Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Replying, Kanye said the 66 year old veteran doesn't know anything about music and even going as far as saying that his kids will be ashamed of him. Read the letter that got Kanye mad after the cut..
Kanye in the NYT? WTF???
I
feel like opening with “What kind of crazy, fucked up world is it where
this guy is considered to be culturally important!!???” But that’s your
line.
Sure,
he made some great music for himself and others. But in spite of what
the aspirationally-cool media keeps saying about him, unlike other
creators in his genre like Jay-Z, Tupac, Biggie or even M.C. Hammer for
that matter, it’s unlikely that we’ll be quoting too many of Kanye’s
songs 20 years from now.
He didn’t open up new avenues of public discourse like NWA, or
introduce the world to a new art form like Grandmaster Flash, or even
meaningfully and memorably address social issues through his music like
Marshall, Macklemore and Kendrick. In my opinion, his productions are
his best work – and I admit I’m jealous of several of them – but I don’t
think he’s on quite the same level as Timbaland and Rick Rubin among
several others. His songwriting – meaning the stuff with melodies – is
sophomoric at best. I was embarrassed for Sir Paul – one of the greatest
Artists of our era – by their collaboration, though it was pointed out
to me that this got him his highest chart position in decades. So I
guess he didn’t mind. But I kind of did!
Instead
Kanye’s greatest achievements have been in the form of excessive
behavior, egomaniacal tantrums and tasteless grandstanding. What he is a
true artist at is living his life out loud – and shoving it down the
throats of the rest of us whether we give a shit or not. He’s like that
flasher who interrupts a critical game by running naked across the
field. Is that art??? Maybe it is. Maybe as Caramanica says, life as “an
unending data stream” is a new art form. But should it be, honestly?
Hell, Forbes named this guy one of the 100 most influential people IN
THE WORLD in 2005 and 2015!! Seriously??? Influencing WHAT exactly?
In
the review of the endless new album, Caramanica wonders if “being
slightly finished is the new finished.” And that just makes my blood
boil. The great musicians, writers, poets, rappers, performers, dancers,
players, conductors, directors and producers work all their lives for
that one moment of complete perfection – that one brilliant performance,
that one perfect song, that one enduring and life-altering work. 10,000
hours is peanuts in comparison to the real amount of time spent by true
artists in their lifelong pursuit of excellence. But no one else that I
have seen is this happy to have the audience watching all along the
way. They are working to the culmination of something; to the exquisite
feeling of completion that comes from working and reworking until that
moment when their creation, or their performance, is as good as it could
possibly be. This guy is just feeding the media machine and I’m not
even certain to what end. Maybe he JUST needs the attention, like that
flasher, and isn’t happy unless he’s the center of it.
What
galls me the most though is the thought that he and others – especially
the media – might actually BELIEVE that he’s an artist. With a capital
“A.” That what he’s doing is of any real consequence besides for the
sheer train wreck gawker value of it.
I
don’t even know why I’m so angry about this. Except maybe I lament for a
world where being truly, world-shakingly excellent at anything – at
least in the field of popular music if not elsewhere – is no longer
absolutely necessary. You can be a star today just by creating a public
life that people pay attention to. That’s it. All you have to do is be
interesting or likable or shocking enough and you can have your 15
minutes of fame…even if that means that no one will remember you or what
you’ve done in just a few years. Line ‘em up. How many “popular
artists” have come and gone in just the last decades. In my mind (which
is a pretty busy as often too judgmental place, I will admit) real
artists make stuff that changes the world and LASTS.
I haven’t heard it yet. Is that what The Life of Pablo is? If so, then I take it all back.
I just needed to rant to someone.
Cheers, B
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