A blog post on NME by David Renshaw entitled “Stop Booing Kanye West: His ‘Rants’ Are Part Of What Makes Him A Genius” has things profoundly wrong in my opinion. Well, as profound as any opinion on Kanye West could be.
In the above video Kanye begins on one of his mid-show rants by lamenting those who “…beat down, demonize and dishumanize those who believe in themselves” (Kanye does acknowledge that yes, he has just made up a word) — as if he stands ready and waiting on the frontline, armed to the teeth to defend against an army of nasty little shitbags who just wanna empty their bowels over anyone who has a dream. Ah yes, those bastards.
I think far too often people pour praise on pop stars who try and flog this wishy-washy, easy-to-agree-with feel good bullshit. It seems that in order to elevate yourself to the status of inspirational speaker, all you need to do is talk some BS about “being true to yourself”, “following your dreams” ended by a sermon on how in life it is absolutely paramount that you “don’t take shit from anyone”. What this often means in practice (in my own experience) is that people act like a jackass and then defend it with some principle like “hey, I’m only being truthful” — as if being honest at every single opportunity trumps keeping those more asshole-y thoughts safe inside the confines of your skull, which is more often than not where they belong.
Kanye has a habit of rallying against these non-existent enemies — like those previously mentioned dream-crushers — and when he picks one that’s actually there, he spends much of his time arguing with them on questionable grounds. One example being Taylor Swift for having the gall to win a VMA award when, according to Kanye, fellow nominee Beyonce “had one of the best music videos of all time”. Yeah… remember that one? The man stood up mid-acceptance-speech to protest a newcomer country star beating Beyonce to an award as if it was a principled and understandable stance to take on an issue. I’ve seen human rights campaigners complain about torture with less zeal.
The man who called himself a “creative genius” expends energy on this while apparently wanting to “change the world”. Apparently to stop teenage country stars from winning MTV awards, cause fuck that shit. Even when he takes a sensible stance on an issue, a cursory glance at his motives and priorities is enough to almost disregard the non-crazy bits entirely. One example sticks out more than any other.
We all know that the fashion industry is overwhelmingly made up of stick-thin white folk. We’ve spent over a decade talking about the problems of having an entire industry built on “size zero models” — despite doing near nothing to combat it. Kanye did well to point out the same industry’s persistent whiteness when few public figures have done the same. Hats off to the man.
But in his rants on the industry (an example of which can be seen in the above video) he doesn’t seem to focus on the big issues. I don’t think so anyway. The target of his concern is not, for example, the image problems that non-white girls and boys must face when shown time and time again in magazines and ad campaigns that — apparently — beauty doesn’t come in black or brown. Instead, his biggest beef with fashionistas is over the cold shoulder so often shown to him in spite of his obvious flare for design.
Most of this animosity seems to stem from the moment Fendi turned down his idea for leather jogging pants. Fuck. Well then they must be racist. Someone call the bigot brigade to lock those fuckers up. There’s no running and getting away now ladies and gentlemen. Unless, that is, the chasers happen to be wearing a pair of the aforementioned leather jogging pants. Because if it hasn’t crossed your mind yet: leather is not the fabric of choice for anyone wanting to jog, look like they jog or just sit around and gain mass. His bemused response to Zane Lowe when talking about this? “How many motherf***ers you done seen with a leather jogging pant?”
Admittedly not many Kanye because I think you’ll find that the idea is a steaming pile of shit. Nobody but a fashion victim (and I mean victim, someone forced after a violent struggle to adorn such a waste of brain cells) would ever wear such a thing. His stinking attitude when Fendi came out with a pair 6 years later is more reasonable. But what Kanye needs to understand is (because I don’t think he does understand) that if Fendi or anyone else came out with leather jogging pants it was probably despite his pitch, not because of it.
Fashion is a fickle friend and the cycle spins so fast it’s enough to give anyone looking hard enough a severe bout of motion sickness. When they released those jogging pants, it was no doubt due to them seeing some social capital out of the whole enterprise; aka. they saw a way the product could be marketed as cool and desirable when they couldn’t have been (in Fendi’s opinion) 6 years previous. And if you think this is stealing — remember — this is the fashion industry we’re talking about. Collections by top designers aren’t always extravagant avant-garde talismans of textiles, many house completely unoriginal, bog-standard items that have been seen in a similar form many times before. No matter how adventurous we get with our clothes, there are a limited number of likeable shapes, forms and styles that a dress, shirt or jumper can take — or jogging pants for that matter.
Vidal Sassoon didn’t get sent a check every time a fashionable girl in the sixties got her hair cut in his signature style, Kanye West can’t expect the same for simply proposing a new fabric for an old item of clothing. And a crap combo at that.
Kanye West is many many many things. He’s crazy. He’s talented. He’s a walking talking contradiction: a man widely considered to be an out-and-out asshole yet who would honestly pass up the opportunity to have a conversation with the man? Knowing how interesting (albeit a tad wacky) the experience would be. And despite a few standout moments he’s generally a polite, charming fellow too.
He’s also not a lot of things as well. He’s not modest, docile or unambitious. And despite many calls to the contrary, in my humble opinion, he’s certainly not a genius too. Well… not yet anyway. For that we’ll have to wait and see.
Kanye West Is Not a Genius
A blog post on NME by David Renshaw entitled “Stop Booing Kanye West: His ‘Rants’ Are Part Of What Makes Him A Genius” has things profoundly wrong in my opinion. Well, as profound as any opinion on Kanye West could be.
In the above video Kanye begins on one of his mid-show rants by lamenting those who “…beat down, demonize and dishumanize those who believe in themselves” (Kanye does acknowledge that yes, he has just made up a word) — as if he stands ready and waiting on the frontline, armed to the teeth to defend against an army of nasty little shitbags who just wanna empty their bowels over anyone who has a dream. Ah yes, those bastards.
I think far too often people pour praise on pop stars who try and flog this wishy-washy, easy-to-agree-with feel good bullshit. It seems that in order to elevate yourself to the status of inspirational speaker, all you need to do is talk some BS about “being true to yourself”, “following your dreams” ended by a sermon on how in life it is absolutely paramount that you “don’t take shit from anyone”. What this often means in practice (in my own experience) is that people act like a jackass and then defend it with some principle like “hey, I’m only being truthful” — as if being honest at every single opportunity trumps keeping those more asshole-y thoughts safe inside the confines of your skull, which is more often than not where they belong.
Kanye has a habit of rallying against these non-existent enemies — like those previously mentioned dream-crushers — and when he picks one that’s actually there, he spends much of his time arguing with them on questionable grounds. One example being Taylor Swift for having the gall to win a VMA award when, according to Kanye, fellow nominee Beyonce “had one of the best music videos of all time”. Yeah… remember that one? The man stood up mid-acceptance-speech to protest a newcomer country star beating Beyonce to an award as if it was a principled and understandable stance to take on an issue. I’ve seen human rights campaigners complain about torture with less zeal.
The man who called himself a “creative genius” expends energy on this while apparently wanting to “change the world”. Apparently to stop teenage country stars from winning MTV awards, cause fuck that shit. Even when he takes a sensible stance on an issue, a cursory glance at his motives and priorities is enough to almost disregard the non-crazy bits entirely. One example sticks out more than any other.
We all know that the fashion industry is overwhelmingly made up of stick-thin white folk. We’ve spent over a decade talking about the problems of having an entire industry built on “size zero models” — despite doing near nothing to combat it. Kanye did well to point out the same industry’s persistent whiteness when few public figures have done the same. Hats off to the man.
But in his rants on the industry (an example of which can be seen in the above video) he doesn’t seem to focus on the big issues. I don’t think so anyway. The target of his concern is not, for example, the image problems that non-white girls and boys must face when shown time and time again in magazines and ad campaigns that — apparently — beauty doesn’t come in black or brown. Instead, his biggest beef with fashionistas is over the cold shoulder so often shown to him in spite of his obvious flare for design.
Most of this animosity seems to stem from the moment Fendi turned down his idea for leather jogging pants. Fuck. Well then they must be racist. Someone call the bigot brigade to lock those fuckers up. There’s no running and getting away now ladies and gentlemen. Unless, that is, the chasers happen to be wearing a pair of the aforementioned leather jogging pants. Because if it hasn’t crossed your mind yet: leather is not the fabric of choice for anyone wanting to jog, look like they jog or just sit around and gain mass. His bemused response to Zane Lowe when talking about this? “How many motherf***ers you done seen with a leather jogging pant?”
Admittedly not many Kanye because I think you’ll find that the idea is a steaming pile of shit. Nobody but a fashion victim (and I mean victim, someone forced after a violent struggle to adorn such a waste of brain cells) would ever wear such a thing. His stinking attitude when Fendi came out with a pair 6 years later is more reasonable. But what Kanye needs to understand is (because I don’t think he does understand) that if Fendi or anyone else came out with leather jogging pants it was probably despite his pitch, not because of it.
Fashion is a fickle friend and the cycle spins so fast it’s enough to give anyone looking hard enough a severe bout of motion sickness. When they released those jogging pants, it was no doubt due to them seeing some social capital out of the whole enterprise; aka. they saw a way the product could be marketed as cool and desirable when they couldn’t have been (in Fendi’s opinion) 6 years previous. And if you think this is stealing — remember — this is the fashion industry we’re talking about. Collections by top designers aren’t always extravagant avant-garde talismans of textiles, many house completely unoriginal, bog-standard items that have been seen in a similar form many times before. No matter how adventurous we get with our clothes, there are a limited number of likeable shapes, forms and styles that a dress, shirt or jumper can take — or jogging pants for that matter.
Vidal Sassoon didn’t get sent a check every time a fashionable girl in the sixties got her hair cut in his signature style, Kanye West can’t expect the same for simply proposing a new fabric for an old item of clothing. And a crap combo at that.
Kanye West is many many many things. He’s crazy. He’s talented. He’s a walking talking contradiction: a man widely considered to be an out-and-out asshole yet who would honestly pass up the opportunity to have a conversation with the man? Knowing how interesting (albeit a tad wacky) the experience would be. And despite a few standout moments he’s generally a polite, charming fellow too.
He’s also not a lot of things as well. He’s not modest, docile or unambitious. And despite many calls to the contrary, in my humble opinion, he’s certainly not a genius too. Well… not yet anyway. For that we’ll have to wait and see.
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