Kanye West

[epilogue]

Kendrick Lamar's new album is available for pre-order.

[BigRedLedbetter]

ALL DAY NIGGA

Is this ok to say? I get mixed reviews.

[epilogue]

ALL DAY NIGGA

Is this ok to say? I get mixed reviews.

No. No it isn't okay to say.

[LoathedVermin72]

Kendrick Lamar's new album is available for pre-order.

GTFO of here with that shit

[BigRedLedbetter]

ALL DAY NIGGA

Is this ok to say? I get mixed reviews.

No. No it isn't okay to say.

I didn't think so. My buddy Jerome (yes, African American) gets a kick out of it but he is very easy going. He tells me super racist jokes. He calls me an honorary N-word.

[epilogue]

Kendrick Lamar's new album is available for pre-order.

GTFO of here with that shit

Is this not the right thread?

[Kevin Davis]

Kendrick Lamar's new album is available for pre-order.

I just picked up "Good Kid..." this afternoon. Pretty excited there is a new one to look forward to already.

[LoathedVermin72]

Kendrick Lamar's new album is available for pre-order.

GTFO of here with that shit

Is this not the right thread?

racist

[epilogue]

Kendrick Lamar's new album is available for pre-order.

GTFO of here with that shit

Is this not the right thread?

racist

How rude!

[BigRedLedbetter]

Kendrick Lamar's new album is available for pre-order.

GTFO of here with that shit

Is this not the right thread?

racist

How rude!

[warehouse]

this guy is a much better producer than he is a rapper

[LoathedVermin72]

this guy is a much better producer than he is a rapper

And Stanley Kubrick was a better visualist than director of actors. So what?

[warehouse]

this guy is a much better producer than he is a rapper

And Stanley Kubrick was a better visualist than director of actors. So what?

maybe i should have said:

he's a great producer, but i never enjoyed him as a rapper all that much. he's got this high pitch nasal-y thing going on and none of his flows ever really got to me. there's certain rappers who's delivery makes up for any sub-par lyrics, but for me kanye is like the opposite. im sure he's got interesting lyrics, i just cant get past his delivery. i guess i'm kinda wondering what you guys see in his rapping.

[Kevin Davis]

In the spirit of the man at the center of this conversation, I will respond to your question by quoting myself:

Kanye's first five albums comprise one of my favorite runs of music in recent memory. "College Dropout" was such a great believe-the-hype, rookie-of-the-year moment -- wide-eyed, a little naive (sometimes strangely goofy), but with all the elements of his genius set firmly in place, from his orchestral, "Sgt. Pepper"-like approach to sampling to his penchant for lucid, sentimental narrative; "Late Registration" sealed the deal, a sharper, more refined version of the original product enhanced by a heightened sense of delivery, an almost Dylanesque knack for pitching his voice to a line, an individual word, even a vocalized pause (nobody has a better "huh?" in the business); "Graduation" with its lush ear candy, its streamlined album length and jettisoning of intros, skits, etc. lending a sense of profundity to the superficiality; "808's," in many ways the anti-"Graduation," self-indulgent emotion in lieu of self-indulgent excess, its ickier tendencies rendered secondary by the record's sense of academic exercise, in which a high-stakes artist at the fore of innovation within his own genre challenges himself to profile the damaged human heart using outdated technology and a vocal modification device widely regarded as the zenith of anti-emotion; and "Dark Twisted Fantasy," the magnum opus arriving yet again on the heels of unreasonable hype that it somehow managed to exceed, so great at times it seems difficult to believe it was made by human beings occupying this planet. The "GOOD Friday" tracks that came out around this time were fitting companion pieces, too -- welcome reminders that sometimes even famous musicians on serious payroll still hunker down and make music for fun. In their weird, egomaniacal way, they're Kanye's "Basement Tapes," with "Christmas in Harlem" serving as a welcome throwback to the "Family Business"/"Hey Mama" sentimentality of his first couple records

Also, Kanye has never been a great rapper. He is kind of the musical equivalent of a decent athlete that is a great coach/GM. There's a reason he rarely raps on stuff he doesn't produce. He's Bill Belichick, not Tom Brady.

Whether or not he's a great rapper in the technical sense, I do like him on the mic -- he has a gift for things (e.g. inflection, emphasis, phrasing) that are more important to me than an impeccable flow, same as Dylan and Tom Waits and similarly "bad singers" possess something distinctly charismatic in their deliveries that are more important to me than a classically beautiful singing voice. For me that transcends his tendency to trip over rhythms and occasionally fall back on stupid rhymes, offenses which I feel are not unjustly pointed out but still somewhat overstated.

[LoathedVermin72]

this guy is a much better producer than he is a rapper

And Stanley Kubrick was a better visualist than director of actors. So what?

maybe i should have said:

he's a great producer, but i never enjoyed him as a rapper all that much. he's got this high pitch nasal-y thing going on and none of his flows ever really got to me. there's certain rappers who's delivery makes up for any sub-par lyrics, but for me kanye is like the opposite. im sure he's got interesting lyrics, i just cant get past his delivery. i guess i'm kinda wondering what you guys see in his rapping.

I used to think the same thing. But, honestly, Kanye changed the way I think about hip-hop. People often think of it as this binary thing: beat and rapping. "The production is weak," "the rapping is good," etc. But the weird thing is that we don't think about any other form of music in those terms. Kurt Cobain wasn't a guitar virtuoso, but his playing was appropriate to the music he was making. We think of Nirvana as a unified sound and attitude, and we don't just break it down to Cobain's voice, Cobain's guitar, Dave's drumming, Krist's bass. You know what I mean? Kanye is making music. It doesn't really matter if he's not a technical rapper spitting crazy flows. He doesn't need to be. That's not what he's about. He's an artist, and his vocals are appropriate to the art he's making. I'm not saying I can't still appreciate a talented emcee's flows - that shit can still blow my mind - but hip-hop can be so much more than just that. It's music.

[warehouse]

your line about quoting yourself was awesome.

i guess that makes sense. i'm not a big dylan fan, i think most of his songs would be better if they were sung by richard manuel or levon helm, but i see where you are coming from. they both have a unique vocal style and similar quirks.

[warehouse]

this guy is a much better producer than he is a rapper

And Stanley Kubrick was a better visualist than director of actors. So what?

maybe i should have said:

he's a great producer, but i never enjoyed him as a rapper all that much. he's got this high pitch nasal-y thing going on and none of his flows ever really got to me. there's certain rappers who's delivery makes up for any sub-par lyrics, but for me kanye is like the opposite. im sure he's got interesting lyrics, i just cant get past his delivery. i guess i'm kinda wondering what you guys see in his rapping.

I used to think the same thing. But, honestly, Kanye changed the way I think about hip-hop. People often think of it as this binary thing: beat and rapping. "The production is weak," "the rapping is good," etc. But the weird thing is that we don't think about any other form of music in those terms. Kurt Cobain wasn't a guitar virtuoso, but his playing was appropriate to the music he was making. We think of Nirvana as a unified sound and attitude, and we don't just break it down to Cobain's voice, Cobain's guitar, Dave's drumming, Krist's bass. You know what I mean? Kanye is making music. It doesn't really matter if he's not a technical rapper spitting crazy flows. He doesn't need to be. That's not what he's about. He's an artist, and his vocals are appropriate to the art he's making. I'm not saying I can't still appreciate a talented emcee's flows - that shit can still blow my mind - but hip-hop can be so much more than just that. It's music.

i hear where you are coming from, but i think the reason for that is often hip-hop lyricists are given music to put lyrics on. in a band setting, like nirvana, the guy making the music is also wring the lyrics. he's also doing it w/ 2 other guys. i see what you mean though, i think dr dre married his lyrics with his "beats" in probably the same way you look at kanye doing it.

[LoathedVermin72]

In the spirit of the man at the center of this conversation, I will respond to your question by quoting myself:

Kanye's first five albums comprise one of my favorite runs of music in recent memory. "College Dropout" was such a great believe-the-hype, rookie-of-the-year moment -- wide-eyed, a little naive (sometimes strangely goofy), but with all the elements of his genius set firmly in place, from his orchestral, "Sgt. Pepper"-like approach to sampling to his penchant for lucid, sentimental narrative; "Late Registration" sealed the deal, a sharper, more refined version of the original product enhanced by a heightened sense of delivery, an almost Dylanesque knack for pitching his voice to a line, an individual word, even a vocalized pause (nobody has a better "huh?" in the business); "Graduation" with its lush ear candy, its streamlined album length and jettisoning of intros, skits, etc. lending a sense of profundity to the superficiality; "808's," in many ways the anti-"Graduation," self-indulgent emotion in lieu of self-indulgent excess, its ickier tendencies rendered secondary by the record's sense of academic exercise, in which a high-stakes artist at the fore of innovation within his own genre challenges himself to profile the damaged human heart using outdated technology and a vocal modification device widely regarded as the zenith of anti-emotion; and "Dark Twisted Fantasy," the magnum opus arriving yet again on the heels of unreasonable hype that it somehow managed to exceed, so great at times it seems difficult to believe it was made by human beings occupying this planet. The "GOOD Friday" tracks that came out around this time were fitting companion pieces, too -- welcome reminders that sometimes even famous musicians on serious payroll still hunker down and make music for fun. In their weird, egomaniacal way, they're Kanye's "Basement Tapes," with "Christmas in Harlem" serving as a welcome throwback to the "Family Business"/"Hey Mama" sentimentality of his first couple records

Also, Kanye has never been a great rapper. He is kind of the musical equivalent of a decent athlete that is a great coach/GM. There's a reason he rarely raps on stuff he doesn't produce. He's Bill Belichick, not Tom Brady.

Whether or not he's a great rapper in the technical sense, I do like him on the mic -- he has a gift for things (e.g. inflection, emphasis, phrasing) that are more important to me than an impeccable flow, same as Dylan and Tom Waits and similarly "bad singers" possess something distinctly charismatic in their deliveries that are more important to me than a classically beautiful singing voice. For me that transcends his tendency to trip over rhythms and occasionally fall back on stupid rhymes, offenses which I feel are not unjustly pointed out but still somewhat overstated.

KD you really need to get on the Yeezus train

[Kevin Davis]

I will give it another solid listen soon, LV.

[LoathedVermin72]

I will give it another solid listen soon, LV.

I know I mentioned this before (maybe in another thread), but I think once you realize that the album is a narrative, a lot of it starts falling into place. The "alpha-male misogyny" (which I would still call mostly just brash sexuality) you spoke of is integral to both the mentality of the character at the center of said narrative and the album's themes, and is something Kanye is actually being very critical of.