Dallas. Even then, hearing the words “new” and “slaves” being put together made my eyes roll. I don’t understand his obsession with coining things the “new” this or that, I just know Kanye wants credit for everything and adding “new” to the things he does makes it easier for his standom to agree, and lately it seems that this is all he wants, for us to agree with him. I’ve only met one other person in my life who loves Kanye more than Oak, and if you know anybody like these two people (I’m sure you do), you know this man is all they talk about. Oak says we have to go, that this is a once-in-a-lifetime, life-altering experience. That Kanye is the [insert any artistically revered rich white man who invented some shit here] of our time. She ain’t have to say all this. I was gone go anyways because I’m a fan of Kanye West. A casual one, but one who can easily admit Late Registration and Graduation and 808s, and of course My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy are all amazing, timeless albums that continue to influence a lot of the production we hear today. But it’s really hard to love Kanye if you don’t think he’s perfect, only because those who LOVE Kanye thinks he’s perfect, a genius they say. Oak is one of those people who worship him, who believe he revolutionized music even though his catalog heavily relies on sampling other great music, but I digress. It’s whatever. I ain’t tryna argue.
We catch the train downtown. There’s been buzz around the album since it leaked a few days ago. On the ride down, I tell her I’ve heard it was . . . different. But so was 808’s if we just pretend like T-Pain don’t exist. But because we’re eighteen and think we’re purists, we don’t download it. We wait.
We buy.
“New Slaves” will be the first thing we’ll both hear from the album, and I don’t tell her how the only thing I’ve been hearing about Yeezus is it’s trash. Plus, I’m way more excited about the release of J. Cole’s Born Sinner that is slated to release the same day. Oak says some of her friends are gonna meet us downtown, and when we get there, there’s a concert of teenagers lined up and down the street. None of us know where the installation will be set up—it’s some kind of surprise, some kind of last-minute announcement. The one way is only crowded because everybody assumes it will happen on a main street. Really, it’s happening on a backstreet. Somebody yells out they got the location, and they take off running like Kanye is actually there. We walk until we see a projector plastered on the back of a random building, and even this is causing stans to read too much into it. They start talking about how a superstar of his caliber is so lowkey that he chooses to use an alleyway as a red-carpet premiere, that he won’t let the megalomania of who he’s created himself to be consume him. How with geniuses, everything is intentional, and I swear you couldn’t pay me to be a teenager again.
Of course, the four-minute show starts late because not only is Kanye a musical genius—he’s the most fashionable man on the planet, and the most fashionable man on the planet has to be fashionably late—it’s a part of his brand. I don’t really care bout all this. I don’t know a lot about performance art at the time. And I ain’t that fashionable. I just came because I wanna hear the damn song and have fun with my friends.
When it starts, there’s his big-ass head with his thick gold chain (such discreet symbolism) and Black T-shirt and as he starts the first verse of “New Slaves,” I’m all in. It’s reminiscent of the first verse on “Spaceship,” a favorite of mine, a commentary on Black folk in high-end stores in fashion and how in the end you still a nigga in a Coupe and blah blah—the same shit that made us fall in love with Kanye. Cool.
No problem.
Everyone is silent,
hanging on to that chain like it’s a shackle, in a full trance. It’s some cult-like shit if I’ve ever seen it and I can’t imagine the power in knowing you have that type of influence over the youth.
If you’ve ever listened to Kanye say anything, you know he’s always felt deserving of something, entitled to it even. Of fame, money, accolades, respect; even once he’d accumulated all these things, there’s still an air of feeling slighted. That’s how songs like “Everything I Am” and “I Wonder” and most of the tracks on Graduation transform into songs like “POWER” and now “New Slaves.” How they start off with real ideas and end up as these sort of check lists, these affirmations that he’s not only who he thinks he is, but he’s better and here’s why. I agree: it’s all intentional. It’s formulaic. It’s interesting how Kanye goes from wishing for a savior to being to his own savior to having a keen, borderline obsessed desire to be the world’s savior—it’s very white of him, and that aspect about his art is what I have no interest in in. But I’m eighteen, and of course I’m not at the screening thinking these thoughts through fully—I’m just thinking what the fuck is he talking bout as I hear but I’d rather be a dick than a swallower. I’m still unsure of what the album will be like; at this point I just think it’s gonna be an advanced class on marketing. I understand that Kanye understands the politics of shock value—that’s why all his song titles are melodramatic and the bars lately all end up mediocre at best once you strip the song down to its lyrics; I don’t see no reason why songs would be titled “Black Skinhead” or “I Am a God” if not to get people to at least listen.
I actually really like “New Slaves,” it’s what I expected it to be. It’s not the first or last time we’ll hear a song from Kanye about gatekeeping or access which is why I’m slightly confused by everyone around me acting like it’s the greatest thing they’ve ever witnessed in their entire life. That this will be the greatest album ever released. That nobody, and I mean nobody in the world, has a mind like this man. That this is—that word again—genius.
It’s not that I don’t think Kanye West is, or at least has been for the greater part of his career, especially in 2013, excellent at his job. I’ve just always been skeptical about calling a person a genius. It rejects room for growth, for critically thinking about the decisions we make when we make things, for critique, and if you can’t be critiqued, you can’t really become a better human, or artist for that matter. It makes you sheltered and institutionalized. And because we fail to critique what and whom we deem as genius, it’s hard to accept when they inevitably start to act out. I’m not saying I think genius is unattainable. I’ve read Toni Morrison novels. I’ve heard “Maggot Brain.” I’ve watched David Makes Man. Genius exists all around us. I think it’s something anyone can tap into every blue moon if we put perfectionism to the side. And yes, it’s nice to be flattered, to be acknowledged for all the mental gymnastics involved in completing a project so I never wanna say exceptionalism isn’t attainable. But we gotta be able to honor when it just ain’t what it could be too. I just think it’s unrealistic, elitist, and arrogant to think this concept of genius is consistent. We fail. To call a person a genius doesn’t give them that chance to do so. And I don’t think Kanye has had that moment where he’s face to face with his art in a way where he can openly admit that maybe in the midst of my perceived brilliance, I forgot that I could fail. That I could have thought of a better line in this song. That I could have just shut up. I don’t expect him to. And I’m not saying I expect him to humble himself either, I’m not sure if I believe in what that word represents, especially for Black folk. I just wish Kanye West was able to acknowledge why he’s been able to sway and swivel and secure his level of success. So let me not lie.
These niggas do not be geniuses, they just be loud.
These niggas do not be geniuses, they just be lying.
These niggas do not be geniuses, they just be convincing.
These niggas do not be geniuses, they just be contrarians.
These niggas do not be geniuses, they just be capitalists.
These niggas do not be geniuses, they just be men.
And this is why we keep calling it brand new. But like I said, I go to Target and buy the album the day it comes out. It comes in clear, plastic packaging with a reddish-orange piece of tape across its right side and it’s fire—how it looks, way better than the Born Sinner cover.
Iono how I feel about it yet, I say a week later. The general consensus is it’s either the most experimental album ever created or it’s the worst. I stall and turn the knob on the stereo down.
I’m lying.
The general consensus is Yeezus is Kanye West’s worst album to date. Hip-hop heads ain’t feeling it. It’s brash, all over the place, lacking meaning. It’s awkward because this is the first time I’ve heard words like “bad,” connected to one of his albums. His stans on the other hand are calling it groundbreaking. I look over to Bee, who’s sitting in the passenger seat, hoping he interjects with his producer expertise, but he’s looking at the album cover. Oak has taken her stance now and forever more, loyal till the end.
I gotta listen some more, I add before she starts to explain how we mere mortals aren’t cultured enough to understand the genius and vision of a once-in-a-lifetime artist who is constantly trendsetting and redefining music’s sound. I don’t know what day it is, but we’re all in my car—a 2003 white Mazda that I just got back after wrecking it two weeks after getting it. I’m pushing it down Greenville Ave because I told them I’d take them to CD Source, my favorite place in Dallas—a record store that has more old than new. In a year it’ll be closed for good. These are my music friends, and by music friends, I mean my friends who lose their minds over songs the same way I do—who don’t mind making weird noises in the middle of a song the way I do when a chord hits just right. Oak thinks we just don’t get it. I’ve listened to the album through once and I picked a few favorites out but besides that, it was so loud I felt assaulted.
I mean “I’m In It” and “Bound 2” gone get played, but besides that I ain’t amazed, I say, knowing this is only gone get Oak to yell at me.
Play “Hold My Liquor,” she instructs me. She already knows the album inside out. I click the button until she says this is it. Chief Keef’s distorted voice enters our space. He does the Chief Keef thing we all love at the top of the track, and I can feel Oak’s smirk from the backseat. The sounds make her come out of her body like she’s cross-faded. Imma love this shit. I already know. I don’t know how I skimmed over it before. We hear Kanye and Oak both: Bitch, I’m back out my coma! There’s this screeching sound coming in after each bar that was deafening on my first listen, but now each screech makes me feel blessed for some reason. Ok, ok, ok, I get it, I wanna say so bad but I refuse. I suppress the awe and it’s painful. The more it goes on, the more I tighten my fingers around the steering wheel. This shit really is amazing. Maybe experimental to an ear that only listens to one genre of music. I look in my rearview mirror at Oak, who is sitting in the middle of the backseat—she’s in a euphoric state. Her eyes are closed. Her hands are over her head touching the dingy roof of my car like she’s outside at a music festival with too many drugs in her system. She leans up to rest her elbows on the thing in the middle telling us how there’s literally not a better song and I understand because every song that makes me react the way this one does, I have called the greatest song ever. It’s not about whether that statement is ever right—it’s just about the moment. Bee is an amazingly talented producer and rapper, so he’s breaking all the sounds down, how sometimes the lyrics don’t matter when other things are empowering it, and I’m an amazingly talented listener, so I’m tuning them out and trying to put all the pieces together as to why my chest is beating fast like I’m getting ready to kiss a man for the first time—knowing I’m about to spend way more time than I originally planned with this album. Bee knows music like the back of his hand and finds inspiration in by-any-means ambition like Kanye’s; plus, he knows what he’s doing. Oak has by-any-means ambition. She wants to be an A&R and take over the music industry. I think they both will do more than they set out to do. Because, now that it’s been forced upon me, a song I previously didn’t pay attention to has converted my entire connection to the album—made me a believer in what imagination can produce.
I think about “Hold My Liquor” the entire time we’re in CD Source. Everyone is having a great time looking through all this music. We disperse but always end up back on the same aisle. We spend a long time there, buying cheap used CDs from underrated artists. I pick up Mozella’s I Will and Solange’s Sol-Angel & the Hadley Street Dreams and the Virgin Islands season of College Hill. We get back in the car, and we either talk about music or nothing. Oak is probably rambling about a girlfriend she either wants or already has and Bee is probably just talking and I am trying not to drive us off the road like I did the night we left a show in Deep Ellum where I pulled out and drove down a one way for a while before we noticed all the cars were coming toward us. Although I love this street, it’s so convoluted, and I think I got car-accident-related PTSD because every time I think my brakes are about to go out on this raggedy-ass car, I think of my window being crushed out and glass splattering everywhere—that screech of my tires, the same one that holds “Hold My Liquor” together. That same screech that’s reverbed and slowed down on “Guilt Trip” and has had me sitting in the car for an hour replaying it. We go through most of the album on this street. “On Sight,” and “Send It Up” in no particular order at this point. When I really hear “Blood on the Leaves” for the first time, my brain sends shock waves all over my body. Even with the backlash of using Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” to essentially rap about nothing, it takes about two weeks for me to realize its one of Kanye’s greatest songs ever in my opinion. In my top five for sure. I put it on when I’m stressed and swing my locs across my face slapping the shit out of myself. I just love “how you gone lie to the lawyaaaaa” feels in my mouth. Even if I spend the last minute and a half of it dying laughing at his attempt at a ballad. But I can’t let Oak know she right, so I introduce it to my cousin—convert others.
When I play the album in the car with my cousin, he calls all of it trash, but especially “Blood on the Leaves.” I’m offended, when just a few weeks ago, I was offended for another reason. He’s a Kanye fan too and was on board during all of his eras of anti-establishment activism like the rest of us, but Yeezus jarred him initially. I don’t try to convince him—I just keep on playing, keep on listening. A few weeks later, he says, You was right. This be knocking.
When I drop Oak off at home, I switch out Yeezus for Sol-Angel because my ears hurt. It’s an album I’m already intimately familiar with, it downloaded on my iPod for years. Bee never heard it before, and by the time we drive around the corner to his house, we’re just now getting to the middle of “God Given Name,” the first song on the album, one of my go-to reads when I need help understanding myself, when I need help with my own art, or just when I feel like hearing Black women barred up in the midst of the soul. Solange was flowing on that song. The first verse goes:
Get me, get me out of this box
I feel so claustrophobic in here
Leave your labels, leave with no patience
Hear my voice and fill with your ears
I’m no soul, girl, equipped with no afro
I’m just my God given name
This is a song that was meticulously chosen as the opening track to a journey. In it she continues,
I’m sorry if my visual don’t line up with my feelings
and my physical exhibit doesn’t represent me well
This is also a song, an album, about having room to exist, to not be perfect—an exact notion that Kanye has grappled with throughout his career. It just gets contradictory a lot of times between the narcissism disguised as politics and the “don’t box me in” guised over the “give me all the awards in those boxes I don’t wanna be in,” and so on and so forth. And if I had to choose songs I define as genius, they probably lean more toward the complications of the creation of self and art and colors than they lean toward an answer. By the time Bee is getting ready to get out of my car, he don’t want to. He says, Yooooo, what is THIS? and I tell him Solange. And I know I got him. I hand him the album and he looks it over. I tell him about “T.O.N.Y,” “Would’ve Been The One,” and “Cosmic Journey.” And I know he’s gonna follow up and listen to the whole thing. I wanna tell him so bad how listening to it makes me just wanna make something, but I’m eighteen and don’t know how to make anything yet. But this is the genius part about it; how it makes me wish to buy more of myself; and how that feeling is what’s undeniable, not the expectation of what the production of a thing may grant you access to. That if you seeking out genius, good luck. It ain’t a destination, it ain’t a person, it comes and goes, it’s a gust. But we’re just eighteen, I don’t know how much the gust requires silence yet, so I just say see ya later and to please listen.
Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. She’s the author of award-winning essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet as well as The Collection Plate, poems forthcoming from Ecco summer 2021. Her other work can be found on or in Repeller, Southwest Review, Frontier, The Rumpus, and more. Sometimes she tweets @KendraCanYou.
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