Kanye West

Allow me to leave film aside and digress to music for a moment…

I want you to imagine the video for Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” in your mind’s eye. The stark black and white imagery, the way the women flick their wrists, the stomps, the fist pumps. Iconic, right?

Now try to flip to the video for “You Belong to Me” by Taylor Swift.

I have ten bucks for the first person who can do it, but I think my money is safe.

Lets get a bit more current…

Sing me a hook or two from “Drunk In Love”. Do the same with “Blow”.How does the chorus of “Pretty Hurts” go? How much would you love to record a line with as much bravado as “Bow down bitches”?

Now hum me even one bar from any song on “Morning Phase”

Hard, ain’t it?

I’m a fan of both Taylor Swift and especially Beck, and I think it’s unfortunate that they both found themselves in the path of Hurricane Kanye. However, I’m going to leave Taylor out of this since her “award” came from MTV and the whims of its fans.

Before we get to Kanye, let’s begin with Beck.

If you’d told me in the summer of 1994 that I’d still be listening to the guy who recorded “Loser” in twenty years, I’d have told you to give your head a shake. It’s not that Beck seemed bad, or even untalented. It was just that he seemed to have “One Hit Wonder” written all over him. Two years later, with the release of his album “Odelay” any ideas of his fame being a fluke were dispelled. In the time since then, beck has made some of the best and most interesting music of his generation. He has been a collaborative spirit, gone quiet, gone loud, and back to quiet. He even happened to injure himself in ways that made him wonder if he would ever hold a guitar .

“Morning Phase”, his first album in six years and his return from injury is beautiful. It’s a glorious Sunday morning record filled with swirling vocals, ascending pianos, and heartwarming chimes. It’s both the sound of a heart breaking and of imagination stretching forth.

In short, it doesn’t deserve anything but positive attention.

However, in word and in action Kanye West pushed it violently into a corner. He has made it seem less worthy; he insinuates that it doesn’t “respect artistry”. He believes that when put on the same shelf as Beyonce’s self-titled album, it is shown as wanting.

The funny thing? He’s not wrong…not entirely.

We can be here all day discussing which of these two albums is “better”, but we would, of course, solve nothing since art is subjective and beyond quantitative measure. However, what I believe keeps getting Kanye’s goad up – and where he continues to run off his mouth in defense of others – is the regard the industry seems to have for pop music in general, and black musicians in particular.

Let’s use the Grammys as a barometer.

Over the last twenty years, Album of The Year has been won by a black artist four times. Want to make that number seem worse? Of those four, only two were young acts (Lauryn Hill and Outkast). Then there’s record of the year, which is awarded for a single song to its performer. In the last twenty years, only two times has a black artist won the award. Of those two, only one was a young act (Seal).

Twenty years. Forty trophies. Six winners of colour.

That’s a problem, and you have to believe that eventually that problem will weigh on artists like Kanye. Or Beyonce. Or M.I.A. Or Outkast. Or Boyz II Men. Or Tracy Chapman. Or TLC. Or Alicia Keys. Or The Black Eyed Peas. Or Jay Z. Or Frank Ocean. Or Bruno Mars.

To paint pop music as “lesser” in the face of more “authentic” music like Beck’s is to ignore potential legacy. It ignores music that we now consider classic – like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Madonna – was, in its day, considered pop.

It might seem easy to write a catchy pop record – just get a good writer (or twenty-two in Beyonce’s case), get them to do the heavy lifting, add in vocals and decide how best to shake your moneymaker to it. The truth though is that writing a great hook, or a great lyric isn’t as easy as it seems. It too is a game of inches, and depends on good structure, a keen ear, and a willingness to fail. Once the song is written, it can likewise live or die based on who sells it and how well they sell it.

It’s the difference between what Christina Aguilera brings to a song, and what a headliner on a cruise ship brings to a song.

In short, pop music – and rap, and hip-hop, and R&B – has just as much technique, craft, musicianship, and production going into it as a “one man-one guitar” act like Beck. To continue to deny its place in the world by handing out gold stars to new offerings by old legends is insulting at best. So too is the trend of giving those same gold stars to young white women who sound like black women from days gone by.

After a while, you have to believe it gets tough for the artists invited year after year. “Please come play on our show and goose our ratings, but don’t expect a trophy for it…at least not outside of your own category”. I say this about film all the time: a great movie is a great movie – be it a documentary, or animation, or foreign, or a comedy. Likewise, a great record is a great record.

Look around various lists of the best records of 2014; you see Beyonce’s album named in several places…likewise Run The Jewels, and FKA Twigs.

Does anyone care that it took six people to write “Thriller” and that Michael Jackson didn’t play a note?

So on Sunday, for Kanye, it finally got too tough. Should he have chosen his moment better? Probably. Should he have chosen his words better? Maybe. (Interestingly, even Beck agreed with him that Beyonce’s album was a deserving winner).

But that all misses the ultimate point.

We’ll scream all over Twitter and Facebook about how #OscarsSoWhite, but nobody bats an eye while the music industry remains a whitewash. On Sunday, Kanye batted an eye. We’ll make our jokes and tear into Sam Smith for ripping off a Tom Petty song, but nobody raises a hand when he is awarded for it. On Sunday, Kanye raised his hand.

He wasn’t standing up there saying “I shoulda won” – even though he’s never taken that trophy, despite two nominations for his six albums so far. Calling him petty, or spoilt doesn’t apply. If that isn’t the place, then where is? If that isn’t the time, then when is? This isn’t a new accusation, but Kanye sure caught people’s attention, didn’t he?

He might be an asshole, but he’s not wrong.

He was saying “Someone else created something amazing, and they deserve a place at the grown-ups table”. He was saying “Pop music is every bit as valid as rock”. He was saying “Black music matters”…

…he was just saying it in his own dickish Kanye way.

12 Replies to “Heard ‘Em Say: In Defense of Kanye”

  1. “He might be an asshole, but he’s not wrong.” And there you have the crux of it. Did Beck deserve to win? I don’t know, I haven’t heard the album, though the safe bet is that it’s great. Did Beyonce deserve to win? It’s kind of gross that she hasn’t already, or that Kanye’s earlier efforts didn’t (Cuz again, asshole, but talented), or that a whole whack of artists of colour who have produced some truly spectacular music haven’t.

    1. Grammy is really bad at recognizing music of the moment, unless it’s music that reminds them of a previous moment (read: Amy Winehouse or Adele).

      Beck’s album is great and all, but it’s not even the best Beck record…let alone best album of 2014.

    1. Re. Public Enemy: Yep – that’s the idea!

      The institution and the show need Kanye and Beyonce more than Kanye and beyonce need the institution and the show.

  3. If he actually wants to be heard, he needs to make his point in a more eloquent, less dickish way. I’ve heard his music, he can find the right words when he wants to. When he pulls a stunt like that, it comes off exactly as that, a stunt, no matter how valid his point is (and it is extremely valid).

  4. I hate inequality, and it really should be stamped out of these or any organisation, however I can’t get too worked up over Beyoncé missing out on an award. Awards for art are basically bullshit anyway. The only true test of art is how much enjoyment people get out of it. A quick search online tells me she has sold 118 million records worldwide and a further 60 million as part of Destiny’s Child. I guess she is making a few people happy.

    I heard a something the other day that kinds of puts it in prospective. In an interview Ava DuVernay was asked about David Oyelowo and herself not getting an Oscar nominations for Selma. She pointed out the film is nominated in some categories an not others and went on to say:

    “when you are making a film about people who risked life limb an livelihood for justice, when you have black men who are being shot unarmed in the streets, a debate about statues and accolades is not something I am super, super interested in engaging in. I mean its lovely, I’m going to have a very pretty dress on at the Oscars and celebrate my film!”

    1. We can’t have it both ways though – we can’t pretend “awards don’t matter” and then put on huge lavish spectacles that celebrate the passing out of awards. It’s not even that Beyonce or Kanye don’t get any of these awards…they have 20 and 21 respectively! (That’s more than double what The Beatles won their entire career, in about the same amount of time).

      If The Grammys are going to celebrate music, they need to be celebrating ALL music…if not, the acts like Beyonce, Kanye, Pharrell, Kendrick Lamar, and Jay Z – the ones who people actually tune in to see…will start staying home.

  5. Kanye’s problem is not his viewpoint, which I don’t think anyone is really debating (at least not entirely, but then again, art is subjective and HE needs to learn that as well), but the fact that he has absolutely NO CLASS. He is an entitled asshole who thinks that he can say and do whatever he wants and cares very little for how that makes anyone feel. What he did to Taylor was disgusting. How do you do that…take away their moment like that. What he did to Beck was also classless. I mean, that is a HUGE honor and a surprise, obviously, to Beck…and to make such a bold statement like that…it was wrong.

    He may have a point, but you make that point at a time when you aren’t publicly embarrassing, mocking or humiliating another artist. What he fails to see is that Beck is an artist as well, and he poured his soul into his work and Kanye has no right to marginalize that by his actions, which is what he attempted to do.

    To make the statements me made afterward…to say that Beyonce should have won and that not rewarding her was disrespecting artistry or whatever shit he likes to spew…that’s fine. Make your opinion known in interviews and on Twitter. I’m all for being a free thinker and not betraying your opinions. I applaud that. To publicly mock someone in their time of glory, that’s just fucked up.

    If Kanye wants to give his award to people he thinks deserved it more, that’s admirable and completely up to him, but it’s not his place to try and make others feel they have to do the same.

    Honestly, there is no defense for Kanye.

    1. No one has an answer for this part of my post yet:

      This argument has been raised in articles, and essays, and tweets, and interviews, and and and…

      The Grammys aren’t listening.

      If not there – where? If not then, when?

      Thing is, this time he didn’t even say anything on-stage. He just got up there. If he’d stood in the aisle, would that have been better? At the foot of the steps?

      Poor little defenseless Beck will be fine…the same way poor little defenseless Taylor turned out fine (note that she and Kanye were actually all hugs during the event)

      One can only “respectfully disagree” for so long.

      1. But like you said, they have won…MANY GRAMMYS. I think that it’s ridiculous to say that just because only six people of color have won AOTY or ROTY that Kanye has a right to do what he did. What he did isn’t going to make the Grammys listen to his plea for Beyonce to win top honors. If he wants to make a statement that gets to the heart of his issue, he needs to refuse to show up and state that as reason why. He needs to stop accepting money to sing at their events. He needs to reject his next Grammy in protest. It won’t change anything, most likely, but it also won’t disrespect his fellow artists, embarrass his friends and make him look like a fool.

        Like I said, I am all for speaking your mind and sticking up for your values and viewpoints, but there are ways to go about it, and battles to pick. When Kanye went off on Bush on live air for not caring about the victims of Katrina, I was all for that. TELL IT LIKE IT IS. He wasn’t harming anyone but the guilty.

        What he does to his fellow artists in an attempt to promote his friends is gross and distasteful. I don’t care what his intentions were…his actions were awful.

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