Kanye West: Is he rap's greatest rock star or just lost in space?
BY JON BREAM • STAR TRIBUNE (MINNEAPOLIS) • JUNE 10, 2008
If Kanye West reads this headline, he’ll undoubtedly object. It’s not BIG enough for him. Super-size is not his style. It must be SUPA DUPA size — even if it won’t fit on the page.
Size matters to Kanye (nobody calls him West). He has an outsized ego in a field filled with chest-beating, self-promoting braggarts. But this hip-hop supernova has earned the ego.
Kanye is the first bona fide rock star that hip-hop has produced since Eminem shared the Grammys stage with Elton John. Like Bob Dylan, Bono, Prince and rock’s other greatest stars, he is a visionary, a rebel with a cause, an innovator who colors outside the lines, a provocateur with a sense of the artful and the outrageous, an uber-talent who knows it.
Like them, he can wear sunglasses anytime, anywhere, and seem way cool. And borrowing a page from their icon manual, he does interviews only when he wants to. In fact, he has not given one since his mother/manager/closest friend, Donda West, died unexpectedly in November.
So, in the collage-making spirit that drives Kanye’s music, we’ve put together an interview, drawing from his obsessively updated blog (www.KanyeUniverseCity.com/blog), previous interviews and his lyrics.
Question: How has the death of your mother affected you?
Answer: If there’s anything my mom taught me, it is to enjoy life. I just recorded my first verse in the last six months two days ago at Bape’s Studio in Japan. It felt good and I was inspired. I absolutely lost my mind (in a good way) on the new “Glow in the Dark Tour.”
Q: Why are you such a detail-obsessed workaholic?
A: If I was more complacent and I let things slide, my life would be easier, but you all wouldn’t be as entertained. My misery is your pleasure. (Rolling Stone, February 2006)
Q: What are you trying to do with your music?
A: My music isn’t just music — it’s medicine. I want my songs to touch people, to give them what they need. Every time I make an album, I’m trying to make a cure for cancer, musically. That stresses me out. (BMI MusicWorld, March 2006)
Q: Where does your sense of political or social commentary come from?
A: I get down for my grandfather who took my mama/ Made her sit in that seat where white folks ain’t want us to eat/ At the tender age of 6 she was arrested for the sittin’/ And with that in my blood I was born to be different. ("Never Let Me Down,” 2004)
Q: As a kid, were you seen as different?
A: Yeah, definitely. I dressed like I was on TV before I was on TV. I tried to be different for the sake of just being better than what was out there, like saying, “Let me show you an alternative that I think is better than what everybody else is doing.” Some people are different and it’s worse. (laughs) Also as a producer I’m very melody-driven. My messages are similar to the messages that you’ll get in R&B music and rock music— a lot of inspiration. I think it’s harder in rap, because we have so many lines drawn. So I have to work way harder than anybody else to make rap songs that have the same impact as rock songs and R&B songs. (Interview magazine, October 2007)
Q: Have you ever looked out at your audience and felt dismayed by the number of white faces — or black faces — in the crowd?
A: Never! You can never shun either audience. ... Every time I do a video, every time I do a song, I have to keep in mind everybody. It’s ‘Mission: Impossible’ for real. I’m the only artist who has a responsibility to hit five, six different types of fans every time. (Entertainment Weekly, February 2006)
1 comment:
Very well stated inteview indeed...My question is though; "What is about the "STRONG MINDED" individual, that the average JOE, cliche jerk, FOLLOWER, "crowd pleaser" and unstated minded human CAN'T STAND as to why SOME people who strive for GREATNESS and to be different has GOT to be unexceptable? This meaning to ALL people who strive for GREATNESS and not just Kanye... I have quote that states; "Only people who don't have ENOUGH "courage" or "confident" to be WHO they are, have a problem with others being themselves in their GLORY"- I wrote that quote because people don't FIRST off like TRUTH and whenever you do SOMETHING that's bascially OUT of the NORM or JUST our there...people get made because you slamming their defeat and causing THEM to have to COME UP to their FULLLLLL level. I totally AGREE with this one question and answer
Q: Why did you stop doing interviews?
Kanye: A: People who write stuff paraphrase. They take what I’m saying — and I speak in colors — and flip it to black and white. Sometimes I might say something that has four or five meanings. If I’m being sarcastic, they’ll take out the setup or the punch line and I sound like a jerk. It’s the edit. Do the fans sit back and wonder why, every time in the press, Kanye is made to look so bad, but when you listen to his music, it’s so good?
...and that's basically the WORLD people want you to LIVE in...a world of fakeness...and never say HOW you REALLY feel, not happening with me sorry Ladies and Gens. I feel like Kanye said on Punk'd "We can walk where ever we want!!!!!" and that FLAT OUT!
Green Peas and throwin Rotten Boiled EGGS that smell like socks and jelly upon the original STINK @ all their heads LOLx
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