You Know White People
If you’ve been gleefully watching our Vines we make together, you know that my girlfriend is white. One thing that has lingered in the back of my mind over the last six months of our relationship is the lack of racial tension we’ve encountered, even when exploring “country” sections of North Carolina. If the “Black Skinhead” is any indication, Kanye West’s own interracial relationship with Kim Kardashian hasn’t been met with the same ambivalence.
(To make a quick aside: celebrities’ complaints about media coverage are FUCKING ACCEPTABLE. I cannot fathom people taking issue with celebrities expressing anger with how their lives are being contorted and projected out to the world, especially if the speaking party is not a white straight male (and thus forced to represent every person that looks like them). If we can’t call bullshit on this then what are we doing?)
Kanye doesn’t have the option of living the low-profile life I do. He lives on the world’s stage, where all of his actions are endlessly scrutinized. I cannot inhabit Kanye’s mind, but “Black Skinhead” and the consistent referencing of the Hamptons throughout “New Slaves” makes it clear that Kanye doesn’t feel welcomed by the world being in this relationship. I don’t believe the media exhibits a bias against mixed-race couples, but their twisted treatment of the Kardashians and the Kim and Kanye relationship might explain why he hasn’t stopped speaking out against the press. Just look at recent coverage of Kim’s pregnancy: tabloid covers were calling a pregnant woman fat, and people wonder why Kanye’s up in arms about the treatment of his partner and their relationship.
Middle America packed in
Came to see me in my black skin
My homey was the number one draft pick
They still burned his jersey in Akron
If I don’t get ran down by the Catholics
Here come conservatives, baptists
Sayin’ he overreactin’
Though this reference to LeBron James and his move to Miami caught me off-guard at first, a few listens made it connect in my mind. Right now Kanye has been employing a lot of Civil Rights-era imagery right now—the barking dogs in his SNL performance of “Black Skinhead”, the opening line of “New Slaves”—which makes it almost easy to connect a group of angry white people burning a symbol of a black man (LeBron’s jersey) and screaming drive-by slurs at his home and family to the atrocities of decades past. Kanye has reached a point in his career where every single day seems to resemble LeBron’s “The Decision”. Every action comes with a TV crew and people are ready to shout and scream at each moment. So now Kanye ignores questions about his fashion or changing his musical styles, instead he forces the machine forward without looking back.
In this way, the narrative thread linking Kanye and King Kong makes too much sense. What could be more Kanye than the personal narrative of the big black figure with the pretty white woman, attempting and ultimately failing to escape? Recall the Vogue cover controversy of the mid-’00s, where LeBron was positioned with Gisele Bündchen in a pose similar to previous King Kong films; Kanye doubles down on the comparisons in an attempt to own them. LeBron James like many other major black figures has carefully avoided racial/political topics lest he be labeled “controversial,” a designation that is commercially dangerous and difficult to escape. (Michael Jordan, of course, was the pioneer in this field.) But Kanye isn’t afraid to explore areas that other major black figures are afraid to tread, lest they be type casted as “controversial”, which is box they cannot escape.
This is the main reason I’ve felt so connected to Kanye lately. It’s rare to read criticism of Kanye that doesn’t resort to name-calling or dismissals of his arrogance or as he attempts to speak on issues of race and class. He spends too much money; he’s having a baby with America’s reigning figurehead for empty celebrity or he’s just a jerk. People employ various reasons to diminish Kanye’s contributions to the conversation. And I fear reaching a point in my life where I would face the same criticism, where every action of my life is used as ammunition to invalidate my opinions. This scares the shit out me. The idea that a Black man is forever shackled with the label of “Controversy” and “Rantings” anytime he speaks about social/political issues. That is soul crushing.
Sure, the paparazzi are leeches — but come on, buddy, you’re with Kim Kardashian, whose family practically sends out holiday cards to the jackals and hacks that “hound” them every moment. She’s in love with the paparazzi. So stop bitching.
And who embraces the nouveau riche lifestyle more than West and his insanely superficial girlfriend? West reportedly purchased a $91,000 Hermes T-shirt, no joke. (Well.)
Just a couple of months ago, Kardashian posted an Instagram pic of her wrist adorned with multiple gold bracelets worth more than $65,000 — a little gift from the boyfriend. Of course, that’s nothing compared to the $750,000 Lamborghini Kim bought for Kanye, or even the $200,000 Bentley Kanye bought for Kim’s mom.
Not to mention the $11 million house in Bel-Air recently purchased by Kim and Kanye. And the multi-million-dollar properties they’re reportedly scouting in Miami, Paris and London.
Hey, it’s their money and they can do what they want with it.
But nobody embraces capitalism, consumerism and crass commercialism more than Kim and Kanye.
Makes it sound just a little hollow when Angry Kanye stands on that “SNL” stage and rails, “F—- you and your corporation.”
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Richard Roeper, from “Kanye West isn’t living the ideas he’s rapping on ‘New Slaves’” in the Chicago Sun Times.
Acid Rap
Rap has never needed nor will it ever need saving, but Chance the Rapper got the type of hype that casted Acid Rap in the light that says the genre needed some kind of savior. Was Chance going to be the next Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West or let’s just jump to the point is Acid Rap the new Illmatic?
Chance used a school suspension last year to inspired his first mixtape, 10 Days, which was well received and got him a tour with Childish Gambino. After the increased exposure from that tour, he began leaking out tracks at the beginning of the year from his next latest project, Acid Rap. The mixtape received immediate accolades from Complex, Spin and even cross-country praise from the L.A. Times, validating the initial hype.
On a first listen of Acid Rap, it would be hard to miss Chance’s nasally high-pitched voice and technical rapping ability. Those two elements create an interesting contrast as his voice contorts and morphs so much that as his flow becomes closer to singing the style works surprisingly well (“Smoke Again”). The vocal tweaking obviously takes inspiration from Kendrick Lamar, but these moments for Chance feel less forced than Kendrick’s vocal twisting. Nor do the hyper lyrical moments reminiscent of Earl Sweatshirt—or probably better yet Eminem—keep those rappers’ topical nastiness, Chance’s lyrics gymnastics, thankfully, aren’t interested grossing out the listener. All these elements of the rap language are employed by Chance for empathy, so when he raps “Do you love being Kobe when you make the lay-up/till you realize everybody in the world fuckin hates the Lakers”; Chance humorously works though why this simple boast might be better served as a self-critique.
In addition to his sharp technical skills, Chance isn’t afraid to let the personal details of his young life form and inform his songs. He raps about seeing his friend stabbed and the lingering demons from that altercation (“Acid Rap”) and constantly references smoking cigarettes and other drugs to talk about his paternal relationships (“Cocoa Butter Kisses” and “Smoke Again”). Despite being indebted to Kendrick, Chance pushes Kendrick’s highly lyrical and contemplative style beyond sheer rapping ability, as Chance becomes more humanized with each verse.
Acid Rap shows that Chance understands the necessity of the personal appeal. He understands a rapper, who lacks that passion quickly becomes a church pastor attempting to convert a congregation without putting their own soul in a sermon. He even steps up the pulpit on the interlude “That’s Love”, where church organs, blues guitar and gospel choir join him in asking the congregation (the listeners) to scream out in love. Comparisons between Chance and Kanye West due to labels like “Chicago” and “middle class” could force parallels between “That’s Love” and West’s “Jesus Walks”. Though both songs use a religious framework, the broader political, racial and class issues that appear in “Walks” and have defined West’s career aren’t the overriding concern for Chance. The tangibility of Chicago’s violence, matters of the heart and nostalgia for days that involved Rugrats preoccupy Chance’s world and his words.
Chief Keef had all of 2012 being the face of Chicago rap, and in 2013 the spotlight is being shifted to Chance. Chief Keef’s “I Don’t Like” remains the mantra of Chicago for those outside the city, but last year there was a healthy rise of female rappers like Katie Got Bandz and Sasha Go Hard; even the comparatively old Kanye West’s Cruel Summer was focused on Chicago.
This kind of “savior of the city” narrative being put on Chance made me a bit weary of Acid Rap before I gave it a listen. Would Chance condescend and moralize once he was given more open ears? The answer was no. Chance instead on Acid Rap shouted out to Keef, included veteran Chicagoan Twista and never let the pressure of the world weigh down his music.
Acid Rap has and will probably continue to receive great praise this year, but I originally wrote this piece to offer a dissenting voice to this praise. Assuming that maybe Chance sounded too naïve or took on far too many issues on what is only his second major mixtape. But every listen made it harder to keep up that desire to critique.
A lot of niggas want to go with a bang
But I ain’t trying to out at all
No I ain’t trying to go out at all
I got a lot of ideas gotta throw out the door
(“Chain Smoker”)
Humbled. No rap lines from this year have made me want to say I wrote them. To lie and say I thought of them. Or simply motivate myself to just scribble them down in a journal. Chance has and will become various things to many people, but right now he is the guy in the grade below me I’m looking up to.
Pitchfork: Wiz Khalifa & Curren$y: Live in Concert
I reviewed the latest Wiz Khalifa & Curren$y project Live in Concert.
I really really like the last paragraph. So read this and click a liquor ad or something. And go listen to the Savages album. Its good!!!
The truth is that without this album, rap is in an entirely different place right now. And while Kanye West’s growth and experimentation has resulted in some thrilling music, this is bedrock for a generation of MCs. Deeply middle class, musically ambitious but never alienating, emotionally naked: This was not the stuff of pre-2002 hip-hop. The paradigm shift is only now really taking shape as young rappers like Drake, Kid Cudi, Wale, and Asher Roth bend and pull on West’s thorny contradictions. As singles, “Slow Jamz” and “Jesus Walks” made for the perfect dichotomy; light and dark, secular and devout, stupid and smart. But what still moves me are the beautifully told personal notes: retail details while slinging sweaters at the Gap, peeing in the bed as a snot-nosed kid, landing in the same hospital as Biggie after a devastating accident. On Dropout, Kanye wasn’t the best rapper or the best producer or even the best album-maker. But he was the most original.
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Sean Fennessey, from Pitchfork’s Top 200 albums of the 2000s list on Kanye West’s The College Dropout.
We don’t say this enough.
At my school (Elon University), we had our Spring show last Friday. And here are some pictures I took at the show. I mean these aren’t the best photos, but it gives you the feeling of being at a college EDM/Rap show, minus the shoving, smell of alcohol and LARGE FONT t-shirts! With small additional commentary on the photos by me (David Turner)!!!
Red Bull Music Academy: DJ Spinz: The New Sound of Atlanta
This is a feature I did on Augusta’s own DJ Spinz and Childish Major. I know Mike Will and DJ Mustard have taken over the collective minds of rap critics, but DJ Spinz should really be in that conversation. He produces beats, hosts mixtapes, has created a production super group and is even on tour with Flosstradamus right now. That is far too much stuff to overlook considering many hot for a minute producers who limit themselves to beat making are forgotten once their style is overdone.
I also wanted to say that I actually interviewed DJ Spinz and Childish Major, which is the first time I’ve done that for a feature. Both guys were great and super cooperative!
And, I know not everyone listens to ATL rap stations, but if you have not heard the DJ Spinz’s produced “Nun Else 2 Do” by the Rich Kidz. Please do.
Trap: a noun (a place where drugs are sold), a verb (to sell drugs), and sometimes, a sub-genre; T.I. staked his claim in 2003, with Trap Muzik, his second album, and so did Young Jeezy with his 2005 mixtape, Trap or Die. Unsmiling dudes rapping in the first person about drug trade—in cities with less fertile musical scenes, they just call that ‘hip-hop’.
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Kelefa Sanneh, from his book with Michael Schmelling Atlanta.
“They Just Call That ‘Hip-Hop’”
