Scoop Jackson

He has a city to save.

An entire city must be a heavy responsibility to bear. The weight. Along with that weight comes a burden. The years. For twenty years, the City of Big Shoulders has been on life support, waiting--breathing--for some extremely yet commercially gifted MC to not just save it, but put the third largest city in America on the map. It was once written in the hip-hop bible, The Source, of Chicago: "A city of three million muthafuckas that can't rap." From this Kanye West was born.

Chicago, since the incubation of hip-hop, has been looking for a savior, one to put all of these talented muthafuckas on the map. Twista lit shit back in the day, followed by Ten Tray, Judgmental, Do or Die, Common, Malik Yusef, Reggie Gibson, Robert Kelly, DaBrat, No ID, Crucial Conflict, HWA, Ang13, Bon and Nip, Spike and Jamal, J.U.I.C.E., and a spaceship worth of extremely talented individuals and crews in-between. Some had deals; some left, blew up and never came back; some never had a chance to begin with; most never got heard past the block they made their beats on. In the words of a former label exec : "If you're from Chicago and you're not from the West Side, sounding like Crucial Conflict, then you aren't moving units."

"It goes my way, Chi way, this way or the highway" Kanye says, reciting lines off his song "My Way" on the phone from his newly purchased LA home. It's days away from the drop date of his highly anticipated (even with the bootleg version going platinum on the streets) debut CD, "College Dropout." His voice is a mixture of eagerness, arrogance and anticipation. "People always have preconceived ideas when you're a producer who also rhymes," he continues, addressing his initial success as a producer for hip-hop's top names. "I wanna stress, Stevie Wonder produced his own music. Prince produced his own music. Tyrone Davis, Bobby Womack..." his list goes on, his point is made. The highway is empty.

As one of Chi's greatest unknown producers (one who will eventually challenge Kanye for his mythical city title), Harvey Allbanger says it best: "Kanye's innovative because he's a Chicago resident. As one whose mom is from here and family's from down South, he brings all of that with him into the booth. He's exactly what hip-hop needs right now. I believe Kanye will effectively initiate the Chicago hip-hop movement that the city has been searching for."

South Side-raised, the young preppy backpack prodigy Kanye began replacing lyrics with poetry, beats with rhythms. His name began to appear in places no Chicagoan had ever appeared before. On Scarface tracks ("Guess Who's Back"), Jay-Z classics ("Izzo (H.O.V.A)," "Girls, Girls, Girls," and "'03 Bonnie & Clyde," etc.), Talib Kweli bangers ("Get By") and Ludacris anthems ("Stand Up"). On the local mixtape scene his Kon the Louis Vuitton Don made more noise than Daley tearing up airports. He messed around and appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam. In between all of this, the number-one rap label in the country was making him its one-man, in-house production squad. If Jay-Z, Dame Dash and Kareem Biggs were the ROC in Roc-A-Fella Records, Kanye West was becoming the "A," the glue that mended the method to the madness. Then he met a girl named Alicia, he borrowed her keys, drove her to a place where no one knew her name. They parked at No. 1. Then he sampled, sped and sent Chaka Kahn "Thru The Wire," making everyone from the New York Times to Entertainment Weekly pay attention. Then he united with Twista to create the local and Billboard phenomenon "Slow Jamz." This is how the West got won.

The apathy about Chicago hip-hop is sickening... and Kanye knows it. He's seen people from this city drop "classic" material, albums that in any other era would have made the artists household names and Grammy nominees, and not even go cubic zirconia, let alone platinum or gold. Common's "Resurrection," No ID's "Black Album," Malik Yusef's "The Great Chicago Fire, A Cold Day In Hell." West's "College Dropout" may be one of those albums. "Bling free," as Rolling Stone called it, "Dropout," like most hip-hop artists' first discs, is an autobiography. The difference: Kanye has a life worth reciting.

"I have flashbacks of what happened everyday," Kanye says about the 2002 car accident that almost took his life. "Anytime I hear about any accident, my heart sinks and I just thank..." he pauses. "...you just find out how short life is and how blessed you are to be here."

The spirit of Kanye almost not being here can be found all over "Dropout." Along with "Spaceship," where he brilliantly uses Marvin Gaye's "Distant Lover" as the backdrop (Chicago product JLC also guest appears on the track), "Jesus Walks" may be the song of the year. As Isaac Paris, Chicago-based writer for XXL, says: "I want to thank Kanye for that song." The line of note: "I wanna talk to God but I'm afraid/'Cause we ain't spoke in so long." Why be hard when you can be deep instead?

But the city still needs a savior. As Kanye puts it, days before he returns home to perform at the House of Blues next week, "In music and society people tell you to pick sides: are you mainstream or underground? Do you rhyme about nice cars or about riding the train? Are you ignorant or do you know something about history? I'm a person who can do all these different things. It's like everybody is taking the fork in the road, they don't see the rainbow in the middle. I do. I'm about to ride that. I'm the prism. My music comes out in all colors."

The question is, can he do this in a city that claims to be musically colorblind?

Kanye West performs two shows on February 11 at the House of Blues, 329 North Dearborn, (312)923-2000. Newcity is a media sponsor of the show.

(2004-02-03)

Also by Scoop Jackson

A Civil Rights Movement
The Chicago Bulls ain't what they used to be.
(2000-06-08)

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