Amma tell you about Kanye West because I am the greatest

Kanye West banned his kid from wearing makeup. Kanye and Kim have another spat. Kanye West disses Dancing With the Stars. The headlines are 120% Kanye West right now.

It's hard to avoid him. According to the wisdom of West, he's either the greatest or God's vessel or bigger than PJ & Duncan. Kanye's simply following in the size 92 boots of boastful rappers, a path well trodden by Public Enemy and Method Man and the like. It's all standard stuff.

Although perhaps Chuck D had more of a purpose: blazing a trail to empower people of colour, speaking truth to authority and building an empire along the way. With Kanye it somehow seems so much more capitalist, more commercial and perhaps more empty.

It does mean, though, it's difficult to listen to new Kanye material without sensing the eccentric Trump-ian ego behind the work. And that's a shame because I missed out on much of his earlier material, when he was proper good. When College Dropout appeared in the mid-noughties, I'd been through my hip-hop phase. And what a phase. Vanilla Ice, Snap, John Barnes.

Maybe I could learn something from Mr West. I should be more boastful, because fake confidence breeds real confidence. Yeah. I'm going to do it. Here it comes. Here comes the ego. Ready?

Amma let me finish, but y'all Fat Roland is the best. Fats is the dopest dope. More fly than the other guy. Fat Roland knows 20 digits of pi by heart. Fats, er, is, um, good, I think.

Jeez, I'm exhausted. How does he keep it up? Maybe he is the greatest. Maybe he was right about Dancing With The Stars. Maybe 120% is about right.

Further Fats: Glastonbury's got 99 bands, and Jay Z should be one of them (2008)

Further Fats: World Book Day: music books I have read and should have read (2019)