“I think Kanye is so complicated,” said Wright, author of Wake Up, Mr. West: Kanye West and the Double Consciousness of Black Celebrity. “I mean, that's the best word that I can use for him.”
Wright, an associate professor of history at Trinity Washington University in D.C., explores West’s two decades of stardom, his seemingly hypocritical political views, and the duality experienced by Black celebrities trying to negotiate the needs of community and the pressures created by a white-centric society.
“Even though this book is focused on Kanye West, Black people for the most part could relate to these experiences to some extent, when we talk about having to navigate and be successful in these two different worlds,” said Wright.
Wright has been interested in West since 2001, when West helped produce Jay-Z’s album The Blueprint. Since then, West has gone from his civil rights roots to wearing a Donald J. Trump inspired MAGA hat. West’s mental health troubles and his very public split from ex-wife Kim Kardashian have all been in the background to his incredibly successful career. He has been nominated for 75 Grammys and has won 24, including two this year.
“A lot of what Kanye has done, not just in the last five years of Donald Trump, but back to the very beginning, has been very problematic,” said Wright. “With someone like Kanye, a lot of what I hear tends to be somewhat shallow. I just wanted to have a more in-depth conversation about Kanye West. I thought it was important to put him in this larger conversation of celebrity, in particular Black celebrity here in America.”
Wright explores this concept through the idea of double consciousness, a term first coined by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois in an 1897 essay and later in his 1903 tome The Souls of Black Folk.
