Advice

Kanye has tweeted an important life rule that I pass on as a public service:

Kanye and Napoleon Dynamite

Quiz for those of you who've been checking out Kanye's MBDTF: Quote the Napoleon Dynamite reference.

On Kanye

Chris Jackson writing at The Atlantic talks about Kanye, what Kanye is saying, and how to interpret rap:

I was the editor of Decoded, and one of Jay-Z's main ambitions for the book from the beginning is that it give both fans and haters a primer on how to listen to rap, and why it's always more complicated than you think it is. Rap can be free wordplay or linear narrative. Sometimes a rapper uses words as rhythmic devices, as percussion, with little concern about literal meaning. Rap can be polemic or stand-up comedy. It's autobiography, fantasy, confession, satire, lecture, dream. The voice of the rapper can be first-, second-, or third-person, comic or hyperbolic or earnest. Even then it's complicated: Jay-Z's voice, even in earnest first person, is not necessarily Shawn Carter's voice, but then again sometimes it is.

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...but at the least I think it's hard to analyze Kanye's lyrics outside of the understanding that he's fundamentally a comic, a sometimes viciously comic, rapper ... and an artist . . ., and operating out of a tradition of which he's conscious (as indicated by the inclusion of Gil Scott-Heron and Chris Rock).

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I think the most difficult, and most intriguing, aspect of Kanye as a rapper is that you never know whether he's celebrating or satirizing an idea, or doing both at the same time.

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All of which is to say . . . that Kanye West may or may not be a racist and a misogynist, but before making that claim he deserves a fairer hearing than a surface reading of his lyrics. We all know that rap is narrative, with unreliable narrators, and that the point-of-view in any narrative is not necessarily the point of view of the writer, but then we occasionally choose to forget this; in those moments we make judgments on rap songs without making the effort to first understand them on the terms of the form.

H/t Ezra.

Samples used in My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Over the weekend, K and I saw Four Lions and heard, over the closing credits, a melody that is included in Blame Game on Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. That sent me to Kanye's liner notes that I had not read. That, plus LJ and Scooter's interest in the 21st Century Schizoid Man sample, motivated me to investigate the samples further.

With links to a cool site that streams audio of songs with their samples, side by side, here are Kanye's samples, in track order:

Dark Fantasy: Contains samples of “In High Places” by Mike Oldfield

Gorgeous: Contains portions of the composition “You Showed Me,” written by Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn.

Power:

• Contains elements of “It’s Your Thing,” recorded by the Cold Grits.
• Contains elements of “Afromerica” (Francois Bernheim/Jean-Pierre Lang/Boris Bergman)
• Contains material sampled from “21st Century Schizoid Man” performed by King Crimson Taken from the album: In The Court Of The Crimson King.

All of the Lights: None

Monster: None

So Appalled: Contains samples of the Manfred Mann’s Earth Band recording “You Are – I Am.”

Devil in a New Dress: Contains samples of the recording “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” as performed by Smokey Robinson.

Runaway:

• Contains a sample of “Expo 83” performed by Backyard Heavies.
• Contains excerpts from Rick James ‘Live at Long Beach, CA’ 1981.

Hell of a Life:

• Contains samples of the Mojo Men recording “She’s My Baby.”
• Contains samples of the Tony Joe White recording “Stud-Spider.”
• Contains portions of “Iron Man,” written by T. Butler, A. Iommi, J. Osbourne and W.T. Ward (Black Sabbath).

Blame Game: Contains elements of “Avril 14” by Richard James, Aphex Twin.

Lost in the World:

• Contains portions of “Soul Makossa,” written by M. DiBango.
• Contains a sample of the recording “Think (About It)” as performed by Lyn Collins. Written by James Brown.
• Contains samples of “The Woods” performed by Bon Iver
• Contains samples of “Comment No. 1” performed by Gil Scott-Heron.

Who Will Survive in America: Contains samples of “Comment No. 1” performed by Gil Scott-Heron

Of note, the artistic use of autotune at the beginning of Lost in the World, that I'd given Kanye credit for, is almost entirely the doing of Bon Iver.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye's album really really is great. It's COMPOSED. It's orchestrated. It's rap but it's not merely rapping over an unrelenting, unchanging synthesized beat under it. It's a rap album with a lovely cello solo for an interlude, for Pete's sake. Melodic hooks galore. Artistic use of autotune; I kid you not. (I cite the beginning of Lost in the World.) Also, Nicki Minaj growls while rapping in Monster and it's weirdly delightful. It deserves all the Grammies it's going to collect.

Kanye West's band of vampiric models

A not-quite-finished version of Kanye West's video for his song Monster (off his Grammy-nominated album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) has leaked and has been posted on youtube. (H/t to Ezra who tweeted it.) Warning that it contains images of hanging women, beheaded women, and otherwise creepy, gruesome portrayals of women.



I see it as a commentary about golddiggers and the vampire-like fans who have no limits on the amount of fanservice they require. This video stands in stark contrast to the ballerina video, in which women are portrayed beautifully, their hard-earned skills on display and honored. (In the ballerina video, I was really impressed with the very very long shots of the ballerinas, without cuts to Kanye.) But I expect that all discussion about the Monster video (and there will be lots) will fail to recognize this context and fail to recognize that Kanye has drawn a distinction between women making their own way and women trying to live off someone else.

Kanye West and his band of ballerinas

Ballerinas are everywhere right now. Yay. There are ballerinas on the big screen in Black Swan with Natalie Portman, and there are ballerinas in Kanye West's video and movie for his song Runaway. Whether you like Kanye or this song, you can enjoy the beauty and grace of Kanye's band of ballerinas in this extended version (about 8 min) of his music video for Runaway. (You really should watch it at this link so you can make it full screen. Also, I recommend watching in 1080 HD.)



You can see Kanye's 34 minute movie, from which the above 8 minutes is excerpted, on Vevo here.

Update moments later: Also, there's a history of ballet in the New York Times list of Notable Books for 2010. It's APOLLO’S ANGELS: A History of Ballet, by Jennifer Homans. "The question of classical ballet’s very survival lies at the heart of this eloquent, truly definitive history, which traces dance across four centuries of wars and revolutions, both artistic and political."

Update 12/2/10: Here's a screen cap of the names of the ballerinas in Kanye's video and movie:

Huh.

I would not have guessed that Kanye was a fan of classic lit, but here you have it:

Kanye is everywhere

In case you haven't heard, there's a Kanye-ruins-people's-moments meme that's on fire about the interwebs. See more here and at knowyourmeme.com.

Update to post an example of the fun people are having with this. This is one of the silliest:



One more of the animal variety: