Heheh, yeah, he’s not who I think of when I think of rap, especially the cutting edge of rap. Yes, I’m honestly probably years behind at any given moment, I ain’t at the forefront. Heck, he’s not even who I think of when I think of genius producers. Does he work hard, and do I sometimes enjoy the end product? Yeah, maybe a decade and a half ago. Most of his output is “meh”, in my opinion, though. His production style is tight, but I feel like I’ve heard pretty much heard it all done before, and often with rappers who have a delivery that is more interesting to myself.
Was he a genius at marketing himself at some point in the past? Yeah, certainly. The collaboration with Murakami was amazingly smart. Being good at marketing himself is probably the largest factor so far in how he got to where he is today. However, I wonder how Murakami feels about that work now.
This part of your post that I snipped is my view, too. In fact, I even include Donald Trump in that. I personally despise the man, but I think it undercuts any validity that my arguments may have if I call him anything derogatory. I don’t even use TFG or anything for just that reason; it makes me look immature and petty.
I’m the same way with Ye. I’ll admit that I sometimes refer to him as Kanye, but only because my circle of friends hasn’t quite grasped the name change, and just starting a conversation with “Ye said” would be met with some weird looks until the light clicked on for them.
I think it’s more of the latter but a bit of the former.
Like he has some poorly thought out contrarian ideas, and he’s gonna make the most of them because his narcissism needs to. He thinks ‘shaking up the culture’ is displaying his genius.
Kanye has kicked Milo Yiannopoulos off of his campaign staff. How much of an irritating asshole do you have to be to out asshole a Hitler-loving crazy man?
Speaking of crazy man, Kanye has released this statement:
AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS ELON COULD BE HALF CHINESE? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN HIS PICS AS A CHILD?
TAKE A CHINESE GENIUS AND MATE THEM WITH A SOUTH AFRICAN SUPER MODEL
AND WE HAVE AN ELON
I SAY AN ELON BECAUSE THEY PROBABLY MADE 10 TO 30 ELON’S AND HE’S THE FIRST GENETIC HYBRID THAT STUCK …. WELL LET’S NOT FORGET ABOUT OBAMA
I’M SORRY FOR USING CURSE WORDS IN CHURCH BUT I DON’T HAVE ANOTHER WORD FOR OBAMA YET
It’s a cause and effect situation. We only remember the fascists** because the non-fascist people who lose their sense of reality fail to attract followers.
**. Used in the contemporary sense of people who want to be authoritarian leaders, not in the more limited sense that was in use back during WW2.
Fame has been an intoxicating drug for many since the dawn of human consciousness. What seems to have changed is the degree to which people will now stoop to attain it. It used to be, “hey, look at me, aren’t I great/talented/smart/good looking/etc.!”
Today we see a lot more “hey, look at me, I’m an asshole!”
And, it’s not limited to people. My cats are the same way.
I wanted to respond to the first, but FTB did a fair enough job with the second piece I quoted. But to be clear, these guys aren’t fascists, but people who believe that in their newly created reality (due to fame / wealth / etc) that they are the only ones with vision or understanding, and therefore THEY will be the ones to dictate to everyone else.
Which is exactly the problem. It’s hard to tell people they shouldn’t deadname while doing ourselves. It’s hard to defend that trans people have a right to be addressed by the name they chose if people ignore that right for others.
The only reason I don’t hold Ye/Kanye to that standard is that it’s not clear to me that Ye has actually retired the name Kanye. His next album after his name change referred to him as “Kanye West.”
It’s not at all impossible to change your name but still use your old one. And with Ye being willing to call out everyone, I suspect he would call out people if he objected to being referred to as “Kanye” or “Kanye West.”
There’s a trans YouTuber I follow who still uses her old name. Because she hasn’t declared it to be dead (i.e. a deadname), it’s still okay to use.
Fair points. I think we can be looser with celebrities, though. Here’s Cecil on this (a bowdlerized version – the origin had "shithead, " IIRC, in place of “duckbreath”):
Most of the article actually supports BigT and RickyJ: “In most cases where there is doubt about how to spell somebody’s name, the usual journalistic practice is to accept the preference of the namee. For many years, however, the Mummer was too busy promoting global chaos to devote much time to the niceties of orthography. That changed in May, 1986, when he responded to a letter from some second-graders at Maxfield Magnet School in St. Paul, Minnesota. The colonel signed the letter in Arabic script, beneath which was typed “Moammar El-Gadhafi.” This was the first known indication of his own feelings on the subject, and the wire services and many newspapers promptly announced they would switch.”
If it had been about the subject’s politics/antics/opinions or anything else that has brought him to the top of the headlines, that’d be fine.
But when almost half of the thread is old white guys proudly proclaiming that they hate hip-hop/rap, that they don’t understand it and that Ye is the bottom of the barrel - cherry picking snippets of his rhymes - it all becomes odious. I think that almost a quarter of the thread is bickering about his choice of name.
People do stupid shit. Celebrities get to do it in public: Zowie Bowie (and his politics during the Thin White Duke era), Moon Unit Zappa, Pilot Inspektor Lee, %/%/&€)& Musk, all of Madonna’s antics over the years, wardrobe malfunctions.
None of that diminishes or excuses Ye’s nazism, which in fact might be the worst yet.
BUT OLD WHITE GUYS who hate rap should focus on the politics and horrible behavior, not try to pass judgement on a musical style they don’t understand. It smells of elitism and a bit of racism (That’s not real music, it’s on par with [example]… hur-dur)
Aside: Kendrick Lamar has a Pulitzer. That make’s him, as objectively as it’s possible, a better writer than anyone here.