In West’s world, each success is overshadowed by a disappointment imagined larger than it actually is, and every artistic breakthrough is only a stepping stone to something even more coherent, polished and universal.

From the very beginning he has shown an utter disdain for running victory laps or patting himself on the back. If such an instant of self-congratulation has existed for West, though, we’ll probably never know about it. Date it early (the out-of-nowhere ubiquity of The College Dropout) or late ( Graduation’s dominance of 50 Cent’s Curtis during the first-week sales showdown of last fall) at some point West has to have rested on his Luis Vuitton-labeled laurels for at least a millisecond and savored the fact that his singular styles of production and emceeing, not to mention dressing, have left irreplaceable impressions on hip-hop as well as the culture at large. There must have been a moment when Kanye West was actually content with being the most potent and essential personality in hip-hop.

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