As polyamory becomes an increasingly more mainstream topic, I thought this article in The Atlantic was interesting: Two Views of Monogamy From Kanye West and Jay-Z on 'Watch the Throne'. The article is mostly a close examination of lyrical content; the writer eventually concludes that Jay-Z is more concerned with monogamy, while Kanye West is in favor of non-monogamy.
Some of the most interesting tidbits about Kanye West are excerpted below.
The only vision of domestic bliss we get is decidedly non-traditional: "I'm a freak, huh, rock star life / The second girl with us, that's our wife."
. . . To an ever-increasing extent, [Kanye West’s] rap fixates on the idea of sanctioned polyamory, in which sleeping around jibes with having a committed relationship . . . He's trying to establish a new order, to evangelize for Dan Savage-ordained good-giving-gameness between lovers -- an acceptance of kink that the outside world condemns. For Kanye, as for a lot of guys, that kink is having multiple partners. "Hell of a Life," off 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was about this; on it, he fantasized about being married to a permissive porn star who'd let him get with whomever he'd like.
. . . In Watch the Throne’s opening number "No Church in the Wild" -- a song about having the ability to write one's own rules -- he rhapsodizes about a new religion: "No sins as long as there's permission' / And deception is the only felony / So never fuck nobody without tellin' me." A few lines later, his mind drifts to a dream girl marked by two tattoos: "One read 'No Apologies' / The other said 'Love is Cursed by Monogamy.'"
Read the rest on The Atlantic.
