heard'em say. i'm about to become a taste hypocrite, this is my story. i used to dislike kanye west. not hate really, just dislike a lot. i thought the hype on him was way too huge, he was lauded left and right for his lyrical skills, his witty rhymes and his intelligent subject matter, he was the next coming of biggie. no such thing i said/say. i appreciated kanye's production skills, but as a lyricist, it bothered me that he was perceived by the public as the greatest thing since hip hop hit suburbia. kanye's rapping style was more comparable to nelly's sing-song than anything else i could think of.

plus, kanye's ego didn't really rub me the right way. i saw him on punk'd or something and there he was with his upturned collar and his pink polo shirt running around being an egotistical maniac. i couldn't dig it (him).

but people around me loved him, and my current roommate started to ride kanye's jock like he was kanye's original video ho. so really, i was surrounded by kanye all the time. but i'm a man of willpower and character, i did not turn. i enjoyed kanye's work during my infrequent forays into the night life, but never in my mind. i stayed true to my initial impression of kanye despite being bombarded by "kanye is great" opinions all around me.

i must say however, that during all of this, i had the utmost respect for kanye's "through the wire," which i thought was just the greatest song. that was a track that i could get behind, in thought as well as execution. but that was it.

more kanye hating moments came after i found out about him teaming up with common, and then his work with john legend. i was never that high on john legend, thinking him highly overrated and really annoying after a few songs. again, his "ordinary people" was an amazing song, but that's about it. trudging through john "legend's" full album further reinforced my idea that kanye was ruining things and not deserving of his lyrical accolades, since it sounded to me like he penned most of mr legend's lyrics -- which were disgracefully shallow and utterly boring. kanye's work on common's new album was also just so-so in my opinion. i took it a bit personal that an ultra magnificent emcee such as common could only gain popularity as the sidekick to some flash in the pan. i'm sure common was insulted too, although i'm sure he enjoys the money he receives from being associated with kanye.

then i read about kanye in time magazine. about his struggle making it as a non-ghetto, too suburban, rapper. about his professor mother, his pastoral marriage counselor father, about kanye's struggles and dedication to his craft. kanye may be one cocky fool but he had to be, because everyone shut him down everywhere. the real turning point for me was watching kanye's "driven" episode on vh1. i watched it three times over one weekend, and i got sucked in each time. i started to see where kanye was coming from, and i could get past his braggadocious demeanor. plus his music was growing on me.

i found myself listening to kanye's first album over and over, and a few tracks (all falls down, spaceship, got'em high) started getting lodged in my head. i was getting kanye-fied. heavens me, who was i? kanye was also immortalized in his "bush doesn't care about black people" speech, and that was just a ridiculously great moment. then, during an early thanksgiving dinner with some friends, we discovered that his "family business" track was really the best hip hop holiday music. try it, i dare you.

and now, with kanye's sophmore release, "gold digger" is just an infectious dance song, and "heard'em say" is fun to sing along to. so yeah, i guess i like kanye. dammit. i still don't think he's the greatest thing since dinosaurs roamed the earth, but he's better than i thought he was.

i doubt anybody cared about this, but i feel like i owed it to kanye. if i'm gonna dance or sing along to his stuff, i might as well retract my previous negative opinions about him. this isn't a love letter however -- most of his songs still suck -- just a statement of taste hypocrisy. i think i have better things i should be doing, but somehow this was important to me. thanks for listening. and thank you kanye, i guess.