KAN YAY OR KAN NAY? (The Kanye West Thread)

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
btw I'm not a fan of the leather skirt look although its perfectly ridiculous for Kanye, but I did like his outfit in the 'Mercy' VIP. I think Kanye's made it much more acceptable to be into weird fashion and weird sounds/music in rap music - I wonder if all these ouetre underground breakthrough acts like Danny Brown, Odd Future et al would have been possible without Kanye's flamboyance.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
i didnt like how he was just jumping the bandwagon and trying to steal keef's shine, but even that remix has some excellent verses on it.

i think hes done worse things over the years. like that katy perry duet.

i didnt like cruel summer at the time but in retrospect it has a lot of standouts on it.

@Corpsey, hes def the main one - along with pharrell i spose - whos made that preppy look more acceptable in hip hop. drake is def a post-808s artist. i think odd future are more neptunes-indebted.
 
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trilliam

Well-known member
there's nothing wrong with it per se. but if kanye closed his mouth once in awhile then people would judge him on his music rather than all the excess stuff. and no-one likes a whinge either.

i dnt understand why u felt the need to say black pop though. seriously. like seriously.

kanye has taken plenty of risks but because he's such a talented producer it doesn't come across as wacky or out there or anything, it's like why would you not think of that.

you say yeezus is a massive start like 808s & heartbreaks didnt happen. shit like that brings you to a wider audience due to aforementioned reasons but a lot of fans of shall we say "normal rap" were alienated as hell by it. i mean guys that love kanye. some still hate it tbf.

even lyrically on college dropout. taking the view of the every man rapping about shit that people can relate to. in 2003 that was not the in thing. now you got all of these struggle rappers using their real names wearing backpacks etc etc. kanye started that whole i want to be famous all my life i wanted to be a rapper but i am just a normal guy shtik that guys like big sean have ran into the crowd.
 

trilliam

Well-known member
I think Kanye's made it much more acceptable to be into weird fashion and weird sounds/music in rap music - I wonder if all these ouetre underground breakthrough acts like Danny Brown, Odd Future et al would have been possible without Kanye's flamboyance.

i didnt like how he was just jumping the bandwagon and trying to steal keef's shine, but even that remix has some excellent verses on it.

i think hes done worse things over the years. like that katy perry duet.

i didnt like cruel summer at the time but in retrospect it has a lot of standouts on it.

@corpsey, hes def the main one - along with pharrell i spose - whos made that preppy look more acceptable in hip hop. drake is def a post-808s artist. i think odd future are more neptunes-indebted.

indeed kanye opened the door for all these weirdo rappers.

drake is a difficult one cause i think when kanye made 808s he rele wanted to make take care. saying that drake has just like kanye inspired legions of these.. these guys.

these two together have had the most influence on rapping trends, styles, yadda yadda than anyone else.

its y i only listen to mixtape rap now.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
i said black pop cos kanye is a massive pop star but his music is still hip hop - if you dont like that kind of music, you dont have the context (even accounting for him existing in his own bubble). it wasnt to diminish him. i didnt say he didnt take risks - fantasy had lots of amazing stuff going on in it, him doing 808s was a massive risk, but weve also had plenty of artists before singing and rapping, like dre3000 for example, or q-tip, so it wasnt totally unprecented. so when i say black pop, that context is important, cos without it, you wouldnt understand what a big deal him doing yeezus is, or how big a step 808s was, for people who liked old college dropout era kanye, or how he made sampling okay again making the blueprint for jay-z (along with just blaze) after years of synths ruling in hip hop, or how he made it okay to be nerdy and suburban and educated (j cole, big sean, etc etc) etc etc. without that, kanye is just another pop star, when hes more than that.

yeezus is more of a risk on a wider scale than 808s. 808s was a risk cos he was a rapper, and then he decided to make an album of him singing. but that had been done not that long ago by lots of otehr rappers like mos def, missy, etc etc. and him doing an 80s-ish R&B album isnt as much of a risk as yeezus which sounds like pretty much nothing at all in popular music right now (even though i can make links with saul williams, el-p, cx kidtronik and others), never mind hip hop. then again you could say yeezus is his art-edm-rap album lol.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
or how he made sampling okay again making the blueprint for jay-z (along with just blaze) after years of synths ruling in hip hop

I always thought that this was a pretty seismic shift at the time (and strangely underplayed by critics), and the main reason why that album had such an immense impact.

On the general question - Yeezus is fantastic, if only because it refuses to be boring in any way. Music needs genuine stars like Kanye. Even if he were a crazed narcissistic bell-end as a person (and I haven't listened to nearly enough interviews to know one way or the other; I sense the truth is complicated), why would this be worthy of anything but passing comment? So was almost any massive pop star you care to name, including most of those I would name as among my favourite artists of all time...
 

Local Authority

bitch city
and its relieving having people who are out and out arseholes in the world, whether or not their arrogance is justified as a society we're taught to be self-effacing and modest and polite whether or not are actually like that and it creates a duality in personality. One where you get cunts who mumble-brag and keeping up with the jonses. Kanye is the Joneses and Jay-Z moved off the street along time ago.
 

Local Authority

bitch city
i dont even care about his music but its nice that he exists, and kim kardashian et al.

they fuck us and we don't like them but fair play.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Notable Kanye feat No. 1 - making a song featuring that Maroon 5 bloke that I not only find tolerable, but ENJOYABLE:


''where I'm from, dope boys is the rock stars but they can't cop cars without seeing Cop cars''
 

tom lea

Well-known member
TBF, I imagine most who dislike him simply ignore him.
nah - anything posted on kanye online is followed by a tidal wave of people who detest him and won't rest until everybody knows it. trillhouse is 100% right and i can't think of many other artists who have that effect.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
The thing that perplexes me about Kayne is how divisive he is. Those who don't like him rarely just dislike and move on, they often seem to harbour a slightly irrational hate for him. I guess that a product of the widespread and pretty fervent critical acclaim he's received, that runs contrary to their personal opinion.

I don't think it's an irrational hate, and certainly don't think it's produced by his critical acclaim, the irrational hate is produced by the fact that he's an arsehole.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
nah - anything posted on kanye online is followed by a tidal wave of people who detest him and won't rest until everybody knows it. trillhouse is 100% right and i can't think of many other artists who have that effect.

i agree with this, and i feel that (with a lot of the criticism, obv not all) there's a subtext about Kanye being arrogant in a very specific way that some white people don't like/are contemptuous of (and in a way that is reacted to very differently from what's perceived as 'typical' hip hop braggadocio, because Kanye is somehow seen as more threatening, I guess), because they perceive that that kind of arrogance is only OK when it's white people doing it. Things like Kanye claiming to be a rock star or wanting to be a designer draw the most extraordinary opprobrium from certain corners, which only just stop short of actually saying 'know your place'.

as for the music, that bit at the end of New Slaves with the Omega sample and Frank Ocean is just transcendent.

and thinking of that: i'm not always a massive fan of what lou reed has (had :( )to say, but i loved his take:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jul/03/lou-reed-kanye-west-yeezus

ah, and the comments below the line there....well...
 
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droid

Well-known member
Ok, so for the umpteenth time in this thread we have the ill considered and presumptuous inference that people who criticise him are implicitly racist in some way.

Nice.
 

Trillhouse

Well-known member
I don't think it's an irrational hate, and certainly don't think it's produced by his critical acclaim, the irrational hate is produced by the fact that he's an arsehole.
It's not the hate that's irrational, even a lot of those who like his music can agree that he is indeed a massive bellend. The irrational part comes when people refuse to credit the music he produces with it's due, simply because they find him too dislikable.

The list of great musicians who where misogynistic, abusive uber arseholes is an ever growing one. But you don't get 100 people jumping on every review of Miles Davis acting like he fucked their bitch.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I don't think its being suggested that EVERYONE who criticises him is racist. I think some of his music is brilliant and I enjoy his insanity but I also think he's a bit of a twat, regardless of race. Lou Reed was a bit of a twat too - still made great music.

Kanye has brought the issue of race to the forefront of his music in a way few rappers of his stature have in recent memory (Nas being the main exception). The counfounding thing is how his personal sense of entitlement is mixed up with his (valid) feelings of being held back, creatively and financially, in the eyes of SOME, by his race.

I do wonder if the video to ''Bound 2'' would have been taken in the same way if Kanye was a white guy - I'd imagine people would have ASSUMED it was an ironic, tongue-in-cheek joke, whereas with Kanye most people thought he was being deadly serious, and therefore an idiot. But then, is it really a matter of race or is it Kanye's own persona that elicits this reaction?
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
kanye never comes off as 'ironic'/snicker snicker though. he has a sense of humour, that i think is overlooked, but most of what he says that others think is funny is meant to be taken pretty much 100% at face value. or at least, he doesnt ever suggest that its not meant to be. but thats hip hop for you.
 
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