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This logic stems from knowing what comes with the fight against erasure. The black genius is a maddening contradiction, and yet the black genius is still ours. The black genius isn’t sure if he wants to be a “black” genius. The black genius buries his mother and lays his grief bare. The black genius stands on television while a city drowns, and defies the president. The black genius raps with his jaw wired shut. I have been guilty of this, both the limited naming and the relentless protection, more with Kanye West than anyone else. This leaves the imagination with so few established and named black geniuses that they must be protected at all costs. The concept is held so tightly and with so little change or evolution in what the black genius can or should represent. It is equal parts frustrating and wholly understandable to see the way both white establishments and black consumers hold on to the idea of black genius. I am talking about the toll it takes on artists in the black imagination, in the spaces where we hold them dear. I have no access to Kanye West, or his life, beyond what he shares through his work. I am not commenting now on West’s mental or emotional state. Assessing The Life of Pablo, like assessing the entire career of Kanye West, means considering the demand for black greatness and the toll it takes on the great.