The College Graduate: My Life Translated by Kanye West

Abstract

Recently an edited book was released on the enigmatic and controversial figure Kanye West. The Cultural Impact of Kanye West features a collection of scholarly essays that deconstruct the hip-hop icon in terms of not only his musical and lyrical contributions to the art of hip-hop, but also his particular cultural embodiment of self and community. When I first saw the book in the library, I was envious of Julius Bailey (2014), the editor of the volume, because I love Kanye West. I am very aware of his many flaws, but for my generation (a generation of millennials) he embodies a new and transgressive subjective space for straight cis-gendered Black men in hip-hop. His debut album, The College Dropout, changed not only the sound of hip-hop using speedup samples, but also the aesthetic. Wearing pink polos and Louis Vuitton backpacks, Kanye West literally changed the game. His aesthetics created space for someone like me, an upper-middle-class Black male, in hip-hop. He transmogrified and translocated hip-hop, moving it from the gritty streets of Crenshaw Boulevard to the posh executive spaces on Madison Avenue.