CITY OF PRETTY Before Yeezy came the Jesus Complex

Since London’s rapid fall into autumn, my life has become less social and decisively more homeward bound. I keep my head down and hands in pockets as I count down the days to my flight booked in mid December. Calendar and thermometer are racing for zero, though I fear the latter has competitive advantage with temperatures dropping a degree a day.

To distract myself from whining about the weather week after week, I have decided to explore the obvious Jesus complex inherent in three musicians I have recently seen in concert, one by one.  My subjects are: Kanye West, Fela Kuti (via his tribute show) and Alexander Ebert of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes.

Starting from the bottom - I’ll start here:

Kanye West live at the Big Chill was so much less than I had anticipated. Having nursed a deep desire to feed him to the dogs long before South Park’s infamous gay fish episode, I finally got the beef to sharpen my teeth. As the self-proclaimed world’s biggest star, Kanye is buckling under the weight of his own expectations, one narcissistic lash at a time.

On the night, we await parting water for 45 minutes as technicians hastily erect a crane last minute from which he is going to descend onto us. The crane isn’t used, regardless of the expense to the show following this. The stage set up is almost apocalyptic, with a backdrop of Zeus’s temple and 20 dancers draped in white as his disciples. This is sanctimonious all right, yet the man himself struggles to match the caliber of his creation. By the fourth song his voice is croaky, and by five he’s stopped the music in favour of preaching his truth. He initiates with humble beginnings, read: ‘When I was an unknown rapper, I got a call one day to say I had won a little award called Grammy’, no exaggeration on my behalf, it’s really that ostentatious. The humdrum of the audience is swelling as one infectious and effective verb gains spatial momentum – boo! Soon it has overthrown his low beat backtrack all together. Kanye attempts to remedy with sympathy by proclaiming the compromises he makes for his fans, how lonely he is, how his voice is scratchy but how he’s doing it all to give us a better show. Except instead of a show, there’s a megalomaniac with a microphone and a backdrop that could clothe Somalia. Or maybe that IS the show? When Kanye’s time is up, there is no demand for an encore, as half the audience has dispersed to the bar for refills. He makes no attempt at rejuvenating the vibe, off the stage a beat before the DJ’s stopped spinning. Must have more impertinent matters to attend, slowed down by the weight of his pockets lined with our money.

I cannot relate to Kanye’s hedonism, his music, or the lifestyle he ambassadors. It bothers me that kids around the world fail to distinguish between the act and the man himself – his prima donna antics hardly substantiated by his musical output. It slots in above average at best but is by no evaluation new, in or exclusive.

For me humbleness is the single most inspiring trait in those who have created their own success. Burdened by his desperation to be the greatest man on earth, there is no grace in his perspective. But Jesus, does he fashion himself as our martyr…