Could Ye beat Trump?
An uphill battle…
- Kanye isn’t a fluent public speaker. He often meanders, getting lost in his own words while forgetting to pay attention to the audience. Trump speaks in short sentences and works a crowd as well as Clinton could.
- Kanye has a pretty good sense of how to manipulate and troll music and entertainment media, and has an incredible distribution platform of the Kardashians’ instagram accounts (though his wife’s negatives are the worst in America). But, unlike Donald he doesn’t know mainstream media.
- Kanye won’t compromise his beliefs. Trump was more than happy to dial up his racism, flip on abortion, and “love the bible.” For the past five years Kanye’s most consistent theme has been his struggle to express himself as clearly and purely as possible. There’s no way he will tone down anything to win over a new demo.
- When a black guy tries Trump’s hustle it’s not truth telling it’s ranting.
But, unlike most of America, I think Kanye would make a way better president than Trump. First off, for all Kanye’s misogyny and casual racism he doesn’t hold a candle to Donald. But most importantly for a political neophyte, Ye has a genuine sense of humility. Yes, Mr. West is convinced he is a creative genius but he loves collaboration. He knows he isn’t perfect — he dreams big and acknowledges mistakes. Unlike Trump he has shown a tremendous ability to reflect and absorb new influences. The great respect he holds for other artists and his recognition of his fallibility makes me think he would listen to experts and not start WWIII.
At the end of the day Kanye is a humanitarian, not an autocrat. He knows no one man should have all that power. The only walls he’ll be building will be made of roses. He wants America to create, to dream, to love.
Yeezy Season 3
For the first day of rehearsals West Productions hired me as an extra. They drove us to Long Island and had a thousand people — from all races — stand around. The people working from the casting site were almost embarrassed to ask us to “act like refugees.”
I was not called back for the next day or the final performance. Neither was any other non-black extra.
I spent the $80 they paid me on a ticket to MSG. Watching the show was really odd. I like going to stadium pop and hip hop shows for the collective experience of rocking with 20k people, but this had huge yeezy fans sort of nodding along to songs they’ve never heard before. People were talking to each other throughout (“did he just call out Taylor?” “Was that Frank Ocean?” “Huh are bleaching assholes gospel?”). Usually in concerts you know exactly what’s going to happen, all the words to all the songs…here every three minutes you had a new surprise, a new sound from an artist the arena loved. I hope he does it again.
The Life of Pablo: Track by Track
Ultra Light Beams — It makes sense why ye couldn’t decide to use this track to close or open the album. This one will live on. The crowd was stunned after the first female vocalist. Sometimes I think it would be cool to be Christian just to get into gospel at a different level than I ever could not believing in the stuff. Jewish liturgical singing in English doesn’t feel right. Though I can sometimes vibe with Hebrew prayers, knowing the English translations can detract from their power as they may mean things I don’t necessarily sign off to. The most impactful Jewish prayers to me are ones that in my mind remain melodies without specific meaning. I think it would be very powerful to have prayer songs in my native language I could latch on to.
What a great way to give a nod and pass the torch to Chance by giving him the first verse on his record. He’d be a dope VP for the 2020 campaign — I don’t think the Constitution has an age limit for that job. 5/5
Father Stretch my Hands — The crowd cheered when they heard the Metro drop. The model bleached her asshole? Ye how is that one of your first lyrics after ultra light beams. A few ye tracks I just have to skip because a few of his lines are so noxious (see: “all I need is sweet and sour sauce”) — this may be another one of them.
The crowd and Yeezy’s crew got the most hype not for any of his new shit, but for Panda. Desiigner is no Fetty or even a Shmurda but it’s really fun to say ‘panda’. Him saying ‘panda’ in the original record a second time, almost like he’s asking a question, is a beautiful thing. In fact, he doesn’t say it enough in his song. I’m also a little confused why he’s rapping about an X6, as Phil says that isn’t a really cool car, but it does look dope painted panda style.
I do think the ‘how do i find you’ thing at the end sounds really beautiful. I wish he’d release a non-misogynist edit of this album. 2.5/5
Famous — The verse is gross. The beat is fire. Riri delivers. The ‘Bam Bam’ sample is so beautiful it almost makes up for calling every woman he ever slept with a fame whore. 4/5.
Feedback — fun beat but sort of forgettable. Could be a fun song to set as an alarm in the morning. 2.5/5.
Low Lights — I don’t understand. N/A.
Highlights — the first 30 seconds are gorgeous — I thought we were in for a worthy successor to ‘Good Life’. Gopro line is absurd, especially if you’re really going to rhyme GoPro with ‘go pro.’ The production is very fun, and the flow around 2:10 is as good as Yeezy sounds. Plus one point for the Equinox call out. 3.5/5.
Freestyle 4 — The strings and industrial sounds find a really interesting synthesis with MBDTF and Yeezus. He could’ve made an album out of this sound. I get the sense he’s had this song on his hard drive for a while now. I like “Steve Jobs mixed with Steve Austin” — not quite Beyoncé’s ‘Black Bill Gates.’ I like “I’m the ghetto Oprah” too. 3.5/5. Tyler’s cover is a 4.5/5. One day I’ll get to be a hypeman in a rap video…right?
Freestyle 4 — Desiigner gives great growl. 3/5.
I Love Kanye — I’m into it. Ye’s early albums had fantastic skits, but over the past decade they’ve died off. 4/5.
Waves — I’ll never be able to enjoy a song with Chris Brown featured. 3.5/5 if anyone else was on the hook. It reminds me of a mike posner track I had on repeat during one exam season freshman year. I like how he put in these scary Yeezus-sounding screams though.
FML — Great. More of this vibe could’ve gotten this album closer to a classic. 4.5/5.
Real Friends — the only 5/5 in my book.
Wolves — the ‘fixed’ version that cuts the stupid blowjob riff is also a 5/5. But knowing that Kanye at one point thought the oral sex theme made it better brought this down half a point. “We surrounded by fucking wolves” is a good line though. Frank Ocean please come back only you have the power to defeat Donald.
Fade — very cool instrumental. This album is at its best when ye isn’t rapping. 4.5/5.
30 Hours — it had classic potential. This time the horrific first few lines don’t even flow. God this beat though. Deadspin had it right. 3/5.
Ye was right to leave off the last three in his first cut.
No More Parties in LA — 3.5. It tries to be #bars but just isn’t quite there.
Facts — deadspin had it right. 1.5/5. Man this album makes me miss grantland — their coverage would’ve been perfect.
Fade — 3.5.
How does this album effect my overall Kanye fandom? Ye, I’m worried you’re losing it. I was so down with almost everything hesaid in interviews in 2013–5. That Amber Rose shit was embarrassing. And, seriously, BILL COSBY INNOCENT !!!!!!!!!!. ??? He’s 38.
If I had a billion dollars, before the past two months I’d break Ye off a piece to be his Medici for the DONDA video game. Now, not so much.