Kanye West, Yeezus, 6/18/13 (TBC because who knows anymore)

wow, Caramanica got the big interview: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/arts/music/kanye-west-talks-about-his-career-and-album-yeezus.html?smid=tw-nytimesmusic&seid=auto&_r=0

lol the Dixie Chicks were almost the original Taylor Swift:

I remember when both Gnarls Barkley and Justin [Timberlake] lost for Album of the Year, and I looked at Justin, and I was like: “Do you want me to go onstage for you? You know, do you want me to fight”

He sure baits Kanye into saying nonsense.

C: You want the historical record to be right.

K: Yeah, I don’t want them to rewrite history right in front of us. At least, not on my clock. I really appreciate the moments that I was able to win rap album of the year or whatever. But after a while, it’s like: “Wait a second; this isn’t fair. This is a setup.” I remember when both Gnarls Barkley and Justin lost for Album of the Year, and I looked at Justin, and I was like: “Do you want me to go onstage for you? You know, do you want me to fight” —

C: For you.

K: For what’s right. I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things. So when the next little girl that wants to be, you know, a musician and give up her anonymity and her voice to express her talent and bring something special to the world, and it’s time for us to roll out and say, “Did this person have the biggest thing of the year?” — that thing is more fair because I was there.

tend to think Justin responded better to the loss

I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things.

BTW 311 I am ready to fight.

love this tho:

Since I did the Louis Vuitton sneaker, I’ve never been allowed to be in a continually creative structured place that makes product. I’ve had meetings where a guy actually told me, “What we’re trying to figure out is how we can control you.” In the meeting, to me! Why do you want to control me? Like, I want the world to be better! All I want is positive! All I want is dopeness! Why would you want to control that?

Architecture — you know, this one Corbusier lamp was like, my greatest inspiration.

^things you want to c&p over and over again

if anything on this record is as good as the abbreviation"'gevity" I am all over it

love that interview

tend to think Justin responded better to the loss

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, June 11, 2013 8:34 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

more importantly, Justin responded better to every single win

Kanye is the Mozart of Cocaine Thoughts

JUSTICE

i agree with alfred that some of caramancia's questions are leading/trollish.

yeah it's pretty great

does he do a ton of coke? he sounds way cokey. i guess he always has though.

idk why he is the way he is. he does sound sheenian at certain points in this interview.

i would do a ton of coke if i were him. 2 tons!

really? that seems incongruous with what you said about being able to find fulfillment purely from the serenity of nature in the rebellion thread. anyway, kanye otm when he says:

I think the fact that I can’t sing that well is what makes “808s” so special.

the other day i listened to some 808s songs i've literally avoided since 2008. still can't deal. so much outright garbage on that album.

i agree it is uneven, but i like the overall concept of a sad "introspective" kanye record with a minimum of rapping and i think that when it works -- like on love lockdown and heartless -- it works really well.

great concept, shitty album

that's the thing: I don't care for introspective Kanye anymore, and on the CD and LR tracks where it worked he relied on narratives and reflections about other people. The introspection fed off his experiences with his mom, family dinners, etc. The beats helped too. From 2008 onwards celebrity as subject consumes him. He just isn't fun anymore even with the musical sophistication.

all of my defenses of 808s were based on kanye making an album that wasn't mbdtf as a followup.

jordan's got me interested in this one tho.

"So when the next little girl that wants to be, you know, a musician and give up her anonymity and her voice to express her talent and bring something special to the world".....

thought this was snowblind gibberish at first, but "giving up your voice to express your talent" seems a good formulation of the pop music machine....

So when the next little girl that wants to be, you know, a musician and give up her anonymity and her voice to express her talent and bring something special to the world, a man will be there to grab the mic and say she didn't deserve that award.

More like be there to say a black woman was more deserving.

Alfred nailed what's bothered me about Kanye for a while unthread

All he wants is dopeness!

There are so many lines in that interview I wanted to cut and paste here, but my god, it'd be less than fully fair to Kanye to post anything other than the entire thing.

why won't NYT publish the word "shit"

it's 2013

"I’ve been connected to the most culturally important albums of the past four years, the most influential artists of the past ten years. You have like, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Nicolas Ghesquière, Anna Wintour, David Stern."

Poll!

Those are some amazing answers. Great use of third-person and crazed historical comparisons.

"Beauty, truth, awesomeness. That's all it is."

Early draft of Ode on a Grecian Urn.

So when the next little girl that wants to be, you know, a musician and give up her anonymity and her voice to express her talent and bring something special to the world, a man will be there to grab the mic and say she didn't deserve that award.

― some dude, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 2:47 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hahaha this is EXACTLY what i thought

i feel like j-kwon could have been slotted into his list of great artists of the last ten years, between henry ford and walt disney.

i also want everyone to know that i hate jon caramanica.

Woild.love a pic of how Caramanica responded to each Ye line.

Still they got me like Yeezus.

I love how Kanye is so wildly, declaratively ambitious and inventive and pioneering and forward-thinking and broad-minded and in the end what he cares most about is winning more Grammys. That'd be like some self-professed great chef aspiring to get a sandwich on the McDonald's menu.

otm

hahaha

ikr!

Odub must contemplate

i like the elite gymnastics guys take on kanyes weird grammy obsession:

"when kanye attempts to make sense of the grammy awards, he refuses to settle on a position as boring as simple cynicism. he is completely aware of how out of touch and off the mark grammy voters tend to be - he sees that as a challenge. in his eternal, astonishing optimism about the power of art and creative achievement in the face of all potential obstacles he believes that in order to conquer the gordian knot of exotic wrongness that is the grammy awards, he simply needs to make something so good that even the legendarily inept grammy voters can’t deny it’s greatness."

"These McDonald's eaters WILL love my waygu beef panini dammit."

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4wobf7NRp1rxoylbo1_1280.jpg

i'm not sure that's 100% true, the interview touched on where that obsession seems to actually come from - kanye sees the grammys as a historical document. and not just the grammys - that's why he's obsessed with "changing radio" and probably with sales too - tangible markers of his achievements and success. it's this weird mixture of an extreme hip-hop mindset w/r/t awards etc, and an extreme indie mindset w/r/t the purity of ~art~, and the fact that he doesn't attempt to make them gel together is what makes him so...whatever. i'd say fascinating but it's not that fascinating. you're not sure whether he doesn't try to reconcile them because he's too dumb or coked-up to realise there's a disconnect or whether it's a very admirable #YOLO give-no-fucks thing.

also the ability to be confident in art-for-art's-sake and not need the grammys' validation at all is something of a privilege - the racial dimensions to being written out of history etc

What Kanye needs is a satellite radio station.

And a hug.

what he needs is a Grammy.