I love my mum. I do. And I tell her that, fortnightly, when I get around to making my weekly phone call. She’s a good mum. The best, even. I try to be a good son, I think. Even when I’m a shithead. The dynamic of family is weird. Weird for most of us, I guess. It’s hard to tell. A universal experience, laden with infinitely profound, subjective variables. ‘Normal’ is a fallacy, by and large.
My favourite Kanye West song, of which there are many candidates, is Hey Mama. By far. Sometimes in whims of sanctimony, I entertain the thought of asking West detractors direct to listen, really listen, to Hey Mama. How can you deny the song’s sentiment and honesty? There he is, in 2005, a star well and truly on the rise, with an ego large and growing larger, and on album number two, West dedicates an entire song directly to his mum, Donda. It’s a powerful song, even in the sheer context of its time of release. There are a few clips floating around YouTube, West singing Hey Mama in the presence of his mama, Donda singing along each time. It’s beautiful, cute, it’s love. It’s real.
Maybe I relate because I was raised by a single mother. Maybe I relate for fear of shortcomings: “My mama told me go to school / Get your doctorate Something to fall back on / You could profit with / But still supported me when I did the opposite.” That rings true. I get that maternal advice, an exact analogue for those lyrics, or calling up heartbroken: “Maybe take a break from dating for six months?”, or plain broke: “Maybe look into supermarket shifts again?”, but yeah, still supported me when I did the opposite.
Donda died in 2007. At the 2008 Grammys, with another album and swathe of hit singles since Late Registration, West chose to perform Hey Mama, a track that went on to become a staple set-closer during the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy tour. It was raw, honest on the most quantifiable, for better or worse, stage for accolade within music. The stripped back performance was bookended by the additional refrain, “Last night I saw you in my dreams / Now I can’t wait to go to sleep.”
Nearly seven years later, we have Only One, a surprise New Year, New Ye, release, worlds away from the acerbic menace of Yeezus, opening with, “As I lay me down to sleep / I hear her speak to me.”
The song is sung from the perspective of Donda, a healing reflection, peaceful over electric piano melodies from pop’s greatest melody-smith. The autotune is a mask, as it was on 808s & Heartbreaks,as John Lennon’s primal scream was a mask on Mother. It’s the most minimalist Kanye West track yet, simple in arrangement, profound in stream-of-conscious delivery.
Sign o’ the times, the release triggered a range of meta-ridicule, old guard sanctimony on display replete with self-righteous indignation, countering snarky, justified iconoclasm through baiting feigned ignorance. It’s tempting to get lost in that. Distraction, not thought-provocation. This song makes me think of my mum. I love this song.
