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

I am shocked that Rich Juzwiak wrote a garbage, reductive piece for Gawker.

Because, actually, West didn’t “rant for over eight minutes straight.” He spoke at length on various topics, becoming heated at times

rant
rant/Submit
verb
1.
speak or shout at length in a wild, impassioned way.

You do know the negative connotations of the word, right?

i understand the point he's making and it's a valid one. but sometimes kanye west does rant! obv it's its own lil meme now though

that said if i was going to refute the idea that kanye west was ranting, i wouldn't then describe the nearly exact dictionary definition of "rant"

i mean the zane lowe interview was essentially one long rant... lowe asked like 8 questions or something in the span of an hour

but that's also why it was some of the most compelling video in god knows how long

but i'm not defending using "kanye" and "rant" in the same headline tho, that's a cottage industry that needs to be destroyed

But then the writer of that Flavorwire piece went on to offer a few alternatives to "rant" as to not make the subject look unreasonable or crazy for speaking out.

i agree w/ kanye sympathizers generally, kinda feel like kanye could do better stage management though

the part of that post that was "let's google the word 'rant' with kanye's name, and then google the word 'rant' with the names of people whose job is essentially to speak about politics at length on live tv/radio" was pretty stupid and loaded.

This is a hell of a piece.

http://gawker.com/kanye-west-knows-you-think-he-sounded-nuts-on-kimmel-1443710553

yup, vg

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1523002.1384926556!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/spl629461-018.jpg

Jesus grabs the mic like "ay can you throw on the Mercy beat? i'll do the Big Sean verse, you do, uh, the Kanye verse... SWERVE!"

has anyone here been to one of these yeezus tour dates? they seem nuts.

this was the first stadium show i ever wanted to go to in my life but yeezy cancelled his denver show after his tour bus bullshit thing so... nope. the best tickets in the house were like $100, definitely would have done that.

ellen gave her whole audience tickets to i think his next anaheim date; there was def like a row of 4 80+ yr old women, i guess their grandchildren can take them

i went last night, fun show

during the middle of the set he does slower stuff (coldest winter, i'm in it, guilt trip) that i thought kinda dragged but the first and final 30 minutes are absolutely killer

i had tickets for montreal but it got cancelled. thinking of trying to grab tickets for one of the rescheduled toronto dates dec 23/24 but it depends on the boyfriend's work schedule :(

SFJ was at your show,, sarge, and uh well:

Anybody who reports on the arts will eventually feel the fear of crying wolf: If I tell people that I just saw the greatest thing ever, will it undo the last time I said it? How many times can you say something like that before all the claims coalesce into a weak mist of approval? We’ll find out. On Tuesday night, watching Kanye West perform at the Barclays Center, I felt roughly the same exhilaration as the sixteen-year-old who I was standing next to. Even the cold oddsmaker in me had the same take—is there anyone like Kanye now? Has there ever been? No. “Yeezus” felt like the album of the year months ago; now the year just feels like it belongs to West. Or, more accurately, the moment keeps being his. In only the past few days, West lectured on design at Harvard; released a terrible video starring his fiancée, which may lead to in a brief spike in flannel sales; watched David Blaine pull an ice pick out of his hand; and accused President Obama of using him as a convenient foil. And all of that was just a weird salad bar next to the emotional and aesthetic pummelling of the “Yeezus” show.

i like the album but every exultant description of these shows makes it sound boring and awful

i really liked the show maybe not that much but i did ponder this same question for a bit

Even the cold oddsmaker in me had the same take—is there anyone like Kanye now? Has there ever been? No.

i feel like prizing him primarily for being 'unique' is and always has been kind of lazy, almost patronizing. how hard is it to see what every other rapper is doing and do something else? that's arguably the easiest of his accomplishments.

i think that's simplifying the question beyond meaning

i was being generous pretending the question had meaning. it's so easy to be a musician/star without precedent these days, dozens of people are doing it right now.

released a terrible video starring his fiancée,

who will remind him that Bret Michaels got here first

how hard is it to see what every other rapper is doing and do something else?

Pretty hard!

I mean "unique" as a music crit buzzword is pretty meaningless but being genuinely unique is not easy.

i dunno maybe i'm not making my point well, but i think Kanye has been sui generis for so long that praising him on those terms is boring and almost looks past the quality or content of the work itself.

"is there anybody like Kanye? has there ever been?" -- no and no, duh, let's move on and discuss something else as quickly as possible

It’s also easy to mock this show if you don’t like West. He spent the night wearing a series of masks, designed by Margiela, that made him look like the Batman villain Bane had run into a chandelier and hopped on the Q train to Barclays. There were dancers in bodysuits who resembled David Bowie’s alien family in “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” At one point, West was stalked for over ten minutes by a crouching dancer dressed up as something like a black spider crossed with a yak, fitted with red L.E.D.s for eyes.

In Dc tonight, as wacky as that sounds, wish I had tix (Kendrick Lamar opening, right?)

wacky = referring to the masks and such

i feel bad for Kendrick, haven't heard a word about his sets. is he boring live or does he just not wear Slipknot masks when he performs?

Jeff Weiss liked Lamar's opening set out in LA

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/concert-review-kanye-west-kendrick-651143

Backed by a searing four-piece band and mini-movies that illustrated the plot of last year's good kid, m.A.A.d city, Lamar delivered arguably the most impressive opening set Staples Center has seen.

He's become as vivid and expressive of a live performer as West, waving his arms to convey a point, arching his spine, tilting his head back, rolling his eyes, and bounding across the floor like a puma. He's sublimated and synthesized the eccentricity of Lil Wayne, the technical mastery of Eminem, and the musicality of Outkast. His band delivered bruising Black Sabbath licks, instead of the normal gorgonzola arena-rock that usually comprises most bands attempting to do live replays of rap.

sounds cool. hopefully he'll do his own big headlining tour for the next album.

Kendrick is amazing live

and when i saw him he just had a DJ

shipz otm, sui generis and unique are not automatic signifiers of quality or even interest

Just heard part of Kanye interview this morning on Russ Parr's syndicated radio show (on r'n'b/rap stations). Kanye said that he only realized recently that his interest in minor chords and moody music makes him "new wave."

I see SFJ mentioned His best ranting moment was tying his own work to that of the inventor Nikola Tesla and the Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky while other NY outlets were quoting his rant about the MTV Music Awards and Bruno Mars winning many awards

i would watch Holy Mountain w/ DVD commentary by Kanye

Kanye connecting himself to tesla is more batshit than to bruno mars imo
jodorowsky i can see a little maybe but i got to squint hard

My wife's reaction to the "Bound 2" video: "Did he do this whole thing so he could secretly laugh at Kim K?"

Bound 2 was the #2 song on Hot 97's hot five the other night. It's interesting to me how this album (and others like it) goes from seeming "out there" to sounding totally mainstream just through repeated exposure. There's also a couple ads running using Yeezus tracks.

(Bound 2 is the most conventional sounding song on the record to be fair)

^the way of the world

I really like the bound 2 video

It worked on the album as a "concession" but I've no interest in hearing it.

who is Jerome anyway