kanye west

...and that’s ok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDGtRo-O1Mg

Kanye needs to get properly medicated, quit running for president, reject Jesus and produce a new Freeway album

Kanye's run from 2003 to 2016 is probably the greatest body of work of any musician of the 21st century, but everyone def come out with your contrarian opinions because he wore the Bad Red Hat

― The Mandymoorian (Whiney G. Weingarten)

oh good we are Canon Building again, this never gets old

lmao at Whiney's insistence that 1) Kanye's work up to TLOP is somehow inscrutable and 2) supporting oppression and American fascism just boils down to "wearing the Bad Red Hat"

"i am concerned about kanye's acute bout of what appears to be uncontrolled mental illness"
"yeah well i bet you like The National"

what's happening here

fuuuuck this is nasty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k00DesCGjlM

whiney it's a bit more than wearing a bad hat, though i will defer to your expertise in that area

just blaze for president
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb6PJxprRME

xpost haha nice

Kanye's run from 2003 to 2016 is probably the greatest body of work of any musician of the 21st century, but everyone def come out with your contrarian opinions because he wore the Bad Red Hat

― The Mandymoorian (Whiney G. Weingarten),

talk about challops! holy balls

Just p4k doxa.

Do we have a Pick Only One: 2000-2020 thread?

Thread is on ILM so YouTubes is the way to go tbf.

oh man that Freewest track

Yes, even I like that one.

*Freeway

the other kanye-produced song on philadelphia freeway is also a banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3l6N40lqck

i totally forgot that he produced ludacris's 'stand up' too, beats very much out of character

MBDTF sounds like a very 2000s album in a highly compressed, bit-crushed way. This trend was very much not in line with the tradition of big budget, ultra high clarity recordings, but it was a clear stylistic move at the time, and served its purpose well enough.

Kanye's a narcissistic asshole, yes, culturally dangerous even, and hasn't produced anything of artistic value imho since maybe 2-3 songs on Pablo. ehhh I actually liked Poopity Scoop as a joke but it's clear he's a good half decade past jumping the shark and reaching shore.

But holy shit, takes like "Kanye's run from 2003 to 2016 is probably the greatest body of work of any musician of the 21st century" being thoroughly trashed in this thread is some ludicrous revisionism. Name any other artist that had the pop cultural impact that dude did for a fucking decade in the 21st century. I can't think of a single one other than mayyyyybe Beyonce? Even as I type that it doesn't feel right though. He was at the zeitgeist of popular music and pop innovation for at least 10 years. Yeezus and The College Dropout are my two favorite records by the dude and are amazing to listen to even today, if you can put aside your feelings of him as a person, and that is incredible as they are nearly a decade apart. He was wildly creative and innovative; his very narcissism allowed him to bore head first into relatively experimental territory for a mainstream artist and was critically celebrated, here and elsewhere ad nauseum.

Yes, too much praise inflates the narcissistic bubble to cancerous tumor levels. Yes, he was a fucking asshole, to a certain extent, from day 1, but was grounded by his mother. Her death I think began the slow decline into the emotional cesspool he's found himself in today, that and honestly I feel he's been seduced by the darker sides of social media and authoritarian conservative culture. Do I think he's free of culpability for being a narcissistic closed minded prick? Hell no! But the amazing music he wrote or produced from 2000 - 2015 is still amazing.

I wish he had the sense of ambition and work ethic he exhibited up until 2010. His ambitions now are ersatz. MBDTF was rightly praised, even if it felt a bit Cremaster Cycley in its visuals and was musically celebrating his narcissism and cult of personality, but it was entertaining and reflected a lot of social media zeitgeist culture of the day. Indeed it was toxic. But it felt confessional and self aware. It was sonically diverse. Social media and "me culture" has now been revealed for what it always was now that the consequences have thoroughly washed over us as a culture. And now he's literally "phoning it in" and his muse is a shell of what it was, but fuck it shouldn't take away from those tunes. The fucking ruled.

Is this where a bunch of the National fans get together and say the most gifted rap auteur of the 21st Century

Kanye's run from 2003 to 2016 is probably the greatest body of work of any musician of the 21st century

Only people I've ever heard say silly shit like this unironically are white rock critics who don't otherwise pay any attention to, let alone give any serious critical praise to, anything other than white indie rock bands like the National lmao (major lol @ those same people who tried to cannonize Yeezus as some revolutionary "industrial" album when in reality it is just mixed and produced like a Youtube poop video).

And 2016??? Do any actual fans of Kanye even claim Pablo or hold it anywhere near the same esteem as his first couple of albums??

He was at the zeitgeist of popular music and pop innovation for at least 10 years.

This is a more sensible take. Whiney's challop was less circumscribed, and calculatedly so.

my challop is that the first couple of albums are corny and bad and 808s is the peak

honestly I think he is by far the best when he is producing tracks for other people

best two things he's done in recent memory was Daytona for Pusha and KTSE for Teyana Taylor

yes

people make fun of Lift Yourself but it's better than any beat on anything he's done Pablo and after

I think part of the beef with him and Drake was that he'd promised that to Drake and then put it out as a joke and Drake took that as a slap in the face

poopity scoop is better than drake could've done

i think pablo is regularly overrated and quite a mess but come on lol

http://media2.giphy.com/media/amxLHEPgGDCKs/giphy.gif

lift yourself was a cool beat!

anyway long story short I'm a medium fan of his albums, totally sick of his bullshit, but even if he never made a solo album he'd be in the conversation talking about the best rap producers in this century

But holy shit, takes like "Kanye's run from 2003 to 2016 is probably the greatest body of work of any musician of the 21st century" being thoroughly trashed in this thread is some ludicrous revisionism. Name any other artist that had the pop cultural impact that dude did for a fucking decade in the 21st century

What if we don't equate "pop cultural impact" with "greatest body of work"?

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DisastrousUnfoldedDarklingbeetle-size_restricted.gif

What if we make "cultural impact" one aspect of judging greatness

one aspect

Sure.

I mean I will side-eye anyone who doesn't think his first two solo albums are classics, I will also ride for MBDTF, and I know I will get clowned for it, and I do like Graduation. 808s can suck a dick. and of course his pre-solo career production as well.

Yeezus I listened to once and probably left in the house I opened it in. not cos it was bad, just cos....idk

Then we risk underrating Ben Monder.xp

I’m going to write a 33 1/3 volume about jesus is king. Then you’ll all see.

Kanye will probably buy them all

I like graduation too

Oh shit too many new messages but hold up: there’s people who think “jesus is king” is a good album!? Holy fuck.

yeah, his last name is Dombal

Only listened to it twice, but the good thing with Jesus is King is that it has no cringey bleached-asshole / Eatin' Asian pussy, all I need was sweet and sour sauce / etc. lines that bring the others to a dud halt. It's like when the clean version of a song is more inventive/creative than the original.

That’s an abysmally low bar to clear.

guess he's putting more wholesome things in a sarcophagus now

Then we risk underrating Ben Monder.xp

― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r)

his version of danny kirwan's "dust" is so good

such a sad song, i think i'm gonna go cry now

really enjoy “follow god”

his version of danny kirwan's "dust" is so good

such a sad song, i think i'm gonna go cry now

<3.

The two discs of Day After Day are so different from each other and are both great.

Kanye is one of these artists, like Radiohead or Bjork whom fans and critics will always give the time of day to no matter how uncommercial, weird, plain bad, or all of the above their music gets.

I've always found him a tough one to listen to. His productions are often great, even when they sound rough or challenging. But post-Graduation I just find his lyrics, his delivery a real hurdle. it's at once flat, irritating and comically self-aggrandising. the parallel with Radiohead sits: there's so much to love but too often it's like there's a creative choice which sticks out like a sore thumb and ruins it for me