With the recent Mental Health Awareness Week on campus, I was wondering how to best touch on this topic and found my answer while listening to Pinocchio Story by Kanye West. I am a big Kanye fan and I realized that I had overlooked his mental state, the same way millions had before.The song is the story of his experience with fame and his struggles with who he has become. The lyric that most greatly influenced me was when he pours his heart out to the audience and says, “There is no Y.S.L that they could sell to get my heart, out of this hell and my mind, out of this jail.” In the audio, there is a person who screams as one does at a concert, but it deeply affected me because here was this man, revealing the deepest parts of himself to the world, but still he is treated as a shiny object. It sounded as if he was desperately crooning into the void. We so often choose to ignore the signs of mental illness in celebrities and even those we love, to avoid feeling uncomfortable. Through Kanye West, I think it is important for all of us to pay attention to those around us and act on cries for help when we see them.
In order to fully grasp this poem, I think it necessary to listen to Pinocchio Story by Kanye West before reading.
Ode to Kanye
I love Kanye like Kanye loves Kanye
but I know this new Kanye is a little Lost in the World,
not like my old Kanye who was a Champion
and All of the Lights changed my old Kanye
but y’all gotta let him breathe cause
that’s his Family Business
He’s helped me find some Real Friends that
I’m Bound 2 have til I Touch the Sky.
Kanye tells me, “Breathe in Breathe Out”
And Everything I Am can be summed up through his words
But it’s not fair that I get to enjoy
His cries for help because he doesn’t
want to be Famous anymore,
all the Flashing Lights and all the Bad News
Everyone thinking he’s living the Good Life
while he tries to tell us all Two Words
but it seems that We Don’t Care enough to
save him from his Dark Fantasy
Picture source: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/808s-heartbreak/296840012