"i'm the closest thing hip-hop has to god."

with the release of late registration tomorrow (and guess who reviewed it two weeks ago?), everyone has something to say about hip-hop's biggest star (let's face it: eminem fell off, and thank god for that). pitchfork gave his new album a 9.5, the highest score all year. calm down, sufjan-lovers: i'm sure there will be some reviews to offset the critcal acclaim, and make illinois the highest-rated album of the year on metacritic. bol (www.byroncrawford.com) has something to say about kanye every 2-3 days, often with hilliarious results. it's safe to say that you can't read a kanye west interview or blog post without seeing the word "ego" with any given suffix on the end (with exception of the word "deficient"). in other words, everyone has something to say about kanye. AND ALL OF US ARE PLAYING INTO IT!

there is an age-old cliche in music that says, "any press is good press", so no matter how you feel about kanye, saying something about him is better than not saying something about him. i believe that kanye makes these intensely-exaggerated statements for two reasons: a) because he grew up with low self-esteem (when people picked on him and called him gay), and he's trying to over-compensate now that he's america's favorite rapper, and b) because if people keep on talking about him, he can stay in the headlines, thus selling more records, and feeding his ego (he said it himself: "the people highest up got the lowest self-esteem"). i love how certain people are outraged by kanye's massive ego. i judge him solely on his musical ability (on the pitchfork scale, his rapping skills are at 6.4 and his production skills are an even 8). i never take anything kanye west says seriously.

late registration should be an 8.3.