or respect for the craft brought in a new generation of fans who didn't understand technical skill and didn't know what it means to respect the craft. I get a little bit sick whenever I hear people gush about poow wittwe Kanye's struggle to get a record deal and how people only saw him as a beatmaker and not as a rapper, because technicality-wise he is a very unskilled MC. He's a good songwriter and a great producer, but he is not a good rapper in any sense of the word. He doesn't have flow and there is no style to his delivery. For someone who supposedly understands rap well enough to succeed in it as a business, I find it somewhat startling that he doesn't express the realization that there's more to rapping then looking at the words then saying them in a booth (a quota that, yes I dare say, even Lil' Wayne has been able to pass).

Which puts a pretty good angle on why nobody wanted to hear him rap, no? I think it takes a seriously twisted mutation of gumption for unanimous dislike of your raps to provoke in you the determination to try everything /except/ improve your rapping. Rumor has it he's been rapping since the ninth grade. He is now 34. Twenty years lends to a man a shitload of time to practice and improve, which clearly Kanye has shown no interest in doing, in spite of the many rappers who have reached levels higher than his in less time.

Where I'm going with all this is the attitude he encouraged in the fans he earned. I won't claim that Kanye doesn't know hip hop, but he's evidently never fully understood the art of emceeing, and fans think that's okay because the critics love him, the charts love him, the game loves him, the blogs love him, and because not being a gangsta rapper makes you oh so special.

This is a pretty hate-filled rant I understand, so I should point out that I don't dislike Kanye, but I am a little disgusted by his mislabeling, especially from fans.