Why Bound 2 was (probably) Kanye West’s peak
Kanye West’s influence on hip hop and music in general is undeniable. It’s not at all surprising to me that he is a lot of people’s favourite artist ever. To this day he has an intensely dedicated army of stans, some of which will probably read this. If Kanye stans all rallied together to form a military power, I have no doubt they could probably defeat New Zealand in a war. I understand this completely, the dude’s a visionary, and in 2016 Kanye West was my most listened to artist on Spotify. I have had this man’s figurative musical cock lodged in my figurative musical throat for years. So when i spend the next couple minutes explaining my problems with him, instead of getting mad, you could just forgive me.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where it happened, maybe it was with Jesus is King, maybe it was the beef with Taylor Swift over the lyrics to “Famous”, maybe it was him endorsing Trump pretty much for no obvious reason other than people say he shouldn’t, but at some point over the last five years, Kanye West kind of stopped feeling like a real human being, and more like this enigma that gets increasingly tiring to defend. There’s a term used for sitcoms called “Flanderisation” where when a show runs on for too long the characters get less complex and less interesting because there isn’t anywhere really left to go. Part of the purpose of his last three albums (ye, Kids See Ghosts, and Jesus Is King) has been to pretty much double down on every single decision he’s made since he put the MAGA hat on. This reached a breaking point with Jesus Is King, where he denounced all his past music as “music of the devil” and 100% committed himself to being like a weird cult leader in the mountains. And I have to say, I don’t know where he goes from here. If he keeps making stuff like Jesus Is King for the rest of his career, he will fade away from relevance, which he doesn’t want. If he goes back to cussing and making hip hop, then that leads everyone to the unavoidable conclusion that.. Kanye’s kind of full of shit, right? Like when Kanye says something bad, the main debate is not whether he’s right, but whether that’s what he actually meant when he said the shitty thing. It’s like he makes all his flaws obvious but refuses to apologise or even really understand why people are hurt by what he does.
The thing that makes me struggle with this understanding, however, is that I keep returning to Bound 2. And in this song, Kanye makes all his flaws obvious, does not apologise for them, and it’s his best song. Better than Paranoid, better than POWER, better than All Falls Down. Bound 2 is the best one, and since it’s so similar thematically to what he would put out after, I think if we were to return to what made Bound 2 great, we can see a brighter future for Kanye in the rearview mirror.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBAtAM7vtgc
Bound 2 is incredible. Give it a listen with the link above, it will help you with what I discuss from here on out.
There’s a good possibility that Kanye west will never make a good album again. So in case that happens, I want to write this piece to immortalise, at least for me, a moment where he reached true greatness, so I can hold onto it and remember what he used to be. I want to talk about the sound of this song a bit before i get into the lyrics. The beat to Bound 2 is phenomenal. For his entire career, Kanye West has been flipping soul samples into his beats, which give them a swell to them that make them sound more expansive, as well as giving more thematic context. Think about Otis, or the samples on Jesus Walks. The samples on these two create titanic swamps of sound for Kanye to part like a modern Moses. The sample of the Ponderosa twins “Bound” does the exact opposite, it constrains the beat to a tinny, small world. It’s very constricted, it’s very controlled. And I think that’s great, because this song is not My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It’s not about Kanye taking on the entire world no matter what they say about him. It’s not about how God himself hangs off every word Kanye preaches.
This song is a love song. Between two people. It’s intimate, it’s passionate, and, maybe most importantly, it’s real.
It stays reserved and contained within itself for the duration of the verses, which works both to give it the intimate feel, and also to add to the impact of Charlie Wilson’s mind blowing chorus.
Now listen, I would talk about the sound of the song more, but I think you get the idea. I know nothing about music theory, I am an English Literature major who really likes hip hop and has been shitposting about it online since i was like 14. If you want a hot take about the chord progression, go take a music class, I’m here to talk about LYRICS.
It kind of makes sense in retrospect that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West got married. Both of them are probably surrounded with literally nothing other than yes-men and family members coasting off their fame. The amount of people either of them truly view as an equal is probably a single digit number. Or at least that’s how Bound 2 makes it seem. It’s apparent in the first line.
“All them other n*ggas lame and you know it now”
On the surface the first part of Bound 2 appears to be a diss track, nearly every line reads as a criticism of Kim’s Behaviour. He depicts her going to the club all the time, spending money and being unfulfilled as she slowly gets older and it all gets more embarrassing.
“Rock Forever 21 but just turned 30”
This comes across as a weird move for a love song, but I think it gives us some real insight into how Kanye understands Kim. If i personally saw someone going out to parties and drinking champagne and spending loads of money, I’d probably assume everything is fine. I wouldn’t be critical because they’re likely doing better than me. Kanye sees this scene and sees suffering, which is unique to someone familiar with this lifestyle. The next part of the verse explains how he factors into the equation. He talks about how he is known for being a massive asshole at all times. The verse closes out with him talking about how like he’s willing to override Kim Kardashian.
“I’ll turn the plane around your ass keep complaining”
And I think that gives us insight into how their dynamic works. Kim living her life as it was there would probably be very few people who would recognise her being unsatisfied. Kanye exists to challenge her, be someone she can’t control, and someone who can recognise when she’s unhappy. The chorus serves as a quick message to her:
“I Know you’re tired of loving, of loving, with nobody to love.”
As in she’s been a celebrity living the high life for quite a while now, even had marriages come and go. What she wanted at the time was to find a partner who she genuinely connected with. The chorus does expand beyond those two lines later in the song, but to understand we need to understand the man himself.
The second verse of Bound 2 is one of my favourite verses of the last decade. There’s so much to talk about. Because it sounds like he’s attempting to write a traditional love song, struggles with it, it goes wrong, and then he just decides to be honest. The verse starts “I wanna fuck you hard in the sink, after that get you something to drink.” Which somehow just gives off the biggest struggle bar energy I’ve heard in my life. So like he just instead decides to be frank about the nature of dating him.
“Hey, you remember where we first met? Ok, I don’t remember where we first met.”
Now there’s a running theme in Kanye’s music where he is like “I am a flawed person, I admit that, but I’m not sorry and will not change. You just have to deal with it, because I have other things to offer”
The fan favourite Kanye West song is Runaway, which takes nine minutes to say this, but in Bound 2, Kanye communicates this sentiment in two couplets.
“But hey admitting is the first step, and hey, ain’t nobody perfect”
The verse continues talking about how they’ve made it through Christmas and Thanksgiving, which are notoriously times for couples to fight. I’m assuming, I don’t know what Thanksgiving is, I’m not American. He talks about asking Kim for a threesome which gets declined. Kanye makes dating him seem stressful as hell, but then he ends the verse with this:
“After these long ass verses, I’m tired, you tired, jesus wept”
In that moment, I feel like I get their dynamic. He’s not gonna continue with the love song because he understands her, and knows she’s probably bored of this shit by now. And we finally get the release of the full chorus, which feels like a barrage of passion, desperation, bravado, confidence, tiredness and bravado all rolled into one. Stating that both of them need love, so just date someone. To Kim, Kanye is someone who challenges her and helps make sure she’s happy, and to Kanye, Kim is the only person he can see himself meaningfully loving. He needs to love someone, and he sees her as his only option despite being kanye gosh darn West. Charlie Wilson carries the song to a close.
Kanye shows up for a couple seconds at the end to deliver the lines “Jerome’s in the house, watch your mouth” Which i feel ties more into the overall themes of the Yeezus album, as from what i understand, Jerome is a representation of what other rappers expect him to be, and the reminder that Jerome will always be watching even as he goes and marries the love of his life, is definitely something. Again i feel its more related to the Yeezus album as a whole than Bound 2 specifically, but it is still important as it’s definitely something that was on his mind while writing this.
I hope you understand now why, to me, Bound 2 is a masterpiece of music. Because in addition to being a great piece of music, it displays some of the same qualities that I’ve grown to somewhat dislike in Kanye’s music in a way that just benefits the art all around. Kanye refusing to admit being in the wrong gets frustrating when he talks about the media being mad at him. It makes him seem like an obtuse weirdo who doesn’t care about his fans. But when it’s painting a picture of what it’s like to see someone as the only other person in the world, it makes his very specific scenario feel universally relatable, and it’s incredible. I feel sad that Kanye has denounced his past music, because Jesus is King is not his best work. But Bound 2 offers a way out. Kanye has boxed himself in by denouncing cursing and embracing Jesus, but Bound 2 shows the way out. I keep returning to Bound 2, and I really can’t imagine anything Kanye will do can take that away from me. He is an impossible man to understand, but for one brief moment, in this one song, I got it.
