As for his music, I may have stumbled across it unknowingly. I am not in his target market. Those who are call him a genius, I certainly have no argument against them.
As for his antics that bubble up in the media, I can’t help but wonder sometimes if he is either on the aspergers spectrum, or has some other un-diagnosed behavioral issue that would benefit from treatment. Mad genius and all that.
Since all I have to go on is his media presence, I would say: No, I do not like a Kanye West.
No, I don’t like him, too petulant. I’m okay with arrogant pricks, but he’s a total man-child. Fans claim he’s got incredible musical talent, but I haven’t heard it in what little I’ve listened to. I’d likely give it another shot if I could get over his personality.
Not exactly - the majority of the “she give me money” bits are sampled from Ray Charles “I Got a Woman”. That song came out in 1958, so surely people here claiming ignorance of Kanye have heard that. Jamie Foxx only sings a small part in the intro of the song, where he’s also pretending to be Ray Charles (as you’ll also recall that he portrayed him in the '04 movie Ray).
Think about what his owing 53 million really means. (He stiffed hundreds of hard working individuals who performed some sort of service for him or sold some kind of goods to him.) And now he says to them F you, I’m not paying you and if you don’t like it, spend more money filing a lawsuit against me and if you are lucky, you’ll get a few pennies for the dollars I owe you.
Asshole squared!
Really?
That’s not remotely what having debt means. That’s not what it means even if you assume he doesn’t pay any of it back.
I’m curious where you got that opinion. Did you see it reported somewhere that he owes that money because he agreed to pay people who did work for him and then told them to forget it?
I’d really like to know the source of that opinion.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you. I’d just like to know the source. I don’t know how he accumulated that debt either. I’d like to know just who would have lent him that money and why. Or whether it is the result of something else. He could have taken out a bank loan. Although I’d be surprised if any bank would loan him that much money. But it’s a mystery to me just how he ever got into that much debt.
I suppose he could have bought his wife some shoes. But millions of shoes? He would have had to pay to buy a new house with an awful lot of closet space to keep that many shoes.
So was John Lennon. And he was also a giant douchebag. The two are not mutually exclusive, nor is talent an excuse to be a douchebag.
(That said, he can be amusing, in sort of a PALATR kind of way)
As a person he seems a total cunt, and a mentally ill one at that. His music style isn’t really my bag but my Ipod does contain Love Locked Down and, uh, I think it’s called Heartless. Those are good songs.
Voted yes. Not because of his music, but because of “Imma let you finish” and especially because of “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
yes but the 170,00,000 are all Kanye tweeting about himself.
Honestly, he should give up music and just start his own brand of feminine douche. For starters he can invent one that makes women into Grammy award winners.
Frank Zappa was a musical genius. Miles Davis was a musical genius. Paco Dr Lucia is a musical geniue. Bela Fleck… I started counting and ran out of fingers and toes.
Kanye writes mildly interesting stuff with a tiny bit of musical complexity. As soon as he flames out, which appears to be happening now, he will be replaced by another musician with a gigantic ego that lacks the chops to back that ego up.
Slee
I like neither the person or his music.
That pretty much sums up my take. He doesn’t totally lack talent, but IMHO his talent is largely overstated, especially by the man himself.
Let’s see - I listen to PRX and the comedy channels on satellite radio, I stream NPR occasionally at home, and while I may have heard Gold Digger, it certainly isn’t something I’m aware of, much less who performed it. If it’s rap (is Kanye a rapper?) I’d ignore it anyway - not my musical taste at all.
Believe what you will…
And besides, the best part of Goldigger is Jamie Fox chanelling Ray Charles with the line She gives me money, when I’m need.
Can’t vote as I don’t know what we’re voting on - the man or his music.
As a person he appears to be a total fucking tool. But that could in fact just be a publicity-generating avatar.
I quite like some of his music, and I thought My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was really very good indeed.
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Here’s how things are changing:
View Poll Results: Do you like Kanye West?
This poll will close on 03-06-2016 at 04:09 PM
Yes 22 8.80%
No 164 65.60%
I am 100% indifferent 49 19.60%
Who? 15 6.00%
Voters: 250
===========================
I see this as meaning that Yes is gaining at the expense of Who? and other options are remaining steady (or nearly so).
Great turnout! Thanks!
I’ll take Kanye West over Zappa any day in terms of musical genius (simply for his impact and radical re-definition of an entire genre of music). I’m not entirely sure that releasing a 7th consecutive highly critically acclaimed album is “flam[ing] out”, but YMMV.
NM. Sorry.
That article is pretty long on gush, and short on critique. It primarily talks about his feud with 50 Cent, and how popular he is.
None of this addresses any innovation. Soul samples had been done in rap (and other styles) before, orchestral backgrounds became a cliché about the time he was born, electronica has been in rap before (hell, it’s basis is in disco). Dark introspective sound? Umm, Tricky had the corner on that market long before, as well as being far more minimalist.
No, that’s not convincing. It sounds more like his fans aren’t aware of music before 2001.