Working as a host at a restaurant taught me the valuable power of a greeting. Since each patron encountered the host before they reached a table, met their server, or tasted the food, management would stress that each customer, from the moment they walked through the door, had to be greeted with a welcoming smile.
As a writer who reluctantly moonlighted as a host, I had no desire to be an ideal employee. On days where my cheekbones remained stiff, as if Medusa herself was staring back at me, the stone demeanor received coldness from those entering.
Their growling hunger mixed with my physical disdain created an unsavory cocktail that got me sent home on numerous occasions. It’s why Kanye West’s “Spaceship” was a theme song during those long Olive Garden shifts.
“I've been working this grave-shift
And I ain't made shit
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly
Past the sky”
How Kanye described employment at the GAP mirrored how I felt at that host stand, staring at the door, waiting for a day where I wouldn’t have to pretend. Pretending, for a creative person, is a prison. One that can only be escaped by shedding the imposter.
While in Mercedes Benz Stadium for Kanye West’s Donda listening event last Thursday, it occurred to me how it wasn’t long ago the Georgia-born, Chicago-raised mastermind was tweeting out his publishing contract. A binding agreement that obligates him to remain a professional musician under strenuous guidelines which I previously wrote about.
The reality of his obligations is hard to separate from the frequent disasters surrounding him. The listening event for Donda wasn’t a pleasant, nor an audible experience. Why gather more than 50,000 people to hear an incomplete album? But what irritated me more was the lack of acknowledgement. Not once during the entire night, as our host, did he welcome the crowd into this madness.
Something about Kanye not greeting us is symbolic. One of the loudest men to make noise in rap has gone silent. One of the most noticeable faces in the world is hiding his. He summoned us to play music that wasn’t ready and did so without saying a word. Any other profession would terminate a person for such inconsiderate actions.
I found myself wanting to yell: “Don’t waste my time, Mr. West!”
But I didn’t. Because I chose to arrive. Hungry for whatever he was selling. Unfortunately, what he had to sell was an expensive t-shirt, deafening bass, and silent motion. Moving as he finalized a divorce, moving as he continued to grieve his mother’s death, moving through a global pandemic, moving endlessly as the crowd screamed for more.
As he moved, I thought to myself, now that’s a man who could really use a spaceship.
by Yoh