kanye west

it's not like he's calling up RDJ or Robert Fripp

Apparently, there literally was a West-Fripp phone call, as related in this Rolling Stone story:

Kanye West even prominently sampled “21st Century Schizoid Man” for 2010’s “Power.” Fripp relates the story about how he called West personally to iron out a last-minute sample clearance before a BET performance. “What I said to Kanye was, ‘I’ll make it happen,'” Fripp says, pronouncing the rapper’s name “can-yee.” “‘Cause here was an artist who effectively had been fucked over by his record company, who was just about to do a live broadcast on major TV and he didn’t know whether he could do the piece he was rehearsing or not.”

kanye's sample sources are vanilla as fuck and always have been. almost as "good" as his rapping.

everything he does is a contrived move to start "DISCOURSE." the music matters later, but what can be said "about" it right now?

i mean, just look at his very first single: 'through the wire' wasn't just an effort at making a good song. the song itself was about how the song was made. it's a type of faux "genuine, earnest" presentation that lacks any sort of substance. i just can't believe people continue to fall for it.

Watch The Throne is legit great except for "Otis"

Don't forget the Manzanera sample in "No Church in the Wild":

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/phil-manzanera-on-jay-z-kanye-west-and-the-riff-that-changed-his-life-10128766.html

the song itself was about how the song was made. it's a type of faux "genuine, earnest" presentation that lacks any sort of substance.

don't really understand how the second sentence follows the first here.

ya heard it here first, kanye west is the first artist to ever self-mythologize.

I understand how people hate the more, um, erratic and inscrutable work from 2013 onward, I truly do, even if i defend it.

But through the wire is very good and relatable.

change display name (Jordan) at 3:47 23 Jul 20

Sampling first and clearing later is so common though (not that it's admirable or anything). Also I'm sure this is something he leaves up to his legal team, it's not like he's calling up RDJ or Robert Fripp (although it's probably impossible to clear samples when the record is released two hours after getting mastered).

the Syl Johnson thing is shitty though cuz the tried to clear it for Twisted then just did it without permission later

xp: but that's all he's ever done. he's done a lot of mythologizing and next to nothing in the way of actually living up to any of it, outside of continuing to repeat his self-aggrandizing.

to voodoo's point mythologizing oneself in hip hop it's so prevalent, especially since Biggie and Pac it feels a bit weird to call out Kanye on it

to summarize:

Kanye was/can be an amazing producer for other artists

Kanye has had a very unique and distinctive style as a producer

Kanye is not the most skilled rapper in the world, but definitely had an engaging and unique style with memorable lines in great songs

Kanye is an asshole

Kanye is a misogynist

Kanye has severe mental illness problems

These problems were likely exacerbated by the death of his mom

These mental illness issues help explain but do not excuse his support of Trump and other bad behavior

As Kanye's mental health issues have appeared to worsen, his music has suffered

His beats are now often sloppy and half baked

His "Christian faith" is a judgmental tub of prosperity gospel, resentment and persecution complex bullshit

He made a shitload on sneakers and clothes

He probably needs to step away from public life and concentrate on getting mental health

It seems likely he will do this

He's undeniably a compelling and complex public figure

He's a messy bitch

the thing is though: 2pac and biggie had actual skills and talent.

But through the wire is very good and relatable

yeah, because who hasn't tried to rap mediocrity while having one's jaw wired shut. so #relateable

i don't really understand what's so self-aggrandizing about 'through the wire,' he spends the majority of the song alternatively making fun of himself and thanking god he survived

lock thread

xp

3rd to last pt seems the opposite of likely to me

Too much braggadocio (or these other tropes).

it's about overcoming hardship and appreciating the people who were in your corner when you were at your lowest.

none of his really beserk personality traits were that pronounced back then. xp

3rd to last pt seems the opposite of likely to me

― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Thursday, July 23, 2020 4:58 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

dang that was a typo, yes very unlikely

i don't really understand what's so self-aggrandizing about 'through the wire,' he spends the majority of the song alternatively making fun of himself and thanking god he survived

― mozzy star (voodoo chili), Thursday, July 23, 2020 4:57 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

one thing he was very good at was undercutting his ego with little self-effacing asides that pointed out his own hypocrisy in a fun way

i don't really understand what's so self-aggrandizing about 'through the wire,' he spends the majority of the song alternatively making fun of himself and thanking god he survived

― mozzy star (voodoo chili), Thursday, July 23, 2020 4:57 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

one thing he was very good at was undercutting his ego with little self-effacing asides that pointed out his own hypocrisy in a fun way

like the last verse of Gold Digger for instance

he has done this in more recent albums too. like people act like the "croissants" line in "i am a god" was serious on his part and they're the only ones who recognize its ridiculousness.

xpost UMS otm lock thread

...

i mean isn't kanye's mythologizing about how he is a dominant creative force? seems hard to argue with that even if you disagree with his politics. he, you know, won the american game. fake it til you make it is how we do it in us of a and i dont like it either, but all austin is really saying is "i do not like kanye, he makes me mad."

ftr fuck his trump bullshit but all these weird a priori critiques "he's insane!" "he's always been bad" are just so much magical thinking and utterly barren as analysis and remind me of all the denial about how we got trump in the first place tbh ... i know that "it's the system man" is just the inverse of placing all the blame on the individual but it doesn't follow that considering kanye as a toxic american product has no purchase. i mean this all actually really goes deep into questions of how can any success be ethical in an extractivist/neo-colonial political economy, questions of black belonging in a racist country, etc. i dont like kanye's answers to these questions but to reduce it to "he just SUCKS wah" is like, lame

two songs later he has a song about waking up drunk at his ex's house, only to have her aunt show up that morning and kick him out. and that song includes a plug for the Yeezy "red October" sneakers. like, there is humor as well as pathos on yeezus and also on pablo

self xp

i know that "it's the system man" is just the inverse of placing all the blame on the individual but it doesn't follow that considering kanye as a toxic american product has no purchase. i mean this all actually really goes deep into questions of how can any success be ethical in an extractivist/neo-colonial political economy, questions of black belonging in a racist country, etc. i dont like kanye's answers to these questions but to reduce it to "he just SUCKS wah" is like, lame

― Vapor waif (uptown churl), Thursday, July 23, 2020 6:06 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

excellent post

the thing is though: 2pac and biggie had actual skills and talent.

so then your problem isn't is mythologizing, you just think he's not talented.

I mean, I don't agree, but at least just say that if that's what you mean, instead of couching it in how he's objectively terrible by the Hip Hop Collective Bargaining Agreement of 1983 or w/e

also "Through the Wire" is a triumph, dude almost died in a car wreck, jaw wired shut, and he managed to rap that song while basically being in pieces, literally and figuratively. I like what he did with the Chaka Khan sample, and ultimately, the song has a humility to it that you'd never find in Kanye circa now. yeah, it's a "gimmick", but it isn't as if he planned to almost die in a car crash.

...(did he?)

sped up chipmunk soul vocal samples are one of the greatest things in the history of music

I remember seeing the Through the Wire video for the first time on BET, was just blown away, instant classic

for extra credit, please solve (thoroughly) for "x": Prince Paul is much more X than Kanye West.

old

only ten years!

horny

xp And Paul is only eleven or twelve years younger than Kool Herc. Still a relatively young art!

and kool herc is the same age as eddie van halen

this game is fun

eddie van halen is only twenty years older than elvis presley!

which is a smaller age gap than the one between dr. dre and kendrick lamar

also eddie's lookin pretty good for 105

Kanye was born the year Elvis died and Elvis was one year younger than Kanye is right now

Kanye had a secretary named John and Kennedy had a secretary named West.

if Kanye married Olivia Newton John and then Wayne Newton his name would be Kanye Newton John Wayne Newton

ok now we really should lock the thread

nah, he's not very talented. just because you talk the loudest doesn't make your words more meaningful or the intent behind them more noble.

i've recalled this on here previously, but for posterity, i will recollect again:

i was hyped when he first came out. thought his beats on the blueprint were really solid. i sought out 'through the wire' on white label i was so excited for his music. it was underwhelming. still went out and picked up college dropout on its release date. got it home and gave it one listen and that's when i knew i had fallen for the okey doke. the dude was terrible at his own schtick. from then on, i just started calling him k*nye wack. because to me, his music was fucking wack.

i have always found his music to be very underwhelming and, most times, unlistenably bad; and that seems to upset people for some reason. i'm not going to sit here and be all like, "oh but he's done so many big things" because popular ≠ good. i'm not about to start complimenting someone on successfully profiteering bullshit.

that, and his more recent efforts to exploit serious mental health issues for his own gain is just cringeworthy and offensive.

i have always found his music to be very underwhelming and, most times, unlistenably bad; and that seems to upset people for some reason. i'm not going to sit here and be all like, "oh but he's done so many big things" because popular ≠ good. i'm not about to start complimenting someone on successfully profiteering bullshit.

Yep, this is how I've always felt, too. I never listened to one of his albums front to back before Yeezus, because I heard the singles, which were *in theory* the tracks he thought would make the best impression on a prospective buyer, and...I thought they sucked. (And while there's very little current hip-hop that interests me, I've been listening to it since ~1982.) W/r/t Yeezus, I only kinda liked the first four songs, and they mostly just made me want to listen to Nitzer Ebb.

I would never say "Kanye WACK is talentless and was NEVER GOOD, EVER!", but I distinctly remember Andy Kellman's review of MBDTF being one of, if not the only pieces of writing and thought about that complete mess of an album that was anywhere near accurate to the reality of the actual music and my own personal reaction to it. And wondering if I was even listening to the same album that everyone else who couldn't shut up with such endless effusive praise for it as some century defining masterwork was. People then and someone even now in this thread are retroactively characterizing the older Jon Brion orchestral, soul sampling stuff as "corny" in retrospect, but I think it's infinitely better musically than any of his more "avant" (UGH) work that followed starting with 808s/MBDTF. His influences expanding to things that white rock critics found more personally palatable like King Crimson never actually resulted in legitimately cooler or better music IMO, despite the overwhelming consensus from that audience to the contrary.

yeah we really should've locked the thread

yea I downloaded 3 copies of MBDTF because the first two times I swore this couldn't be the amazing production everyone was raving about, I had to have an early unmastered copy

nah, he's not very talented

thank you, almighty judge of all things, for rendering this gospel from on high

How's the new one?

unsurprisingly unreleased, so far