Do we stand collectively as mourners for a GOAT or victims of revisionist rap history?

The afternoon Kanye West walked across my boss’s desk was somewhere in the final months of 2003. At the time, his unreleased

debut album was titled Drug Dealing. It would later be etched into history as The College Dropout, the inception of a spectacular and

most maverick five-album run. Imagine hearing Kanye’s “Jesus Walks” live for the first time. I stood there attentive, at once possessed

by the militaristic percussion and background vocals that apparently traveled a full century from Mississippi. Kanye was literally

rapping to me. With performative acuity and swiftness, he pivoted to the person leaning on the wall a few feet away. With the Chicago

creative’s direct sunlight and demonstrative showmanship now removed from my eyesight, the spirit of his words began to bloom

from under my consciousness.

“I wanna talk to God, but I’m afraid cause we ain’t spoke in so long.”

I remember my arms being crossed; my chin and gaze raised. There was something infectiously individual and awkward about this “wanna-be-rapper” from the Windy City. Is he seriously Jay-Z’s next Roc-A-Fella artist? I thought. Rappers don’t spit like this. Masters of ceremonies don’t speak like this — brazen with their faith, vulnerable with their spirituality. Nah. The sensory experience was almost overwhelming. At the time, I was a young music editor at the top hip-hop magazine, standing in the doorway of their editor-in-chief’s office, watching in disbelief as an obscure Kanye West passionately performed his debut album on top of a desk.

On that particular day, the Chicago State University dropout was many miles and a half-decade away from the polarizing generational artist he would become. Today, the son of Donda Catherine West stands unsteadily as despised as he is deified. Conjoined with the above sentiments is a respectably sized population that mourns the Ye of two decades ago. Whether the citizens in each faction pray for the savant’s homecoming or that he remains a memory is ironically a division in hip-hop similar to the effect Ye’s favorite red cap has on America.

What many Kanye West detractors fail to realize is that they are complicit doctors in the network of the Yeezy Frankenstein. Better yet, Dr. Jeckyl — the relationship between Mr. West and his celebrity following is a single (dare I say) bipolar organism. We swaddled ourselves with his soul samples, fueled his pockets, ballooned his ego, and affirmed his narratives and genius. Then, we allowed him to claim the throne. Albeit a slippery slope with a high risk of power trippin’, reciprocity was never absent.

In exchange, Mr. West fed us G.O.O.D. music and balance for a digital generation of b-boys and girls more familiar with Myspace and backpacks than cocaine packages and plugs. He gave the laypeople the liberty to feel aspirational and gangsta without having to trap or die trying to get rich. Before uttering one mainstream rap line, with Jay-Z’s Blueprint, he brought the best album out of the best rapper alive. When our culture kings were sharecropping for the White House with minority-targeted voting ploys, Ye used his voice to call out George Bush’s negligence toward Black Americans. Did you realize that Kanye West gave hip-hop a superhero to champion? Yes, he did.