Kanye’s newest album is at turns haunting, petty, and discordant. And you can’t ignore the shadow of his antisemitism over the whole thing. So why did I like it?
He's a genius! You just don't get it! He's the Dostoyevsky of gross insults! The Shakespeare of gassing himself up! The Michelangelo of openly flaunting his neuroses!
There are two musical geniuses of this century: Taylor Swift and Kanye West. There's such a gap between #2 and #3 (whoever that is) that it's barely worth even really contemplating who is third.
Well. You use words like "artist" and "music", when I wonder if it's just me seeing a naked-ass emperor. The question of whether artistic "greatness" should confer some kind of moral amnesty, as a piece like "Tar" seeks to explore, is, to me, moot, in this instance. Sampling is a dabbler's hobby, and I see no "there" there. Unfortunately, in our present strange cultural bleakscape, the Ultimate Arbiters of Taste (de gustibus!) have graced this troubled man with a chrystalline mantel, and The Real Hiphophousewives of Nod share blankies with the Jupiter Symphony.
"Separate the art from the artist" is such a trite cop-out.
I look forward to Eli Lake's next review of Hitler's drawings.
By the way, Kanye did not only tell Alex Jones that he wouldn't let the Jews tell him he can't admire Hitler, what he said was "I love Hit.er." Interesting this expression of love is omitted from your article.
It is an embarrassment that you seek to fluff this guys record sales and to compare him to T.S. Elliott is also a sad joke.
You briefly mention Kanye referencing his bipolar disorder, but I feel like any piece about his behavior is incomplete without noting that one, he does in fact have bipolar disorder; and two, he’s said in the past that he doesn’t take medication because he feels it stunts his creativity. We can’t talk about him like he’s a regular, healthy person. Bipolar disorder frequently involves paranoia and sometimes psychosis.
I’m sure someone’s going to say, “I/my brother/my grandma/my neighbor has bipolar disorder, and s/he didn’t become a raging antisemite.” Okay, good for them. But latching onto a conspiracy theory while on a manic phase is not uncommon with bipolar disorder, and there but for the grace of God go we.
He’s sick in the head. He’s the rich version of the homeless guy who digs through dumpsters muttering about UFOs, or the Illuminati, or Pizzagate.
Hadley Freeman is a writer who spent a lot of time in psych wards as a young woman, and is also Jewish. She wrote a great piece on Kanye West and his illness.
“Some images of poor mental health from my own experience, when I lived in various psychiatric facilities in the Nineties, where I was being treated for anorexia nervosa: the black woman who walked around shouting racist obscenities all day. The man who came into the TV room, dropped his trousers, and started masturbating (to Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, of all people, so you knew he was really crazy). The woman who pulled out all the hairs in her eyebrows and eyelashes […]
“I’m Jewish, but when I read West’s posts I didn’t feel offended. I just felt sad that an artist so talented is now so clearly out of his tree. Maybe West really does think Diddy is being controlled by Jewish people. Or maybe that reflects his true feelings as much as that man in hospital was genuinely turned on by Richard and Judy. “Being bipolar doesn’t make you racist,” people shout on Twitter. Not necessarily, but poor mental health makes you say a lot of crazy stuff, because it’s not about being sexily impetuous or soulfully sensitive. It’s about being out of your fucking mind. And I get that’s not special or sparkly, but then, tuberculosis is a lot less pretty than some of those Victorian novels made it sound. Illness sucks.”
Again - excuses. None of us really know whether Kanye is bi-polar or not, do we? I have not seen his medical records, have you? I think he is a vile Jew-hater who has a huge following and will encourage Jew-hatred. I'm guessing that doesn't bother you like it bothers me. Fine.
The comparison between Kanye and "the homeless guy" is BS.
Kanye CHOOSES not to use his great wealth to treat his mental health issues, and instead uses them as a convenient excuse to do and say whatever he wants.
Again - excuses. None of us really know whether Kanye is bi-polar or not, do we? I have not seen his medical records, have you? I think he is a vile Jew-hater who has a huge following and will encourage Jew-hatred. I'm guessing that doesn't bother you like it bothers me. Fine.
No, Carol, nor an excuse. A fact. Yes, we do know Kanye has bipolar disorder. That fact doesn’t dismiss what he says. Just adds to why we shouldn’t listen. I pay no attention at all to Kanye West.
Ye's problem is drug related/caused, I'm quite sure. Kanye doesn't take prescription drugs, but other stuff? I'm dead certain. The evidence I see is that Kanye was doing psychedelics and MDMA after burning man with Elon Musk. The things Kanye came out with back then being rose-colored glasses about Hitler, is classic MDMA. That is why girls/women being trained for BDSM are dosed with MDMA. It makes them happy and compliant.
Elon has a constitution of iron. What would knock many people into orbit he finds pleasantly stimulating. Which makes sense---there's literature from LSD's heyday in science showing that autistic children came out of their isolation and were normalized by LSD. (Of course, like everything, dose is everything. The dose that Crick & Watson were reportedly taking when they came up with the double helix was not a "trip" dose.) Elon is obviously up there on the Asperger's scale.
Even so, Elon has come out of Burning Man a bit edgier, a bit odder - having some new "wild hare" complete with puns, for a long time now. I noticed Elon didn't show those signs this year, which is a first in almost a decade. I wonder if that may be due to him seeing Kanye lose his sh*t live and unedited on national media, and right in front of him in his house.
PS - I imagine that line, "... I just f*cked a Jewish b*tch" is popular in Hamas.
I'm not sure what to do with all this information, but I honestly didn't start reading the comments thinking that I would gain the insight of someone, knowledgeable in the BDSM training realm, dropping tidbits about Elon.
Much later, I made a friend who was cousin to Peter Acworth. Peter came to family gatherings. I never managed high tea with Peter. But, again, one listens, learns.
An observer. Years before I taught a class on psychedelics at UC, I had my 1st online date. It was a woman in the SF Bay Area who had a column. Within 30 seconds of meeting me, she announced that she wanted to... (I couldn't make it out, or rather it was so odd my mind rejected it.) After several iterations of me saying, "Youehat?" when she raised her arm and made a whipping motion, I heard, "I want to flog you, real good." I said, "Why, uh, no. I don't think so?" She said, "You don't? Why?"
I am congenitally stricken with curiosity. So we ended up walking and talking for a few hours. I learned a lot. Then looked up places and things she mentioned until my curiosity was... over.
West is garbage. His whole genre is garbage. I've heard Lake compare him to [deep breath] Miles Davis, and there could be no more disqualifying a contention.
I know pop music history/critiquing is a passion of Lake's -- but I'll stick to his politics and political history and investigative journalism, where he and his podcast shine.
Kanye West is the musical equivalent of a dimestore novel. Meanwhile, talented artists who have spent decades mastering instruments and songwriting are languishing in the shadows.
This is the end result of "elevating people." Our culture is literal trash.
As a music curator, Grammy Voter, and pro working musician, I think FP would do well to invoke more specific musical language on reviews like this. It helps to explain what makes/made Kanye special, and describe what the expectations of genre are so as to evaluate Kanye by those standards. Rap music has a norms that are not easily discerned, evaluated, or accepted by people who didn’t grow up with it (and frankly, I know people who, having grown up with both the music and lifestyles it often depicts, are so mortified that they have no taste for it at all). Still, having spent time in studios studying this music and making creative decisions about it, I’d like to offer some musical considerations about what makes Kanye unique
Sampling: Sampling effectively is difficult. One is not concerned with coordinating rhythm, melody and harmony but also timbre and your “orchestra” is all previously recorded music. These are loose constraints that make the creative process nontrivial to the uninitiated, and that’s before we get to the laborious process of “chopping up” and arranging records. Kanye has had a coherent sonic vision with extreme attention to detail on each project for most of his career that for at least 15 years influenced the sound of the genre as a whole.
Arrangement: Kanye’s experiments with form starting with the Yeezus album have made non linear forms more en vogue. Kanye (often not always) exhibits a sense of proportion and development that is at least emotionally compelling, if not great which sets him apart from lazier producers. This craftsmanship takes some of his beats from being simple loops to compositions. Of course they are still meant to be rapped over so it would not be appropriate to compare to large orchestral work but certainly to pop and RnB orchestrations of the 20th C.
Lyrics: Rap is often vulgar but at its artistic best lyrics are intricate, compelling, and clever. Kanye was never rhythmically intricate or in possession on the best rhymes but he was often interesting, humorous, and spoke to what his audience was feeling. He changed the “Overton window” of rap to admit more of the human condition on a couple of his projects. Although now he just seems to push it toward being shocking. A caveat: With rap lyrics, I find people can deal with them or they can’t. The vulgarity, the pace, the use of metaphor, the humor can be too much to process. There’s a “there” there but if it’s not for you that’s fine.
Given an article I’d go into more detail but this is already too long! Would love to see Douglass Murray level analysis of relevant music on FP though!
You make a good case that West is technically very accomplished. How would you describe the artistic merits of his work? Dare I ask about "beauty", "upliftment" or "insight into the human condition"? Compare, e.g., to Zappa whose musicality is nothing short of genius, but who chose to use his talents to depict ugliness and degradation.
This is a fantastic question that would take at least a short essay to do justice to. I think a robust concept of beauty, awe, connection to the sacred, awareness of possibility is something that has lost its priority in culture and as a curator, exploring the "beauty" in different cultures (how they conceive of balance and proportion, what they find worthy of reverence, the history and contribution of their great masters) is my focus. Because I work in his industry and because a fair evaluation along these lines would require a song or at least album level critique, I'd rather not stand as a judge of Kanye's work in a comments section, but I will make two points about the role of beauty in art.
1. Beauty and upliftment in our arts and culture create the opportunity for a better culture; one that can make more robust choices politically, socially, and economically. Music can't necessarily get the details of this right but it can affirm the emotional and spiritual color of some of those bedrock values. Application of genius exclusively toward the decadent and profane creates problems in culture. I don't think everyone should only listen to gospel music or bhajan but I think, in this regard, our cultural sense of balance in what emotional/psychic energies we reach for in music is a little off.
2. One of the life affirming values IS in fact excellence in craftsmanship and performance as it allows one to sit in awe and wonder at what the human mind and collective human effort can achieve. HOWEVER one only really has the opportunity to perceive this side of it with a certain amount of refinement and training. Otherwise one can't see why certain technical choices have more weight than the others that were available by the constraints of the project and genre, or discern which decisions were innovations to be marvelled at. Incidentally Zappa captures this perfectly for me to the point that I often use the end of St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast as a warm up and use the harmonic progression from RDNZL in various pieces of mine. This makes the mandate for beauty and upliftment a little fraught as things can be vulgar and masterful. I think that it is up to culture to balance the vulgar and sacred properly and in turn it is up to artists to understand that respsonsibility and take it seriously while pursuing mastery. And it is up to critics and gatekeepers to understand this responsibility as well. The question of how is enormously complicated and multifactorial and so I wont address it here. But your question is spot on.
Thanks for your analysis, I live for this sort music trivia! I also used to hate hip-hop as a genre, and then I learned about the history of hip-hop during an American music history class in college. After learning about how this genre was formed by underground DJs in the Bronx, creating their own musical community out of their home records because they didn't have anything else, I found it to be pretty inspiring! The first subjects that rappers rapped about was how the government destroyed Black communities, and even young kids were allowed to revolutionize the genre (did you know that record scratching sound effects was invented by a 13 year old?? I didn't!!). So while I still mourn how far hip-hop has drifted from its roots, I know the genre deserves my respect.
Kanye isn’t vulgar, rap is vulgar. If you like the genre you know this. Listen to Boyz in the hood by NWA from the 80’s where Easy E is rapping about grabbing his girlfriend by the hair and smacking her. Then punching out her dad when he tries to help. Being vulgar is so old news with rap its not worth mentioning.
I also think a lot of educated people fail to understand what untreated Bipolar I can look like.
Please pay attention to the third bullet point under Manic Episode. About three or four times a year this guys brain goes completely haywire. He is likely having psychotic breaks and becoming completely untethered to reality. It is common for people to have delusions about religious groups or the government.
Also consider that he is also having hypomanic episodes as well as major depressive episodes. I don’t completely give the man a free pass since he knows he has a problem and doesn’t seek treatment. But lets cool the outrage about his delusional comments about Jews.
That is exactly what they are. They are literal delusions from a crazy person.
What we call art and culture today is a reflection of what Western society has become. Vulgar, misogynistic, confused, a Jew twisting himself in knots to embrace an anti-semitic, hate filled artist, etc. etc. etc.. This is so sad.
I, too, was in awe of Kanye during his early days. “The College Dropout” and “Late Registration” are incredible albums.
But now? The guy has absolutely smoked himself onto the schizoaffective spectrum, and I find it painful to watch someone so clearly struggling with mental health issues continually degrade himself.
Thus, I try never to view headlines associated with the musical titan formerly known as Kanye West. I made an exception for this article because it’s the FP, but I definitely won’t be streaming the new album.
For my part I choose not to support assholes by being a consumer of their works. We can grant certain indulgences for people being products of their times, particularly when it would have taken near superhuman insight and thoughtfulness for them to have transcended conventions and habits of mind that completely saturated the cultures that reared them. Antisemitism was ubiquitous in Shakespeare’s time. Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator, yet never thought blacks the equals of whites. Virtually no other white person of his age did either. Yet it’s never been okay to rape girls or stab your wife, and people like Kanye living in more enlightened times who should know better don’t get a pass. He’s obnoxious and toxic. I have no interest in contributing to his success.
I am really shocked at some of the comments here - people making excuses for Kanye's virulent Jew-hatred because of supposed "mental illness". Have any of you seen his medical records? I haven't. And even if he is bi-polar, that is not an excuse. Do you guys also excuse serial killers because of mental illness?! Enough of giving this asshat a pass. Besides that, his music sucks.
Not sure if anyone is making excuses here. Not sure what you want people to do or say. Should they refuse to listen to his "music" because of his disgusting statements?
If I were a determined white supremacist and wanted to heap contempt upon and encourage self-loathing in the black community, I could do no better than to create the rap music culture of the last 40 years. What is to be done about that? West is just more crazy in a mountain of crazy.
Eli, I always appreciate your voice and here appreciate your magnanimity towards an artist with loathsome views. And as a Kanye fan since 2004 as well, I am glad to read it. As you note, there are many artists whose views of humanity or politics are antithetical to my own and I do feel a little guilt whenever confronted with them. But listen (or view), I do. My views of people/world/good & evil cannot be influenced by celebrities with whom I have no personal relationship nor respect for opinions outside of their field of expertise, so I accept that sometimes it is the crazy wrong mo-fos who break through the noise.
Artist? Music? Spare me the noise.
He's a genius! You just don't get it! He's the Dostoyevsky of gross insults! The Shakespeare of gassing himself up! The Michelangelo of openly flaunting his neuroses!
Dear Ken there is no way for me to know that. If you hid gold bullion in my septic tank I'd never know you did.
Edit. I get it now. Sarcasm FTW. Sorry. I'm not usually so slow on the uptake. In my defense my wife and daughters went to the coast.
I've been unsupervised for the last three days.
Yes. It's garbage.
There are two musical geniuses of this century: Taylor Swift and Kanye West. There's such a gap between #2 and #3 (whoever that is) that it's barely worth even really contemplating who is third.
In pop. There is tons of music coming out in other genres that neither of these could hold a candle to.
Kudos to Swift, though, hardworking, seriously good lyrics. Kanye? No. Trash.
MBDTF is, by far, the greatest album of the 21st century.
Well. You use words like "artist" and "music", when I wonder if it's just me seeing a naked-ass emperor. The question of whether artistic "greatness" should confer some kind of moral amnesty, as a piece like "Tar" seeks to explore, is, to me, moot, in this instance. Sampling is a dabbler's hobby, and I see no "there" there. Unfortunately, in our present strange cultural bleakscape, the Ultimate Arbiters of Taste (de gustibus!) have graced this troubled man with a chrystalline mantel, and The Real Hiphophousewives of Nod share blankies with the Jupiter Symphony.
"Separate the art from the artist" is such a trite cop-out.
I look forward to Eli Lake's next review of Hitler's drawings.
By the way, Kanye did not only tell Alex Jones that he wouldn't let the Jews tell him he can't admire Hitler, what he said was "I love Hit.er." Interesting this expression of love is omitted from your article.
It is an embarrassment that you seek to fluff this guys record sales and to compare him to T.S. Elliott is also a sad joke.
Right. And Hitler was probably also Bipolar.
You briefly mention Kanye referencing his bipolar disorder, but I feel like any piece about his behavior is incomplete without noting that one, he does in fact have bipolar disorder; and two, he’s said in the past that he doesn’t take medication because he feels it stunts his creativity. We can’t talk about him like he’s a regular, healthy person. Bipolar disorder frequently involves paranoia and sometimes psychosis.
I’m sure someone’s going to say, “I/my brother/my grandma/my neighbor has bipolar disorder, and s/he didn’t become a raging antisemite.” Okay, good for them. But latching onto a conspiracy theory while on a manic phase is not uncommon with bipolar disorder, and there but for the grace of God go we.
Edit:typo
Oh please. A jerk is a jerk, and everyone with lousy behavior has an excuse.
Oh look! Here's someone making an excuse for a virulent Jew-hater. How banal....
He’s sick in the head. He’s the rich version of the homeless guy who digs through dumpsters muttering about UFOs, or the Illuminati, or Pizzagate.
Hadley Freeman is a writer who spent a lot of time in psych wards as a young woman, and is also Jewish. She wrote a great piece on Kanye West and his illness.
https://unherd.com/2022/10/dont-punish-kanye-west/
“Some images of poor mental health from my own experience, when I lived in various psychiatric facilities in the Nineties, where I was being treated for anorexia nervosa: the black woman who walked around shouting racist obscenities all day. The man who came into the TV room, dropped his trousers, and started masturbating (to Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, of all people, so you knew he was really crazy). The woman who pulled out all the hairs in her eyebrows and eyelashes […]
“I’m Jewish, but when I read West’s posts I didn’t feel offended. I just felt sad that an artist so talented is now so clearly out of his tree. Maybe West really does think Diddy is being controlled by Jewish people. Or maybe that reflects his true feelings as much as that man in hospital was genuinely turned on by Richard and Judy. “Being bipolar doesn’t make you racist,” people shout on Twitter. Not necessarily, but poor mental health makes you say a lot of crazy stuff, because it’s not about being sexily impetuous or soulfully sensitive. It’s about being out of your fucking mind. And I get that’s not special or sparkly, but then, tuberculosis is a lot less pretty than some of those Victorian novels made it sound. Illness sucks.”
Again - excuses. None of us really know whether Kanye is bi-polar or not, do we? I have not seen his medical records, have you? I think he is a vile Jew-hater who has a huge following and will encourage Jew-hatred. I'm guessing that doesn't bother you like it bothers me. Fine.
The comparison between Kanye and "the homeless guy" is BS.
Kanye CHOOSES not to use his great wealth to treat his mental health issues, and instead uses them as a convenient excuse to do and say whatever he wants.
Not at all. You’re very off base. Perhaps you have no experience with bipolar disorder?
Again - excuses. None of us really know whether Kanye is bi-polar or not, do we? I have not seen his medical records, have you? I think he is a vile Jew-hater who has a huge following and will encourage Jew-hatred. I'm guessing that doesn't bother you like it bothers me. Fine.
No, Carol, nor an excuse. A fact. Yes, we do know Kanye has bipolar disorder. That fact doesn’t dismiss what he says. Just adds to why we shouldn’t listen. I pay no attention at all to Kanye West.
Agree and true. Anyone with any experience of bipolar disorder understands this.
Ye's problem is drug related/caused, I'm quite sure. Kanye doesn't take prescription drugs, but other stuff? I'm dead certain. The evidence I see is that Kanye was doing psychedelics and MDMA after burning man with Elon Musk. The things Kanye came out with back then being rose-colored glasses about Hitler, is classic MDMA. That is why girls/women being trained for BDSM are dosed with MDMA. It makes them happy and compliant.
Elon has a constitution of iron. What would knock many people into orbit he finds pleasantly stimulating. Which makes sense---there's literature from LSD's heyday in science showing that autistic children came out of their isolation and were normalized by LSD. (Of course, like everything, dose is everything. The dose that Crick & Watson were reportedly taking when they came up with the double helix was not a "trip" dose.) Elon is obviously up there on the Asperger's scale.
Even so, Elon has come out of Burning Man a bit edgier, a bit odder - having some new "wild hare" complete with puns, for a long time now. I noticed Elon didn't show those signs this year, which is a first in almost a decade. I wonder if that may be due to him seeing Kanye lose his sh*t live and unedited on national media, and right in front of him in his house.
PS - I imagine that line, "... I just f*cked a Jewish b*tch" is popular in Hamas.
I'm not sure what to do with all this information, but I honestly didn't start reading the comments thinking that I would gain the insight of someone, knowledgeable in the BDSM training realm, dropping tidbits about Elon.
Much later, I made a friend who was cousin to Peter Acworth. Peter came to family gatherings. I never managed high tea with Peter. But, again, one listens, learns.
And then there's that actor. Clooney...
An observer. Years before I taught a class on psychedelics at UC, I had my 1st online date. It was a woman in the SF Bay Area who had a column. Within 30 seconds of meeting me, she announced that she wanted to... (I couldn't make it out, or rather it was so odd my mind rejected it.) After several iterations of me saying, "Youehat?" when she raised her arm and made a whipping motion, I heard, "I want to flog you, real good." I said, "Why, uh, no. I don't think so?" She said, "You don't? Why?"
I am congenitally stricken with curiosity. So we ended up walking and talking for a few hours. I learned a lot. Then looked up places and things she mentioned until my curiosity was... over.
West is garbage. His whole genre is garbage. I've heard Lake compare him to [deep breath] Miles Davis, and there could be no more disqualifying a contention.
I know pop music history/critiquing is a passion of Lake's -- but I'll stick to his politics and political history and investigative journalism, where he and his podcast shine.
Kanye West is the musical equivalent of a dimestore novel. Meanwhile, talented artists who have spent decades mastering instruments and songwriting are languishing in the shadows.
This is the end result of "elevating people." Our culture is literal trash.
As a music curator, Grammy Voter, and pro working musician, I think FP would do well to invoke more specific musical language on reviews like this. It helps to explain what makes/made Kanye special, and describe what the expectations of genre are so as to evaluate Kanye by those standards. Rap music has a norms that are not easily discerned, evaluated, or accepted by people who didn’t grow up with it (and frankly, I know people who, having grown up with both the music and lifestyles it often depicts, are so mortified that they have no taste for it at all). Still, having spent time in studios studying this music and making creative decisions about it, I’d like to offer some musical considerations about what makes Kanye unique
Sampling: Sampling effectively is difficult. One is not concerned with coordinating rhythm, melody and harmony but also timbre and your “orchestra” is all previously recorded music. These are loose constraints that make the creative process nontrivial to the uninitiated, and that’s before we get to the laborious process of “chopping up” and arranging records. Kanye has had a coherent sonic vision with extreme attention to detail on each project for most of his career that for at least 15 years influenced the sound of the genre as a whole.
Arrangement: Kanye’s experiments with form starting with the Yeezus album have made non linear forms more en vogue. Kanye (often not always) exhibits a sense of proportion and development that is at least emotionally compelling, if not great which sets him apart from lazier producers. This craftsmanship takes some of his beats from being simple loops to compositions. Of course they are still meant to be rapped over so it would not be appropriate to compare to large orchestral work but certainly to pop and RnB orchestrations of the 20th C.
Lyrics: Rap is often vulgar but at its artistic best lyrics are intricate, compelling, and clever. Kanye was never rhythmically intricate or in possession on the best rhymes but he was often interesting, humorous, and spoke to what his audience was feeling. He changed the “Overton window” of rap to admit more of the human condition on a couple of his projects. Although now he just seems to push it toward being shocking. A caveat: With rap lyrics, I find people can deal with them or they can’t. The vulgarity, the pace, the use of metaphor, the humor can be too much to process. There’s a “there” there but if it’s not for you that’s fine.
Given an article I’d go into more detail but this is already too long! Would love to see Douglass Murray level analysis of relevant music on FP though!
You make a good case that West is technically very accomplished. How would you describe the artistic merits of his work? Dare I ask about "beauty", "upliftment" or "insight into the human condition"? Compare, e.g., to Zappa whose musicality is nothing short of genius, but who chose to use his talents to depict ugliness and degradation.
This is a fantastic question that would take at least a short essay to do justice to. I think a robust concept of beauty, awe, connection to the sacred, awareness of possibility is something that has lost its priority in culture and as a curator, exploring the "beauty" in different cultures (how they conceive of balance and proportion, what they find worthy of reverence, the history and contribution of their great masters) is my focus. Because I work in his industry and because a fair evaluation along these lines would require a song or at least album level critique, I'd rather not stand as a judge of Kanye's work in a comments section, but I will make two points about the role of beauty in art.
1. Beauty and upliftment in our arts and culture create the opportunity for a better culture; one that can make more robust choices politically, socially, and economically. Music can't necessarily get the details of this right but it can affirm the emotional and spiritual color of some of those bedrock values. Application of genius exclusively toward the decadent and profane creates problems in culture. I don't think everyone should only listen to gospel music or bhajan but I think, in this regard, our cultural sense of balance in what emotional/psychic energies we reach for in music is a little off.
2. One of the life affirming values IS in fact excellence in craftsmanship and performance as it allows one to sit in awe and wonder at what the human mind and collective human effort can achieve. HOWEVER one only really has the opportunity to perceive this side of it with a certain amount of refinement and training. Otherwise one can't see why certain technical choices have more weight than the others that were available by the constraints of the project and genre, or discern which decisions were innovations to be marvelled at. Incidentally Zappa captures this perfectly for me to the point that I often use the end of St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast as a warm up and use the harmonic progression from RDNZL in various pieces of mine. This makes the mandate for beauty and upliftment a little fraught as things can be vulgar and masterful. I think that it is up to culture to balance the vulgar and sacred properly and in turn it is up to artists to understand that respsonsibility and take it seriously while pursuing mastery. And it is up to critics and gatekeepers to understand this responsibility as well. The question of how is enormously complicated and multifactorial and so I wont address it here. But your question is spot on.
FP: Marcus Miller would be a more than worthy arts/music contributor. Maybe let this comment serve as an application?!
Rap and hip hop blow chunks. Moronic tripe sold to UMC leftist shitstains. You're part of the problem.
Thanks for your analysis, I live for this sort music trivia! I also used to hate hip-hop as a genre, and then I learned about the history of hip-hop during an American music history class in college. After learning about how this genre was formed by underground DJs in the Bronx, creating their own musical community out of their home records because they didn't have anything else, I found it to be pretty inspiring! The first subjects that rappers rapped about was how the government destroyed Black communities, and even young kids were allowed to revolutionize the genre (did you know that record scratching sound effects was invented by a 13 year old?? I didn't!!). So while I still mourn how far hip-hop has drifted from its roots, I know the genre deserves my respect.
Musical genius? His music sucks, his lyrics suck. You are much better at investigative reporting than music critic.
lol, no
Kanye isn’t vulgar, rap is vulgar. If you like the genre you know this. Listen to Boyz in the hood by NWA from the 80’s where Easy E is rapping about grabbing his girlfriend by the hair and smacking her. Then punching out her dad when he tries to help. Being vulgar is so old news with rap its not worth mentioning.
I also think a lot of educated people fail to understand what untreated Bipolar I can look like.
https://floridabhcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Bipolar-Disorders_Adult-Guidelines-2019-2020.pdf
Please pay attention to the third bullet point under Manic Episode. About three or four times a year this guys brain goes completely haywire. He is likely having psychotic breaks and becoming completely untethered to reality. It is common for people to have delusions about religious groups or the government.
Also consider that he is also having hypomanic episodes as well as major depressive episodes. I don’t completely give the man a free pass since he knows he has a problem and doesn’t seek treatment. But lets cool the outrage about his delusional comments about Jews.
That is exactly what they are. They are literal delusions from a crazy person.
But others are listening & could act out his delusional hate on your child, spouse, parents, friends, & the beat goes on.
What we call art and culture today is a reflection of what Western society has become. Vulgar, misogynistic, confused, a Jew twisting himself in knots to embrace an anti-semitic, hate filled artist, etc. etc. etc.. This is so sad.
I could imagine this guy making excuses to listen to Wagner during WWII when it was known that Wagner was a ‘featured’ artist
And this article ladies and gentlemen completely explains why Jew hating liberal woke politicians keep getting reelected.
There aren't enough stories about how badly the United States is going down the toilet...
So let's focus on this narcissistic asshole for a while...
I, too, was in awe of Kanye during his early days. “The College Dropout” and “Late Registration” are incredible albums.
But now? The guy has absolutely smoked himself onto the schizoaffective spectrum, and I find it painful to watch someone so clearly struggling with mental health issues continually degrade himself.
Thus, I try never to view headlines associated with the musical titan formerly known as Kanye West. I made an exception for this article because it’s the FP, but I definitely won’t be streaming the new album.
Is there nothing better to write about. Lake requires a bit of education in music. This is “exaltation of the bogus”
For my part I choose not to support assholes by being a consumer of their works. We can grant certain indulgences for people being products of their times, particularly when it would have taken near superhuman insight and thoughtfulness for them to have transcended conventions and habits of mind that completely saturated the cultures that reared them. Antisemitism was ubiquitous in Shakespeare’s time. Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator, yet never thought blacks the equals of whites. Virtually no other white person of his age did either. Yet it’s never been okay to rape girls or stab your wife, and people like Kanye living in more enlightened times who should know better don’t get a pass. He’s obnoxious and toxic. I have no interest in contributing to his success.
I am really shocked at some of the comments here - people making excuses for Kanye's virulent Jew-hatred because of supposed "mental illness". Have any of you seen his medical records? I haven't. And even if he is bi-polar, that is not an excuse. Do you guys also excuse serial killers because of mental illness?! Enough of giving this asshat a pass. Besides that, his music sucks.
Not sure if anyone is making excuses here. Not sure what you want people to do or say. Should they refuse to listen to his "music" because of his disgusting statements?
If I were a determined white supremacist and wanted to heap contempt upon and encourage self-loathing in the black community, I could do no better than to create the rap music culture of the last 40 years. What is to be done about that? West is just more crazy in a mountain of crazy.
Eli, I always appreciate your voice and here appreciate your magnanimity towards an artist with loathsome views. And as a Kanye fan since 2004 as well, I am glad to read it. As you note, there are many artists whose views of humanity or politics are antithetical to my own and I do feel a little guilt whenever confronted with them. But listen (or view), I do. My views of people/world/good & evil cannot be influenced by celebrities with whom I have no personal relationship nor respect for opinions outside of their field of expertise, so I accept that sometimes it is the crazy wrong mo-fos who break through the noise.