shitye west
the de facto official press line on kanye west goes something like this: "he's a braggart, but hey, he actually backs it up, so you'd better get in line if you want a chance to get on his nutsack!"i don't think i've heard a lick of his music. nonetheless, i'm gonna go out on a limb and speculate that it sucks.
it's easy enough to make a perfunctory judgement based on some of the musical company he keeps: jamie foxx (NOT ray charles, and, furthermore, NOT a musician) and maroon 5 (responsible for some of the most over-produced, whitebread, unfunky shit of all time; sterile fluff ready-made for the mickey mouse club set) are some of his recent collaborators.
going beyond that, though, there's the fact that the majority of his critical accolades hinge implicitly on a facile and tenuous assumption: that politics in hip-hop is necessarily 'smart', and suggests a 'music with a conscience'.
reviewing some of the press surrounding him and reading over his lyrics, i've found that he's rapped about u.s. and middle east arms deals and child labor (the latter subject meeting the quota for obscure-sociopolitical-issue-immortalized-in-song du jour in 'diamonds of sierra leone') and has said, outside of song, some mean things about a president with whom anyone with two brain cells to rub together has a problem, so i guess he's political. but is it me, or is there anything particularly new or special about his views, or anything particularly new or special about the way he expresses them? is there anything substantial to what appears on paper to be largely pejorative? am i the only one that scoffs when i see someone who grew up in a privileged home presumptuously and repetitiously use the term "we" in a hard knock, us-against-them lyrical context?
i'm not in disagreement with the crux of his politics, nor do i have a problem with his being outspoken; i just object to the notion that politics in lieu of bitches and bling is somehow enough on its own to render him an incisive commentator and to impart to his material a great artistic merit and social value. it's a tacitly racist attitude, for one, and it effectively ignores a history chock full of mainstream artists (outkast, to cite a recent example) and independent groups (dead prez, for one) who have mined the subject of leftist politics via the hip-hop medium.
hey kanye, you producer/rapper/learned commentator extraordinaire, meet the real deal:
posted by jomilkman @ 8:09 AM
20 Comments:
Only racists think Kanye West is an overhyped, one-trick-pony of a producer (the speed up, helium sounding r&b samples), a just-ok, not-Nas-level rapper, and a poorly informed ranter.
Oh, and smart people too.
Dude, how could you write an entire post on someone whose music you haven't even heard? You're so goddamn judgemental. By the way, Jamie Foxx went to college on a musical scholarship where he studied piano and music theory. I don't know Maroon 5's music, but it's not like the guy wrote the song, he just sings the chorus. I don't really know/care how Kanye West is portrayed in the press, but I surely wouldn't let that anger me so much I feel the need to criticize him and analyze his lyrics without actually hearing the music. If you like Wu-Tang so much, why don't you just write about them, since it's clear you're just doing a "Everyone's stupid for liking this current popular guy when actually this underappreciated guy from earlier is much cooler. Thus, I am cooler too because I reject the popular current guy. Oh yeah, I haven't even heard the music from this current guy."
i like being called judgemental by someone who then proceeds, in the same breath and in a baldly condescending fashion, to inform me and the ten people that read my blog that there's a 'thing' i do where i assail something popular in order to make myself look cool -- in other words, that i'm not as smart or discerning as my vitriolic bombast purports to make me out to be; in other words, that i'm a fraud.
i'm sorry that my best efforts to write persuasively when i critique something makes me sound so angry, and that i never, ever devote my time to writing about the things i like that other people happen to have already praised to death.
jamie foxx - clearly passionate about music; released a flash in the pan album in '95, then waited ten years to parlay recognition for his portrayal of a genuinely prolific musician into a slick, convenient bid for recognition as a singer/pop star (NOT a piano player with respectable chops). what is there to distinguish him as a singer from the horde of actors who decide, quite spontaneously, that they have pipes that just beg to be with the world? that would suddenly make him a legitmate go-to collaborator in music?
adam levine of maroon 5 - pathetic approximations of soul. i think he's a shitty singer, and i think this indicates that his work with kanye was a collaboration based wholly on name recognition. it's as simple as that.
anyhow, the main intent of my post was not to dissect west's music (which i admitted at the outset i've never heard, which in turn is why i focused on his lyrics and the resultant reputation he's garnered as a 'smart' rapper), but rather to lament the modern critical culture that has gone out of its way to put him up on a pedastal. it's a post about HYPE: hype which, by its very nature, is obvious and often proportioned inversely to actual talent, and is almost always symptomatic of lazy journalism.
far be it from me, who actually studied journalism in school and got paid piddling sums to write after i graduated, to be opinionated about the subject.
The media was probably waiting to celebrate any mainstream rapper that moved away from the bitches and hoes and the baggy duds, so Kanye came around at the right time. Now, there have definitely been better and more well-informed rappers that were concerned with politics and social reform, but they also did not sell a million records. I'm not trying to justify the coverage but do you expect Rolling Stone to put Wu-Tang or Public Enemy on the cover? (Neither of which have been vital for years). Nobody think the Dixie Chicks have a lick of talent but they're covered because they're popular and they made a fairly broad criticism of Bush. Quite frankly, they and Kanye have a better shot at initiating change amongst the masses .
About the "he backs it up" mentality, I think it makes some sense when you consider in the rap world there is a lot of emphasis on sales and more importantly, publicity/influence. Nobody thinks Puff Daddy is a good MC, but he's respected for being a shrewd businessman. This is the opposite of the indie/alternative rock mentality that anything mainstream must have something wrong with it. Right now, Kanye is definitely the "top dog" (whether or not it is justified by his music is irrelevant) so everyone is deferential to him.
Rasheed, any comments?
Jamie, The Fresh Pr-excuse me, WILL SMITH doesn't return my calls anymore. Ready Rock C and Charlie Mack are living in my basement. Also, I saw that movie "Ali" and apparently Will really does think he can beat Mike Tyson...
I apologize for being condescending but there was something in your post that truly aggravated me.
I think a lot of your posts are either unabashedly sentimental, comedic, or bitingly critical and judgemental. I just find the latter to be very distasteful.
Since your post was more about the media and your knowledge of Kanye's music itself is limited, couldn't you have done more research or just targeted the media? With a title like "Shitye West," it is undeniable you are trying to be provocative. Why not call it "Shit-mainstream media"?
I believe you're well qualified to comment on the field of journalism, but I think a columnist might actually listen to Kanye's music before writing a public attack. Isn't that "lazy journalism"? Perhaps blogging is just inherently flawed in this way - it elevates some whim into a final statement, whether unintentional or not.
I don't think you're a fraud. I think that associating ourselves as fans with the artists we like is completely natural. Everybody uses their musical preferences as a kind of cache which defines or distinguishes themselves from everyone else. The issue I had was with tone - you eagerly wanted to bring kanye down a peg and elevate your own heroes. Just read your last sentence - was that really necessary? You say your main intent was to criticize the media, yet you saved your most sarcastic and mean-spirited bile for Kanye himself . As a reader, what I'm going to remember is not the thoughtful analysis of the latent racism in the mainstream press, but rather the seemingly agenda-laden, vicious invective spewed at Kanye.
no, taking a swipe at kanye without having heard his music is not lazy journalism. it doesn't pretend to be journalism at all.
i guess that's the luxury of writing something in a blog, where, at least in cases like mine, you're responsible only to a readership that rarely extends beyond the small circle of friends that read you. maybe that's why a lot of people's posts -- particularly the rant and raving kinds -- have a cobbled-together feel, rather than conform to a streamlined structure and refined parlance that makes for easiest reading.
i have no problem expressing an opinion or passing fancy among friends in an authoritative tone. if you feel that someone is trying to elevate an unsubstantiated whim to gospel-truth, well, that's why God created blog comments sections (hell, you've managed to effectively pigeonhole everything i write in this blog in one passing swipe using this forum).
that said, i'm not going to apologize for writing what i did without having listened to kanye's music. to reiterate, i made what i admitted was a perfunctory judgement on his music, then went on to question kanye the icon(which is why my throwaway "shitye" title is appropriate) based on what i know of him through his lyrics and his press, and whether he really represents a great changing of the guard, as countless sources would have us believe. his beats don't enter the equation.
by venerating someone who merely reiterates the status quo liberal party line, by rendering a hack politico the hip-hop gold standard of social consciousness, the media (not just RS, which can't help it, but indie sources like pitchfork media as well) imposes limits on the potential for hip-hop to inspire meaningful discourse. what i have a problem with is the sheer across-the-board spread of this "he's the best we got" mentality.
after all that 'bile' on kanye, i put up the picture of rza to give people a sense of who i DO consider a legitimate multiple threat as a rapper and producer. it's only fair to let readers know where i'm coming from, of what my biases are. i had no thinly-veiled agenda behind his inclusion, and i don't have some quixotic delusions that the media ought to be giving him press today.
sorry if that's the impression you got, but i honestly doubt that that's what most people reading this took out of it.
I think I just find a lot of your "negative" blog entries painful to read. It's the tone, not the content that is a put-off. There is a lot of sarcastic anger and bitterness which seeps into each sentence, which I feel overwhelms the points you are trying to make.
Of course, you have the freedom to write whatever you want in your blog and I'm under no obligation to read it. At the same time, I have to think there is some responsibility on the author's part to his audience. A blog is not a diary and regardless of who it is directed towards (and how many people) it is still a public forum.
From where I'm coming from, I have listened to Late Registration a few times and enjoyed parts of it. Some tracks are underwhelming but others are very inspired. I think it was brave to ask Jon Brion to produce many of the tracks, as he's probably the last person you'd expect to be asked to produce a major hip-hop album. The results are at best, brilliant and at worst, mildly interesting.
I still don't see how you can divorce lyrics from music. Reading lyrics out of context (even rap lyrics) is to miss half their meaning. Now, I'm not trying to equate Marvin Gaye and politics of the 60s and 70s with Kanye's situation, but if you read the lyrics to "What's Going On" you'd find a lot of cliches. It is a great political song because the words are sung so beautifully, so convincingly and with all the emotion that fueled the protest of that time. I would never say Kanye is on the same level musically as Gaye, but maybe there are people out there who believe in his message (and thus, in him) in a heartfelt way. And the lyrics don't have to be specific to be effective - in fact, it's their universal quality that gives them appeal. (Pride by U2 comes to mind)
It was unfair of me to accuse you of some musical elitist agenda, but what am I supposed to think after reading a diatribe laced with such venom for a musician whose music you haven't heard? We are all guilty of hating celebrities solely on their media image, but it seems to offend you on a higher, more personal level.
I enjoy reading your blog for the most part and I wasn't trying to "pigeonhole" everything you write into three categories. I meant to say that while most of your posts are thoughtful and/or humorous (whether expressing a negative or positive thought) there is a minority of entries that are written with a kind of arrogant sneer I find tiresome and ineffective. It unintentionally makes me sympathize with the target rather than the author.
ok, i can appreciate how the tone of a lot of my rants would't be palatable to some. the voice i adopt is sometimes an ugly one.
i concede that kanye's beats might be out-of-this-world, that he might be a talented mc, that he projects a benign political sentiment that a lot of people feel strongly, that he might even convey it all in an inspired and passionate fashion. i also appreciate, from what i've read, that kanye is openly critical of homophobia.
all the same, i bristle at the notion that someone who grew up upper-middle class presumes to rap that 'WE got merrill-lynched'. i bristle at the fact that someone who clearly courts that hip-hop mogul reputation and pals around with high-profile guys like jay-z has the nerve to rap about the dubious origins of bling. i bristle ESPECIALLY at the way in which the media -- universally, and with the same tired lines -- take this same person and treat him like a great revelation because no other rappers who move units like he does address politics.
inevitably, and for better or worse, this sets the bar for political consciousness in hip-hop at kanye.
perhaps, at its core, kanye's stature in hip-hop is simply indicative of the very state of hip-hop culture. but then again, the media is undeniably complicit in shaping that culture, too.
Doesn't Rza look extremley stoned in that picture?
yep, and that's because he probably is
The fact that it was major news when Kanye West said Bush hates black people says something really sad about the "with us or against us" atmosphere of today.
I've never found the RZA a particularly talented rapper (or actor in Jim Jarmusch movies) but I'll still follow him wherever he goes.
And I don't need to listen to Kanye West to know he sucks either.
Man, I normally read Jon on monday-wednesday and friday. and i just happened to miss him last friday. and what a day!
my opinion? I like Jamie Foxx as a comedian and a musican. I was just upset that he was shoved down my throat that he went to school on a music scholarship. much in the same way i was upset about all the press releases about those pop singers who came from the Disney club.
I have some problems with Kanye. He's not as flowtastic as Talib Kwali. But he is an interesting cat because some of his first singles he did for different artists where kinda of "ignorant." and he's the first person that comes to mind when I think of someone who did "ignorant" music and then took a mild (but brave my industry standards) political stance in his music.
jon, it's your blog, so you can do whatever you want with it. I think you should understand that underneath Darcy's post there's an underlying issue of respect and trust. He respects and trusts your opinion, and is dismayed and confused about what the content of your post may or may not be. Dig?
Let me touch on Rza right quick:
You may not know this because you're not familiar with Kanye West, but West and RZA have a similar lineage. You could say that West is the protege or heir of Rza-style musical production. And his rap was something he tried after producing quite a few hits.
There's a distinctive West "sound" that melds old R&B with hiop-hop beats much like there's a Rza sound that mixed Kung Fu and old 70's songs with hip-hop.
We came to age with the Wu-Tang, and I think you'll have a higher threshold for Rza's music because of that.
For me, I really liked "Jesus Walks" from Kanye's last album. I wish more rap artists would make more records like that, but then again I don't think most rap artists have control or even care about doing something that isn't ignorant and risk losing money.
For me both West and Rza do some pretty ignorant shite, so I really can't listen to them for long.
Hype aside, he's alright. I HATE the "helium" sounding r&b samples. Unless you're talking about "Lucifer" from Jay-Z. That's a great beat!
how come bragging with children doesn't do any hilarious hip-hop sketches?
Sore point with me... I'll just write more and eventually something will make it!
oh, and i'm not offended Darcy. It's just an "internal" matter.
I feel I have to pipe in here. I haven't read all the controversy over this issue, but I will say this. In a world full of forgettable pop music and unfullfilling hip hop, Kayne breaths somewhat of a breath of fresh air with his music. If someone can make it 31/2 minutes without talking about his bling or his Bentley, then his is alright in my book. But then again, the Christian Right seems to keep burning my book.....
Clegg out....
Agreed Cleggo.
liz tries so hard. I think she's a girl (who's pretty and has a pretty voice) wants to be an uber-pop star. but she made it as an indie rocker on grit and determination. i saw an interview with her, and the gist of it was, "why does all these people put their hopes and dreams on me, but hate it when i go out to fulfill my own ambitions." crabs in a bucket liz! we're all crabs in a bucket, pulling on each other 'til we're back in one place!
...
and your latest music's not that good!
The cover of the most recent rolling stone is a picture of Mr. West in a crown of thorns, with the caption "The Passion of Kanye." That's all.
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