Kyle C. Barker
Migos VERZUZ Mahalia Jackson
Amazing post
I have to Admit, Kanye West is the Total Package
- Thread starter Walt
- Start date
Nope, when I wrote this, over 5 years ago, Kanye was still being called a genius by a significant number of people. Black people are going to revise a lot of that now and pretend they hopped off the bandwagon a long time ago, but it took him invalidating the black experience in America to an extreme degree for people to stop fukkin with this bum. And most still won't admit how overrated he has always been as an artist and as an icon (I mean, let's not kid anyone here, people were dead serious about calling him an acticist, revolutionary, and presidential candidate). I mean, fukk, even after he met with Trump and posed for photos shaking his hand, popular purported "activist" DeRay McKesson was publicly talking about how we needed to embrace our brother Kanye and be patient with him. It has been utterly embarrassing.
Also, Gold Digger was always a goofball song to me, and not even the best song with that title in hip hop, as the EPMD song banged and stand the test of time as a monster jam.
Which is not even me tooting my own horn, it's me being terrified. Because during his whole run I kept wondering "how is it we've gotten to a point where a totally fraudulent and narcissistic idiot is not just one of the biggest rap stars in the world, but also admired for his "genius" by so many people who should know better. And I see the new empty bags of narcissism and manipulation ready to take his place, and people can't see through their wack ass music or total lack of any principle either. And I know it's only going to get worse, because black people have been lulled into a stupor by the insipid death lullabies churned out by the culture of celebrity and spectacle. We're finished.
the cac mamba
Veteran
:deadjay:
I mean, Kanye had built up a lot of cache by the time Watch the Throne dropped, so people were right to wait and see before casting aspersions. But the Kim situation was the reddest of flags for anyone who knows anything. Even JayZ started to distance himself from them. And the thing is that it's not like he was going to be less petulant or whatever if he never got with Kim, it's just that his antics would have no grounding in anything worth defending. So now he's an attention seeking clown to suit his own misguided ego instead of pseudo-rebel and provacatuer to highlight racial issues and spur his own art.
I think your last paragraph is way too dire. Hip hop is wack, but black people are definitely still making moves. IMO hip hop was relegated to camp and people just kept it moving.
prophecypro
Hollywood North
When Walt kills ya favs he kills them with a lot of uncomfortable truths that will fukk YOU up
And it manifests itself.
Breh too real even if this era of woke punditry journalism
And it manifests itself.
Breh too real even if this era of woke punditry journalism
I didn't think one man could do it, but he has managed to embody the absolute worst aspects of Jay-Z, Nas, Pac, Ice Cube, and Common while distilling any of their valuable qualities from the mix.
He's a diva and a demagogue, a bratty fashionista, a shameless opportunist, a convenient social critic, a man who will cum on the blouses of hampton spouses while simultaneously wifing up a beverly hills socialite who embodies whoredom in nearly all possible aspects of the word. He's the ultimate black limousine liberal, the college nikka talking in coded academic language about inequity, black self-love, black owned business, leading pointless "black out" days in front of the campus library, then joining a Fortune 500 company as soon as he graduates and marrying a white chick first chance he gets.
The leader of the meaningless new world in which complexity has been reduced to Che Guevara wearing bling, where 40's the new 30 and nonsense is the new complexity, where inchoate juvenile temper tantrums are the new grist for the mills of revolution.
A man who's mother's death is tied to the ultimate act of vanity and insecurity, who gets riled up after bumping his head on "wrong way" signs like a weak, spoiled, confused child, whose pursuit of the mother of his child was inspired by her online sextape.
He who shall speak truth to power, our great provocative, populist artist, thugging it out with the Gwyneth Paltrows of the world referring to him as her "nikka." Ghostproducers, ghostwriters, shallow lyrics that tap into the emptiness and disconnectedness of the black middle and upper middle class, cliche takes on interracial dating, consumerism, sex, and blackness that would shame the most tired slam poet. The type of black person who doesn't feel a sense of authenticity in the white or black world and feels the urge to align himself with whichever one fits his mood for the day, as he tries on philosophies, indignation, and societal outrage like one of his funky leather outfits or a pair of designer shades - what will look best this season, and to whom? As even activism and justice become just another name brand or champagne, something so bathed in capitalist ethos that it rates and resonates as a buzzword or a quip.
Our great prophet of megalomania, the attention whore who resents the trappings of attention, Mr. anti-Hamptons with his Beverly Hills family, the man who hates to be a celebrity so much that he impregnated a woman who is a celebrity for the sole sake and reason of being a celebrity. You gonna just snap my photo while I'm on my way to a shi shi lunch? Well then I'm gonna expose the prison-for-profit system! The master of substituting empty, over the top rhetoric for insightful or meaningful thoughts, buffoonish gestures for truly defiant acts. Kanye ain't a celebrity, he for the people - which is why his malformed chipmunk face was the main image he chose to project on a bunch of big ass buildings across the country, and why he's calling his album Yeezus.
And he's crack for a lot of black people, the same way Ayn Rand is for a certain lot of whites, because both appeal to a warped sense of persecution while confirming their most basic, shallow notions of how the world is and how it should be, a world in which contradictions empower rather than hinder a person's character or message.
I never thought I could find anyone in hiphop more vile and reprehensible than Puffy, but Kanye has surpassed him at this point for the simple fact that a lie disguised as the truth is always worst than an outright lie.
How did I miss this beauty
There's nothing to revise about Kanye's career musically.
College Dropout
Late Registration
Graduation
808's and Heartbreaks
MBDTF
...are set in stone in terms of their impact and quality. This isn't even including all the other songs/projects/albums that he's touched and played a pivotal role in creating. He's helped some of the greatest rappers of all time release some of their best work. The only people that will front and try to say that he wasn't a great artist are people that just don't like dude, probably never have. Which is fine, but I don't see any point of taking anyone's opinion on hiphop seriously that honestly can sit up with a straight face and say that Kanye West has always made trash music.
Also, can you provide receipts on nikkas calling him an activist. I've heard revolutionary, but who really was saying Kanye West was a black activist like that?
...yeah, see this is kinda what I alluded to with people being full of shyt and having revisionist history to enforce their thoughts on Kanye.
This is false, and more importantly, there's always been a balance within the genre. I'm sure I could find an excerpt like what you just typed for hiphop music released in every era/generation.
Ultimately, through all of what you said... through all of the bullshyt that Kanye has been on during this "Tarnish My Legacy" Tour Run over the last year, the main reason more people are not fukking with him is because his music isn't good anymore. Artists can get away with a lot of shyt if they still releasing high quality shyt.
Kanye been all over the place and with his music since Yeezus, and he's been losing credibility with his brand due to all the other shyt he's on. You pair people just not fukking with his antics AND him releasing trash, and you get what we're witnessing now. All that other shyt factors in, but ultimately, the music just ain't where it was. Period.
b_low_brown
Daddyface
Nobody’s shocked. but once he put on the maga hat he opened the door and walked into the crosshairs. It’s like the straw that broke jay z back
Devil Plisken…CMS
Veteran
I didn't think one man could do it, but he has managed to embody the absolute worst aspects of Jay-Z, Nas, Pac, Ice Cube, and Common while distilling any of their valuable qualities from the mix.
He's a diva and a demagogue, a bratty fashionista, a shameless opportunist, a convenient social critic, a man who will cum on the blouses of hampton spouses while simultaneously wifing up a beverly hills socialite who embodies whoredom in nearly all possible aspects of the word. He's the ultimate black limousine liberal, the college nikka talking in coded academic language about inequity, black self-love, black owned business, leading pointless "black out" days in front of the campus library, then joining a Fortune 500 company as soon as he graduates and marrying a white chick first chance he gets.
The leader of the meaningless new world in which complexity has been reduced to Che Guevara wearing bling, where 40's the new 30 and nonsense is the new complexity, where inchoate juvenile temper tantrums are the new grist for the mills of revolution.
A man who's mother's death is tied to the ultimate act of vanity and insecurity, who gets riled up after bumping his head on "wrong way" signs like a weak, spoiled, confused child, whose pursuit of the mother of his child was inspired by her online sextape.
He who shall speak truth to power, our great provocative, populist artist, thugging it out with the Gwyneth Paltrows of the world referring to him as her "nikka." Ghostproducers, ghostwriters, shallow lyrics that tap into the emptiness and disconnectedness of the black middle and upper middle class, cliche takes on interracial dating, consumerism, sex, and blackness that would shame the most tired slam poet. The type of black person who doesn't feel a sense of authenticity in the white or black world and feels the urge to align himself with whichever one fits his mood for the day, as he tries on philosophies, indignation, and societal outrage like one of his funky leather outfits or a pair of designer shades - what will look best this season, and to whom? As even activism and justice become just another name brand or champagne, something so bathed in capitalist ethos that it rates and resonates as a buzzword or a quip.
Our great prophet of megalomania, the attention whore who resents the trappings of attention, Mr. anti-Hamptons with his Beverly Hills family, the man who hates to be a celebrity so much that he impregnated a woman who is a celebrity for the sole sake and reason of being a celebrity. You gonna just snap my photo while I'm on my way to a shi shi lunch? Well then I'm gonna expose the prison-for-profit system! The master of substituting empty, over the top rhetoric for insightful or meaningful thoughts, buffoonish gestures for truly defiant acts. Kanye ain't a celebrity, he for the people - which is why his malformed chipmunk face was the main image he chose to project on a bunch of big ass buildings across the country, and why he's calling his album Yeezus.
And he's crack for a lot of black people, the same way Ayn Rand is for a certain lot of whites, because both appeal to a warped sense of persecution while confirming their most basic, shallow notions of how the world is and how it should be, a world in which contradictions empower rather than hinder a person's character or message.
I never thought I could find anyone in hiphop more vile and reprehensible than Puffy, but Kanye has surpassed him at this point for the simple fact that a lie disguised as the truth is always worst than an outright lie.
Bless You Good Sir
The date that you sent this missle out is commendable...
Bravo
You were right bruh, you were 100% right.