My 2015 began with a text: “You hear that new Kanye?” West released “Only One,” a collaboration with Paul McCartney, on New Year’s Day. The song is an exhibit of Kanye’s poetic deftness and spiritual depth, a departure from Black Skinhead-esque machine-gun rap and a nod to the introspective, vocally dominant Kanye of 808s and Heartbreak. Written from the perspective of Kanye’s late mother, Donda West, “Only One” is an honest expression of the coexisting happiness and sadness of lifelong grief.
“Only One” is Kanye as new father and grieving son, a man with gaping wounds and a great capacity for love. His wisdom stems from acknowledging worth despite fault: “No you’re not perfect, but you’re not your mistakes.” The lesson transmitted from Donda West through the vessel of her son is this: “You know I never left you/’cause every road that leads to heaven’s right inside you.” Family and faith trump all.
My first reaction to “Only One” focused on the sonic similarities to and distinctions from Yeezus. Across all critical reviews, a word commonly used to describe Yeezus was “unsettling.” This year’s ‘Ye, though, is focused instead on ubiquitous experience rather than visionary soundscapes.
The critical and popular reaction to “Only One” has been largely positive. This led me to wonder, then, why Kendrick Lamar’s “i,” a thematically similar song, was panned by some fans after its September 2014 release.
Despite critical adoration and Grammy nominations, “i” faced accusations of being soft and disingenuous. From its release, though, the track identified as a dominantly lyrical piece. The lyric video came before any live performances, opening with the bold-facedly religious “I done been through a whole lot/trial, tribulation but I know God/Satan wanna put me in a bow tie/pray that the holy water don’t go dry.”
Lamar wrote the song for inmates and suicidal teens, leaving debate of the record’s “success” irrelevant. Kendrick ends “i” with an admission of his conflicted mentality and relentless pursuit of creative fulfillment: “Oh woes be me, it’s a jungle inside/Give myself again till the well runs dry.” Though the jungle metaphor is certainly common in hip-hop, I prefer the parallel to my favorite Toni Morrison passage: “The more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside.”
The greatness of this sentence, despite its convoluted syntax, is its simultaneous focus on the sins of oppressors and the necessary self-reclamation and advocacy of the oppressed.
