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

Hey, maybe Kanye IS like Shakespeare. Keats: "At once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."

He has been responsible for formal shifts Shakey, eg Stronger sparked hip hop's embrace of EDM and 808s gave us Drake-style rich-guy-is-sad rap.

I was impressed he made the claim that "Yeezus" was his "Nebraska" and that his next album will be his "Born in the USA." That's a relatively left-field reference for a rapper to make.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, November 27, 2013 8:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe Rick Rubin put the comparison in his head, telling him Nebraska and Born in the USA came from the same sessions.

― Bailey (Collins) Lover (Eazy), Thursday, November 28, 2013 3:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

guys, seriously?

black artists don't listen to rock, SILLY

Especially not a guy who's sampled dozens of classic rock records

all of these interviews pretty much confirm to me that kanye is kind of a dull person

i watched that power 105 interview on youtube and came away feeling sorry for everyone involved

xpost I dunno, it seemed an unexpected reference to me. Kanye, like a lot of people, knows Bruce Springsteen is a superstar. Kanye, like a lot of people, knows "Born in the USA" was a huge record. But not many people outside of critics talk about "BitUSA" in the context of the smaller, quieter, less-commercial album that came before it. I mean, I'm sure "Nebraska" poked over platinum, but it sold a fraction of what monocultural moment "Born" sold, and falls slightly out of the realm of mere classic rock record, imo, so I really respect Kanye for bringing up one of the Ur non-commercial tandem companions to a huge blockbuster, doing more than awkwardly name dropping. I would have been just as pleasantly surprised had he called "Yeezus" his "Almost Blue."

Anyway, I'm on board with the Louis Vuitton boycott. Where do I sign up?

I don't think this Nebraska is worth a damn bunch; it's a bunch of white dudes impressed by Kanye's ka-nowledge.

all of these interviews pretty much confirm to me that kanye is kind of a dull person

otm

i don't find kanye objectionable per se but neither do i find him interesting, either in saying much of note or in being all that ~crazy

feel a bit caught between the racist mainstream media intent on portraying him as the angry ranty black man and his mad stans who look for real political import in everything he does

and it's certainly a tough competition these days but i'm pretty sure kanye fans are the MOST insistent out of any fanbase these days, revering every nonsense thing he does. so easy to thrill. i was a teenage tori amos fan, game recognise game

Your second strawman depends on your first strawman.

Sorry, wrong word. I should say your second extreme depends on your first. Once you take the Salon writer's line that basically all criticism or mockery of Kanye is racist then your only response is to go hard in the opposite direction and make out that everything he does is brilliant.

well, not all criticism of kanye is racist, but a significant proportion is, esp in the mainstream/non-music press, eg any time he opens his mouth it's called a "rant". and yeah, that's what the fanboys are reacting to. (rihanna gets this in a vaguely similar way) (it's probably a function of how huge they are really)

"I am brave heart of dreamers"

He's such a unique personality that it's hard to untangle the impulses behind the criticism except when, say, the Daily Mail shows its hand by writing "black rapper Kanye West". I can't think of a white artist who could say the things he's been saying this year, or make a video like Bound 2, and not be similarly mocked. I mean, when Tom Cruise jumped up and down on the sofa he was a laughing stock. And yet at the same time there's racially coded language in some publications.

I will always support Kanye but I kinda don't need to hear him talk about stuff more than once or twice a year. It's...jarring.

I both love and hate writing about Kanye because within a week I end up disagreeing with at least some aspect what I last wrote. I always feel as if I'm either too critical or not critical enough or critical in the wrong ways, because he keeps pinballing between genius and embarrassment, between sharp insight and addled bullshit.

“I’m standing up, and I’m telling you, I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.”

Just watched his video with Kim K in it this morning, hilarious btw, wild horses running free as they have sex on a bike, and it makes this even more amusing. He is also such a terrible rapper. He's just better at being P Diddy than P Diddy was.

Always interesting to parse what people actually mean when they say Kanye is a terrible rapper.

i was a teenage tori amos fan, game recognise game

<3

Always interesting to parse what people actually mean when they say Kanye is a terrible rapper.

― tsrobodo, Friday, November 29, 2013 11:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^he matches having nothing to say with an inability to say it...

bit late to this but who exactly is surprised that record nerd kanye knows about bruce springsteen albums??

Who's Bruce Springsteen

Some guy that used to hang out with lou reed

aka the steendriver

tbf i love the guy and will be the first to admit kanye has been Not Good at Rapping for something like a decade now in wildly varying ways

Nebraska was the first rap album.

god bless charlamagne

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y4LdvAi05s

So weird to see someone get mad at the man next to him, but still take pains to be mad directly into the microphone in front of him rather than to the dude one foot over to this right.

that sounds a lil like "da blow"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ7mjUj2KHA

So weird to see someone get mad at the man next to him, but still take pains to be mad directly into the microphone in front of him rather than to the dude one foot over to this right.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, December 9, 2013 9:01 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i wasn't sure if this was a mic thing (his mic appeared to be stationary while sway had the one he could easily hold and turn) or if kanye has some kind of eye contact issue

he seems super skittish

Sway is a big strong dude! And kanye not so much. Plus that charlamagne thing was the same day, think there was some ptsd at play.

yeah i wasn't sure if this was a mic thing (his mic appeared to be stationary while sway had the one he could easily hold and turn) or if kanye has some kind of eye contact issue

i'd be willing to believe you get pretty used to focusing your energy & attention on the mic when you're a rapper

Full interview;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S78tT_YxF_c

"Guilt Trip" is so easily the worst song on this album. Though I'm guessing the "808s and Heartbreaks" fans are into it.

yeah it's a sore thumb

agreed, it's the one track i always forget about

this is so lovely,

MCQUEEN: I wanted to talk to you about the video for "Bound 2." As you know, my daughter is a huge fan of both yours and Kim's, and I saw that video and thought, "This is great. Okay, interesting, fantastic." And then I heard about all of this controversy that came to surround it, which I had to sort of scratch my head about. I mean, call me silly, but when I saw that video for "Bound 2," I just thought to myself, "It's just a video. It's obviously a sort of romantic video of him and his partner, and it's a bit tongue-in-cheek."

WEST: Yeah. I think all that stuff around it is just that: controversy. I think people are afraid of dreams, and that video is one of the closest things to the way that dreams look and feel, or the way joy looks and feels, with the colors. You know, I think there are rules to fashion, with the all-black everything, and rules to art, with white galleries. There are rules to how a lot of things are: the concrete jungle, stone pavement, brick walls. There are even rules to what a Brooklyn apartment looks like. But this video completely didn't respect any of those rules whatsoever. [laughs] It's a dream, and I think the controversy comes from the fact that I don't think most people are comfortable with their own dreams, so it's hard for them to be comfortable with other people's dreams. I mean, look, it took some time for us to be comfortable with a walking, talking mouse, but that became an icon. So this stuff, what I'm doing now, is the beginning of me throwing out what it means to be a rapper—you know, with the gold chain ...

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/kanye-west

digression about using didactic targeted metaphors also v sweet

i kinda can't imagine having aesthetic problems with kanye's rhetoric, it's so satisfying to get lost in, talking about internet static, saying "I'm like a broadcaster for futurism"

At this point, I don't even need any advice. I just need backing.

new motto

that's amazing

i like guilt trip :(

i have a friend who is friend with jus1n v3rn0n and i guess kanye doesn't know how to use protools and didn't know you could do autotune live until v3rn0n put him on to the helicon
http://www.tc-helicon.com/

that sounds really suspect though? he didn't work with Bonnie Bear until 2010 and i'm pretty sure he did the 808s stuff with AutoTune live.

who knows i'm just spreading unsubstantiated gossip

i could believe Kanye as a straight up MPC head who lets other people do the Protools gruntwork though