In a recent interview on SOHH.com, Chicago MC Rhymefest made a pretty expert analogy. "I think if [hiphop] were Star Wars, 50 Cent would be the Sith Lord," offered the co-writer of the Grammy-winning Kanye West song "Jesus Walks." Doesn't seem too far-fetched; 50 Cent is pretty much rap's premier villain, admitting in a recent issue of GQ, "I wanna meet George Bush, just shake his hand and tell him how much of me I see in him." (At least 50 acknowledges his contemporaries.) Well, if 50 represents one magnetic pole of hiphop's consciousness, the other side is another cat who's offered memorable words on the subject of Dubya—Mr. Kanye West.

Interesting that both rappers turned near-death experiences into gold, yet with such vastly different results. 50's shooting made him damn near fetishize death—both others' and his own brush with it; West's car accident made him want to affirm life and spirituality, to bring some measure of humanity back to the game. The Piscean Age gives way to the Age of Aquarius, yadda yadda, cue the horns.

What is it about Kanye that makes his music, his persona, so accessible? To cop a phrase from his boy Jay-Hova, he's the best of both worlds—the angsty, conscientious backpacker with the flair and floss of hiphop's top ballers. He's arrogant as hell, and funny like you wish you were, saying the most off-the-wall shit at exactly the right moment with just the right amount of nonchalance. He's as honest as you wish you could be, wearing his heart on his argyle sleeve, right next to his Presidential Rolex. We're all self-conscious, sure, and he's far from the first to admit it; he is, however, one of the very few who've managed to wrangle rap's corporate machine into getting behind the kind of music that doesn't conspicuously espouse self-hate, violence, and misogyny. There's literally thousands of MCs, underground and overground, that have a comparable message, many less compromising than West's. But he's the only one who makes the cover of Time magazine, the only one that has a ghost of a chance of competing with 50's right-wing rap supremacy.

To think he accomplishes this without half of the merchandising; Kanye never tows that "I'm not a rapper, I'm a hustler" crap that's de rigueur nowadays. For example, without so much as a signature clothing line or his own sneakers, West has managed to become a style icon. Once Jay-Z killed the ubiquity of the throwback jersey and switched to them button-ups, it was Kanye who took it to the next level, bringing the blazers and boat shoes into the fray. Regardless of whether you can comfortably rock such tony styles, even the hardrocks respect a dude who can do so with such impunity.

It is, however, the music that really matters here. The Louis Vuitton don's latest, Late Registration, shat on expectations of a sophomore slump from dizzying heights; the album's dense musicality and swirling, big-budget production underscored West's improved mic presence. From co-producer Jon Brion's eclectic resumé to John Mayer's plaintive falsetto, Registration's anomalous nature—and its multi-platinum success—is a testament to the hiphop-buying public's need for something different. For a brief minute—you know, late '80s, early '90s—this was not so uncommon, and rappers were coming out with fresh and wildly innovative albums in rapid succession; some of these actually managed to sell a good amount of records. Yet, such success has always attracted a mighty healthy dividend of hate, and Kanye's no different... from the now infamous petition to deny him a Grammy to, yes, 50 Cent's recent comments, suggesting a gangsta backlash was responsible for Kanye's College Dropout success, and blasting 'Ye for his criticisms of President Bush.

What it adds up to is this: From exhorting the hiphop generation to do away with its homophobia (not exactly a popular stance) to examining the ramifications of rap's diamond fetish to talking some major shit on TV, Kanye has become, in a few short years, today's most interesting popular musician. Bucking the trends of the trendiest youth culture around is no mean feat. The Force is strong in this one, God knows we need him to be.

hiphop@thestranger.com