"Lift Yourself": The Future of Kanye West

By BECK KENDIG '20

From rap and beat-making to fashion and production, Kanye West has an iconic presence in America’s artistic culture.

Ray and Donda West raised Kanye in the suburbs of Chicago. Writing poetry and begging his mother to pay for studio time to record his early raps, he sparked his music interest at an early age. Although Hip Hop had always been a major part of Kanye’s life, his career truly commenced only when he dropped out of Chicago State University to pursue music. Making beats for local artists, Kanye began to develop his unique style of production. After a brief stint rapping and producing for the Go-Getters, a Chicago based rap group, Kanye continued producing for other artists. While his prestige as a producer grew, West worked with increasingly popular artists and eventually signed a production deal with Roc-A-Fella Records.

In 2001, despite his success as a producer and supposed lack of a traditional rapper persona, Kanye was able to fulfill his lifelong goal of becoming a professional rapper. In the following years, the release of his single “Through the Wire” and debut album The College Dropout launched Kanye to fame. After this initial accomplishment, his musical career and his personal prestige continued to flourish.

Through his artistic campaign, West eventually became invested in fashion. With the drop of the original Air Yeezy’s, a shoe collaboration with Nike, West begun his fashion career in 2009. After several projects including a collaboration with A Bathing Ape (BAPE) and the creation of Kanye’s woman’s label, the Yeezy name paired with Adidas to create the Adidas 750 Boost. The Adidas-Yeezy partnership quickly became popular among the fashion community, and today, Yeezys are perhaps the most widely sought after and prominent shoes in the streetwear industry.

Since the release of his 2016 album The Life of Pablo, Kanye’s musical career has stagnated. However, in the last few months, West has released two singles, the most notable of the two being titled “Lift Yourself.” As the song begins, a women sings the words “lift yourself up on your feet, lets get it on,” twelve times in a row. Although repetitive, this section of the song is rather melodic and incorporates an upbeat and soulful tone. After a few lines of singing, a funky beat with a drum underlay rises as the singing dissipates. While the woman’s voice returns, Kanye’s voice cuts in to lift up “this next verse...these bars.” For the next thirty seconds of “Lift Yourself,” Kanye raps lyrics that boil down to seemingly random combinations of words that rhyme with “poop.”  Although there may be genius hidden behind these lyrics, it seems that Kanye couldn’t possibly be able to hide a deeper meaning with words like “poopy-di scoop/Scoop-diddy-whoop.” Despite the confusing and weird elements of this song, it already has over fifteen million listens on Spotify. In fact, the popularity of “Lift Yourself” possibly exists because of the nature of the song. It’s odd, it’s confounding, and honestly quite funny; for those reasons, people are drawn to it. Could this outcome be what Kanye actually desired when he released this single?

Considering the extent of his fame, some claim it unlikely that Kanye would tarnish his professional reputation with such a song for the sake of popularity; however, the real reasoning behind “Lift Yourself” still remains ambiguous. And will more ambiguous, seemingly ridiculous songs come from Kanye? Could “Lift Yourself” be an precursory embodiment of West as a rapper? For his sake (and for the sake of his fans), let’s hope not.