The weekly series dedicated to the best of 'Ye continues. This week's song is a love ballad of sorts...
Title: Homecoming ft. Chris Martin
Album: Graduation
Produced by: Kanye West, Warryn "Baby Dubb" Campbell
It's not always easy to love your hometown. Sunny places like Miami or LA seem almost impossible to hate. Beautiful, bountiful, familiar; what more could one ask for? But some of us don't come from such sunny places. Some of us come from the rusted-over forgotten Alexandrias of the Mid-West and Northeast, once flames of a shining industrial empire and now cold, haunting concrete jungles. They suffer from population depletion, poverty, broken economies, hardened mindsets, and most importantly cold, long, dark winters. Yet despite all this, we love our birthplaces and childhood stomping grounds. We grow up in them, we find love in them, and we learn from them. But then comes the fatal day when the native sons and daughters must say farewell to their small ponds and dive into larger bodies of water full of better opportunities. It's a heartbreaking decision, and creates a complicated relationship.
Do you think about me now and then? Do you think about me now and then? 'Cus I'm coming home again, maybe we can start again...
Homecoming is not a particularly fantastic song, but everything about it embodies the sadness of this complicated relationship, from Chris Martin's vocals to the harmonic piano to the black and white video. The song, taking a page out of another Chi-town rapper Common's book of metaphors, briefly details Kanye's relationship with his beloved home city of Chicago. In the video the rapper/producer/megastar drops his flashy designer suits for a winter vest and scarf. The arrogance melts off his face and is replaced with contemplative melancholy. The point is simple and universal: no matter where you go or who you become, you can never entirely turn your back on the place that made you. . Chicago might not be as bad as some of the other rust-belt cities, but it's history is hard and its winter harder. It's been the birthplace of some of the most amazing rappers, artists, and musicians for decades, but they all had to spread their wings and fly at some point. This song makes the All-Time Yeezy list because the tension between loving your home and having to leave it to find success is deeply human, and this song can always be a brilliant reminder of Ye's humanity and artist's struggle.
Favorite line: And if you really care for her/then you never woulda' hit the airport/ to follow your dreams...I guess you never know what you got 'til it's gone/ I guess that's why I'm here and I can't come back home/and guess where I heard that?/ When I was back home.
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