It took almost everyone by surprise when Kanye took the stage and arrogantly took the microphone from Taylor Swift during her moment. But what is most disturbing about this event is that this is not the first “rude” event that Kanye has done. Kanye’s head has been exponentially growing since his first album dropped. Moreover, Kanye’s entire persona has been that of conceit and arrogance. Now, how do we sort all of this out and begin to see some perspectives on this? Was Kanye simply being “Hip Hop?” Was this a racial incident? How does this all affect Hip Hop?

Well, let’s break this down a bit. First, you have to begin to understand something about the record industry in general: money & power continually go unchecked and overlooked. The more money you make the “big wigs” the more power and consequently the more “passes” an artist gets when they “mess up.” In other words, those who can “hold you accountable” will more than likely not, if you continue to make them money. Thus, your manager, agent, producer, and executives can “overlook” much of the madness as long as those dead presidents continue to roll in. Hence, part of the compounded problem.

Second, absolutely no one in your crew will actually tell you the truth about yourself as long as you continue to pay the bills. Once again, money is at the core. Moreover, if you are “honest” with the celebrity, then you run the risk of being thrown out of the entourage; that can’t happen! Therefore, everyone around you is always telling you, “You’re the bomb!” “You are the best!” Compound that with press clippings and a “super star” status and you have even the strongest willed person falling prey to celebrity fatalism.

Third, the public typically accepts the statement, “I’m sorry, and I was wrong, I don’t know what I was doing…” and things resume as “normal” and business as usual continues. For Kanye, a quick trip on the Jay Leno Show was first on the list to begin the rebuilding of his social face.

We have created celebrity monsters and elevated normal people to super star status thus placing on them excessive pressure to “act” in such a way that is impossible given the reasons listed above. Kanye is caught in a fierce battle of celebrity identity. Further, add in the fact that he has yet to really deal with 1) a near death experience and 2) the loss of his mother Kanye has quite the issues mounting on him. Kanye is simply overwhelmed and does not have much room to act in an authentic differentiated self.

Kanye’s outbursts reflect a part of Hip Hop that has gone unchecked for the last 9 years: arrogance and pride. It is unfortunate too, many will see Kanye’s outburst and then stereotypically place his characteristics on the entire culture of Hip Hop. That’s too bad. Hip Hop is not about arrogance—that is not to say arrogance is not part of the value system of Hip Hop, it’s just not that main thrust of the culture. Moreover, Hip Hop is about community and respect—mutual respect for everyone. I remember when Kanye first hit the scene; he was humble (believe it or not) and open to really do some social change for Hip Hop. I remember attending his concerts and seeing hundreds of people find God in a new way with his “Jesus Walks” song. But, once the “Fame” kicked in and the money started rolling, Kanye’s head grew to epic proportions and we see the eruption of this at Taylor’s expense. People wonder how this could happen, but this doesn’t happen in a vacuum; this has been building for years within Kanye—he’ been untouchable for years.

What Kanye did was just wrong. Plain and simple. I’m not excusing his behavior nor saying it was right. Still, I wanted to give some context on all of this, and for those of you who are still vastly ignorant of Hip Hop, it would be really easy to say, “That’s every Hip Hopper,” as I’ve read in some blogs—simply not the truth, those are people who are just uninformed of Hip Hop. Kanye’s actions, though, do reveal that he is struggling for identity, space, place, and the universal human need—to be liked. We all go about that in different ways; Kanye chose to do that on stage in front of millions of viewers in a very unfavorable way, but he has some real demons to contend with. I wanted to give some insight into the behavior of Kanye—far too often behavior is all we ever see without ever understanding the back-story.

Kanye has some serious issues to deal with. I hope that he gets some space to do that—but unless he begins to hear some hard truth about his life, the trend will continue.

You can see the actual video by clicking here.