Success Got 'Em Jealous: Merez and Emz Chat YEEZUS

Unable to decide on a book to finish reading, Merez and Emz can agree that ok, they smashed yr Corolla. 

I: “how do you ask your bitch for other bitches”

Meredith: Last night I was bumping Kate Bush on vinyl and I don't know if one of my roomies knows her

And The Dreaming might get kinda weird when you're not expecting it

Emily: I feel like that about Steely Dan: listening to it with other people can get weird.

I worked in a basement all summer and we would crank Yeezus... it was always pretty awkward when other people walked in.

What did you think when you first heard it?

Meredith: DARK

like industrial rap

Emily:  is that a new genre?

Meredith: I saw a stripped down room, filled with lots of metal

I thought that new genre was dub step. But that’s not this. This isn't abrasive like the dub. 

Emily: What's your favorite track?

Meredith:  Well "Bound 2" sounds the most like it doesn't belong on this album, because of the pop-ier samples. But the more I listen to it, the lazier Kanye gets. 
Emily: “how do you ask your bitch for other bitches”
Meredith: most of his rhymes on that song have "mad repet-ation" which stops being clever and starts to be like "here, you throw this out." 
Meredith: it's like at school when a kid says "i made this for you" and it's a drawing they clearly messed up on but they just don't want to put it in the recycling.

Meredith: I really like "Black Skinhead" but I don’t think I want to… "Blood on the Leaves" too. What’s yours?

Emily: "Guilt Trip" and "Send It Up"… I love the back end of the album—the tracks are so dense and fit perfectly together

but yeah "Black Skinhead" is kind of a perfect pop song

that video is ridiculous; its a video game

Meredith: did you see him on SNL?

Emily: its so heavy handed

"NOT FOR SALE"

The production is perfect. Also the performance is really strong. He's not phoning it in.

Meredith: (lol @ baffleck)

goosebumps.

You know how music videos of our youth would act out exactly the story of the lyrics?

I feel like this does that in an abstract way

It's obvious. But at the same time it's like "wait... is he? was that?"

Emily: How does he get away with saying "I’d rather be a prick than a swallower" on snl?

also at the end of that performance it’s really awkward to hear the crowd cheer

Meredith: The ending of that performance is the definition of a "pregnant pause"

"New Slaves" set me up for the rest of the album.

I saw these performances before I heard the full album, so I thought "damn. Kanye is in a dark place and wants to address racism"

Do you think he grew up during this album?

Emily: I think that he’s angry as hell, and I think that he should be, and I also think that "we" i.e. the dominant culture doesn't want to hear about the things he's angry about, for lots of reasons. Maybe “we” think racism doesn't exist because we have a black president or maybe we think Kanye “shouldn’t complain” because "he's a millionaire."

Meredith: Right— when we think we've come out of racist times and think we're absolved because of our president he comes back talking about all kinds of racism

like inserting race, literally, everywhere. ("put my fist in her like a civil rights sign")

Emily: um yes. “titties out, free at last”

I think he just wants to piss people off with those

Meredith: You can't talk about a Kanye album without talking about Kanye

do you think the album would have been so popular (among, mind you, some very white critics) if he were not at the Kanye level, if he were still an independent artist trying to make it?

Emily: No.

Meredith: pitchfork LOST IT over the album

right away

and then people were like "ehh. wait. actually"

or there was a lot of "I don't know what I think yet [because I’m white and is it okay for me to like it?]"

Emily: True. Pitchfork also gave Dark Fantasy a 10-- and that one song on there, "So Appalled" is so UNBELIEVABLY AWFUL I refuse to link it here. 

A lot of people praised the production which is obviously immaculate but I think it's overshadowed by the themes of the album. This is a great discussion. 

I came away from the album with the impression that Kanye's main preoccupations are race and sex, which aren't unwarranted

but those are both heavy topics and to tackle them exclusively without a break makes the album really dense 

Meredith: He gave us what we were asking for though

Emily: There's no little love song on here. 

Meredith: No. I feel like rap makes people uncomfortable because it references race, pussy and diamonds

so

no holding back

like almost self-referentially he knows that most references he's made on this album are INSANE

and only he can get away with talking about eating Asian pussy

Emily: Do you mean insanely offensive?

Meredith: Yes

Emily: I think it's for shock value but also because people love it

it's like a war movie

Meredith kinda jaw-dropping

his mode of "lots of explosions and stuff"

Emily: Maybe Yeezus is like the Platoon of race and sex

Meredith: oh man

Emily: But I think the casual misogyny is boring

mostly because misogyny is the most played card ever

I think in order to like the album, and I do, I've convinced myself he's just doing it for shock value

Meredith: It's funny comparing Ye's lyrics to those of Eminem

Emily: ugh, whose head I would love to see on a stick

Meredith: with Ye, I kind of laugh it off and am almost impressed...dude's got some good metaphors!

but Eminem spits supreme hate

Is it their tones of voice?

Emily: Possibly... Eminem seems like he's screaming at his dad

Kanye is only that mad when he's talking about race. i.e. in "New Slaves" 

Meredith: yes. that I could feel. Eminem is fast and has a good flow but I still hate him.

did you hear about the #yeezustour ?

my boss told me about it

he wrote this, too

This is where it's obvious that Kanye has an artists brain, even if it might be incredibly childish. There is vision: it's his piece of art and he's got control over it.

Emily: Did you watch the interview with Zane Lowe? 

I think sometimes we take for granted people's current role as artist, rapper, etc

but in reality a lot of really creative people have a really dynamic, varied artistic background. Freddie Mercury was the same way

I think Kanye is just an aesthete, and just decided he can do whatever he believes he’s capable of (or so he told Zane Lowe) and decided to be a rapper. 

II: Chasing the Hashtag

Meredith: so how do we explain his media presence when he's not rapping

i.e. the Jimmy Kimmel incident

Deep down, is he insecure and is being attacked? Does he take himself too seriously?

was he looking for a reason to shit on Jimmy?

Emily: I think the Kimmel episode especially was ridiculous because Kanye’s whole interview with Zane was him talking about how he's not taken seriously, etc, and then Kimmel has two children act out their dialogue. 

It seemed to be in poor taste. But obviously Kanye is sort of an easy target, and Kimmel possibly knew he'd be pissed and? drum up publicity for the show?

Meredith: meme vs. meme

Emily: I think that's a successful element of Kanye's art: being savvy about the way the internet works.

He knows that if he dresses as Jesus or calls himself a god people will blog about it/ hashtag him, increase his cultural cache etc ect etc

Meredith: absolutely. he's skilled at pushing norms or expectations

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was dark as well, but that was death dark. This is institutionalized/historical violence and hatred dark.

Emily: Yeah, twisted fantasy seemed to be the darkness of the self and this is the darkness of the society/ darkness of outside the self

Also, I like that Hairpin conversation linked above but I disagree with the critique of the album not "loving anything back"

Art doesn't have to "show love" to be legitimate or "good"

Meredith: for sure, otherwise it would be a false expression

Yeezus has such a different feel from his past works in that essence too. The amount of collaborations on MBDTF was nuts! And you felt he loved and respected them

because who can't love Justin Vernon?

Emily: True. Ye wanted center stage here. 

Meredith: This is so stripped down and insular. 

The case itself: no album art. Which, at first I thought it would be more reminiscent of a mixtape. 

Poorer production value up front, but this little bit of duct tape on the jewel case was kind of like the curtain in Oz, or maybe actually the opposite. 

He's not hiding anything or holding back, and we still/already think he's a god. 

But other people's art, outside of what is necessary for production and some collabs are distractions

though the tour seems like the exact opposite!

it's some theatric shit

with many BIG collaborations

that's Seattle!

lol@ tech nerds editing their live concert vids

III

Emily: This might be pulling a yarn on a very large sweater, but Yeezus' discussion of race: ? 

In the video of the Seattle show, it was sort of surreal to hear a crowd sing along to "My mama was born in an era when..." and in that sense, one could argue that he's altered/(advanced??, eh) the form of popular music. However. I still think that an act like Das Racist does a more thorough and clever job of rapping about racism. Kanye is shouting about it, and Heems and Kool AD are explaining, or illustrating it.

I'm not pretending that I'm qualified to discuss hip hop in depth at all, but I wondered why everyone was making so much noise about Kanye's addressing of racism like it had never been done before. 

It's a good song but even "New Slaves" sounds less like a case for the existence "new slavery" than stereotyping. I don't know if people thinking "black people like diamond watches and gold chains" is equivalent to actual slavery. And I'm not trying to be one of those abhorrent white people who claims racism is over and slavery didn't exist. I'm just curious about his terminology. 

Meredith: With the first verse of New Slaves, the young punk in me is all stretching the diamond watches and gold chains bit to all [young black people? black rappers?] being slaves to an image when he's talking about contracts/labels where there is a thin line between modern racism (wha?) and stereotyping. But he's not the first to rap about that! So what's the big deal? but also, in that first verse when he says "used to only be niggas," I thiiiiink but am not sure that that way he says "niggas" is like exactly how DMX said it. and look at DMX's crew vs. Ye's crew. And I am definitely qualified to talk about the Ruff Ryders. lol so hard at this: 

 

And go ahead and lol at this too: 

So what makes an angry Yeezus different from an angry X? Do a vast majority of his listeners "get it"? (like, is the Seattle crowd just singing along or are they aware of the anger or did they really want to go see Macklemore but it was sold out?)

Emily: "What They Really Want" is a better video than Bound 2. (I love how DMX admits to his frustration with "what women want" by shouting "somebody let me know." Also he is basically the Shakespeare of rhyming women's names. Can we also note how in the beginning he refers to women as "women"? Also, I'm glad no one has heard from Sisqo since MTV Spring Break 2001.)

"Party Up (Up In Here)" was the party jam of a thousand high school dances in 1999. It's nearly perfect. The video looks like it cost some actual money, which is what we expected at the time (and still do, Kanye). He was recently caught on film running through a hotel in Detroit naked, which makes me like him even more. Apparently it was a dare. He was right; he's a player for life. 

And I definitely don't think the vast majority of Kanye's listeners "get it" in the sense that they conducted even a brief reflection on race/racism before attending or during Kanye's performance; his show is pure spectacle and everyone’s along for the ride. Most of the audience probably also went to the Macklemore show, in the modern vein of "everyone likes everything now and no one likes anything anymore." 

Re: Bound 2 video: (which, ugh, not linking here)

Is Kanye broke and was forced into a budget of $40 for this video? 

What is a "kim kardashian"? 

Can you think of another instance in which the video has completely ruined the song for you? 

Meredith: SO RUINED BEYOND RUINED AND I FEEL NAUSEOUS AND WHAT EVEN ARE HER BOOBS? ugh. what. not funny, Kanye. Not funny at all.

Emily: her boobs look like she wouldn't be able to dive, really, or ever be too far under water? 

Is he being savvy or is he that deluded?

Meredith: That shit is going to keep us talking about kanye foreverandever

Emily: iiiiiiiiii knooooooooowwwwwwwwwww

and that's what he wants! And maybe that’s his art

Meredith: kind of like Miley

Emily: ugh fuck I don't want to be alive anymore

Meredith: I feel like we've reached the apex and what the fuck is going to happen next

Emily: I think people thought that happened with punk... this is the detritus we're wading through.

I think punk did end everything, in a good way. Now we're shoveling shit.

Not to be too cynical, but none of it matters. It exists just to serve itself.

Meredith: So, real talk,

do you "like" Yeezus

Emily: I definitely do. I forced untold multitudes of people to listen to it with me like once a day this summer. I think its innovative, and it surprised me.

Meredith: As Kanye’s audience at the show is watching him, as they're saying words, is there contemplation or is there just "damn, Ye, that mask is crazy."

Emily: Maybe the audience’s ability to sing along without contemplating the meaning behind “my mama was raised in an era when…” speaks more to the depth and totality of white privilege than anything else?

What are your end-of-the-day, confessional, head-on-pillow thoughts on Yeezus?

Meredith: I think he's positioned his public into loving the shit out of whatever he does. And he's done that through pushing boundaries and being incredibly innovative and constantly changing his sound on his albums.

If this were his first album to drop, it'd be weird. But we're wrapped around his diamond-ringed finger. 

And, fortunately, he's smart and snarky and weirdly, I’m hypocritical about his misogyny.

Like...I like it. Or I accept it and it actually makes me laugh and say "oh snap.”