Kanye West is always colorful and leaves no stone unturned when he does an interview.. I recall the first time I interviewed him, he was just starting to get known and he was talking about how folks confuse his confidence with being cocky and that he intended to do great things… There’s no doubt, Kanye has been doing his thing..
In recent days folks are talking about Kanye’s interview with the BBC‘s Zane Lowe. He covers a range of topics including whats driving his art and what he’s challenged with.. He breaks down the concepts behind the Yeezus album..He also talks about the glass ceilings he’s hit not just in music but in other areas of his life.. He says he shouldn’t be limited in his creativity and that he’s trying to knock down doors and have impact..He talks about the things he’s created and designed what he hasn’t been credited with.. He also talks about classism, racism and self hate. He opens up about who his mother and father are…Very insightful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2T0fMkZoMo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx3X4r-eCYQ
glad you wrote this. mainstream media are portraying him as an egomaniac with a anti-white streak and making him look crazy – so i listened to the whole interview on BBC’s website (just the audio). and he’s making sense. i even downloaded his album,
oh, now i understand why i don’t buy his music – he’s talked about putting his dick in some woman’s mouth three times in less than three minutes. if i could only listen to this without stupid misogynistic bullshit coming at me. he doesn’t want to be a coon but he wants me to stay a bitch. thanks, Kanye. #solidarityisforblackmen
Other white lady says…#solidarityisforblackmen? fuuuuuuuuck off. You can take issue with casual fellatio-as-power references but don’t play oppressed like you’re in a corner you don’t even know about. It stinks like fake cheese. Get over it.
R.I.P Flipside OFTB Death Row Watts Up Peace Treaty 1993 Increase The Peace 2013. Anotha brotha dead and we talkin bout a false messiah. Pathetic.
Kool that’s the way to do it http://www.theentertainershub.com
ok #18
y’all should cop this… http://www.datpiff.com/Six-Reasons-Six-Reasons-Paper-Plates-mixtape.467910.html
Janet Jackson!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKhpDZJd1Qk
Kanye West is an artist. Kanye West is American. Kanye is black. He is the product of his place, of his time. His drive and talent have rocketed him to where he is now. Essentially, he has gone from success to success and his interests led him to fashion. But he doesn’t just want to create. He doesn’t just want to make things. He wants to be important. He looks up to people like steve jobs. He wants to be as important as the most important people in the world. As important as the most important people that ever lived. And he wants to own the means of production in a capitalist world – which means he wants to be a capitalist. Why? Because he sees who has the power.
He was born in the ascendance of massive corporate power and grew up in a world shaped by it. It has suffused him, and like most americans he doesn’t understand how it has affected his wants and needs. Or maybe he does, and he is ok with it, but in listening to him, I don’t see that he totally understands the water he’s swimming in. Most of the time he sounds like a very bright, very excited teenager. He sees a lot and can identify how things work, but to him the water is just his world. He knows the marketing machine well. He knows how people are manipulated by advertising, he knows people aren’t educated enough, but he doesn’t understand how deeply our minds have been colonized. He does not know the history of capitalism and he doesn’t seem to be aware that making cool shit is exactly what people in power would love for him to be thinking. There is nothing wrong with making cool shit, but the context is everything.
The consolidation of power and the corporatization of our culture is so strong and ubiquitous it is difficult to understand how profoundly we are affected by it. It is the water we are swimming in. He knows the corporations are limiting him, but he thinks if he can get an entree to the world of capital, he can become a capitalist. Then he could control things, make awesome, dope shit. Help people. He doesn’t see the exploitation that generates that kind of wealth because the media makes idols of these people, these exploiters and makes people want theirs shiny new products. If he is ok with that level of venality, he is not ok with me no matter what dope shit he creates. The strong people, the good people, the people that will matter in the long run are the people who will organize to non-violently fight corporate power.
Kanye said “New Slave” with no irony. Sure, he is making a point. He is trying to appropriate the word and make it useful, but he equates it with passion. He can work with nike and the fashion industry, idolize steve jobs, and never acknowledge they are all literally built on slavery and marketed by lowering people’s self-esteem and creating wants and desires. He talks about passion but immediately links it to the fetishized products, the longing they can create and the quick high they can give. That is the perversion of passion. It is something deeply sick – not just in Kanye, but in our culture. He brings up the pyramids as a symbol of empowerment and making it, but who built those pyramids? The Pharaohs? No. The kings did not lift stones. Slaves built the pyramids.
Well, I could go on and on. That interview could be deconstructed and analyzed for a long while. I didn’t even get into race because this would end up as a book and I want anyone who happens to see this to understand key aspects of our culture that need to be discussed. If anyone has comments or questions I will try to respond.
PEACE