Kanye West OTM

But before we do...

KANYE WEST HAS GOOD BEATS BUT CAN'T RAP
WHAT AN EGOTIST
K THX BYE

The other thread won't open for me. someone summarize it really fast.

In short, people agree with the sentiment; nobody thinks he was out of line; some wish he was more eloquent and some appreciate the rawness.

most of the affected people in the entirety of the devastated areas are white.

A Salon article on the photographs by Aaron Kinney suggests the captions were a result of a combination of contexual and stylistic differences:
Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that [photographer Dave] Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."

Regarding the AFP/Getty "finding" photo by [photographer Chris] Graythen, Getty spokeswoman Bridget Russel said, "This is obviously a big tragedy down there, so we're being careful with how we credit these photos." Russel said that Graythen had discussed the image in question with his editor and that if Graythen didn't witness the two people in the image in the act of looting, then he couldn't say they were looting.
The photographer who took the Getty/AFP picture, Chris Graythen, also posted the reasons behind his caption:
I wrote the caption about the two people who 'found' the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water — we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow.

bcuz
a) it loads
b) better thread title
c) jc's 'readers digest' thread summary

Shockingly, it is possible for a human being to be right on one subject and wrong on another.

Anyone? Anyone? Okay, nevermind.

An Army Corps of Engineers "hit list" of recommended budget cuts would eliminate new flood-control programs in some of the nation's most flood-prone spots - where recent disasters have left thousands homeless and cost the federal government millions in emergency aid.

Clinton administration officials argue that the flood-control efforts are local projects, not national, and should be paid for by local taxes.

Nationwide, the administration proposes cutting 98 new projects in 35 states and Puerto Rico, for an estimated savings of $29 million in 1996.

Corps officials freely conceded the cuts, which represent only a small portion of savings the corps ultimately must make, may be penny-wise and pound-foolish. But they said they were forced to eliminate some services the corps has historically provided to taxpayers to meet the administration's budget-cutting goals.

June 23, 1995

A hurricane project, approved and financed since 1965, to protect more than 140,000 West Bank residents east of the Harvey Canal is in jeopardy.

The Clinton administration is holding back a Corps of Engineers report recommending that the $120 million project proceed. Unless that report is forwarded to the Office of Management and Budget, Congress cannot authorize money for the project, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office said Thursday.

On June 9, John Zirschky, the acting assistant secretary of the Army and the official who refused to forward the report, sent a memo to the corps, saying the recommendation for the project "is not consistent with the policies and budget priorities reflected in the President's Fiscal Year 1996 budget. Accordingly, I will not forward the report to the Office of Management and Budget for clearance."

July 26, 1996

The House voted Thursday for a $19.4 billion energy and water bill that provides $246 million for Army Corps of Engineers projects in Louisiana.

The bill, approved 391-23, is the last of the 13 annual spending measures for 1997 approved by the House.

One area in which the House approved more financing than the president requested was for flood control and maintenance of harbors and shipping routes by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Flood control projects along the Mississippi River and its tributaries were allotted $303 million, or $10 million more than the president wanted.

June 19, 1996

The Army Corps of Engineers, which builds most flood protection levees on a federal-local cost-sharing basis, uses a cost-benefit ratio to justify a project. If the cost of building a levee is considered less than the cost of restoring a flood-ravaged area, the project is more likely to be approved.

For years, the Jean Lafitte-Lower Lafitte-Barataria-Crown Point areas couldn't convince the corps they were worthy of levee protection. But the use of Section 205 and congressional pressure has given the corps a new perspective, Spohrer said.

But even so, when the Clinton administration began to curtail spending on flood control and other projects a year ago, the corps stopped spending on Section 205 projects even after deciding to do a $70,000 preliminary Jean Lafitte study, Spohrer said.

July 22, 1999

In passing a $20.2 billion spending bill this week for water and energy projects, the House Appropriations Committee approved some significant increases in financing for several New Orleans area flood control and navigational projects.

The spending bill is expected on the House floor within the next two weeks.

For the New Orleans District of the Army Corps of Engineers, the panel allocated $106 million for construction projects, about $16 million more than proposed by President Clinton.

The bill would provide $47 million for "southeast Louisiana flood control projects," $16 million for "Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity hurricane protection," $15.9 million for the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lock on the Industrial Canal in New Orleans and $2 million for "West Bank hurricane protection -- from New Orleans to Venice."

Most of the projects received significant increases over what the Clinton administration had proposed. The exception: general flood control projects for southeast Louisiana, which remained at the $47 million suggested by Clinton. Local officials had hoped for double that amount.

February 8, 2000

For the metropolitan New Orleans area, Clinton's budget was seen as a mixed bag by local lawmakers and government officials. For instance, while Clinton called for $1.5 billion to be spent at Avondale Industries to continue building LPD-17 landing craft, his budget calls for significantly less than what Congress appropriated last year for Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity hurricane protection and for West Bank flood control projects.

From the New York Times of 13th April 2005, also via EU Rota:

Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America's rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects -- this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences.

The Government Accountability Office and other watchdogs accuse the corps of routinely inflating the economic benefits of its projects. And environmentalists blame it for turning free-flowing rivers into lifeless canals and destroying millions of acres of wetlands -- usually in the name of flood control and navigation but mostly to satisfy Congress's appetite for pork.

This is a bad piece of legislation.

AIDS doesn't care about black people.

If I remember correctly his parents said this to him.

QUIT LOOKING FOR ANSWERS AND HAVING QUESTIONS JEEZ! JUST BE LED & ACCEPT WHAT YO GIVEN! SPIN & BLAME SHIFTING COMING RIGHT UP.

My dad, who basically agreed with Kanye West, pointed out that this just detracts some attention from the crisis and the administration's mishandling of it and places it on Kanye West (surprise surprise).

Newsrooms need to be forced to talk about these things. Not later, on some imaginary day (that we all know will never come).

Now.

Mayor Nagin in particular already said that, and it was quite publicized. So it's not like it *hasn't* been said.

Personally I thought the comment both hyperbolically over the top AND OTM.

huh?

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=88046

(I assume thats what yr referring to)

http://static.flickr.com/29/39720312_12f4c18d0a_o.jpg

That's the correct link. I'm not saying he's right/wrong. But I prefer to think that the media isn't racist. Call me naive. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

Chris Graythen wrote the caption for his photo of two hurricane survivors with bread and soda. "I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word," he writes. "The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water - we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow." (His post is low on the page.)

haha of course they are. I mean, there are 'degrees' or what the fuck ever but come on. They're American, of course they're racist.

No, people think 'hey look, more evidence that race is still a huge fucking issue in this country.'

Deej- you can argue it's a coincidence because it almost certainly is. You can't compare two captions written by completely different people at completely different companies, and make conclusions from that. If you can find two captions written by _the same people_ using _the same style guides that tell whether or not to term something in this situation as "finding" or "looting"_, and one seems to accuse blacks of an action that it absolves whites of, you may have an argument.

Dom I totally disagree. It isn't about who wrote it and where, its completely missing the point. Its not ABOUT outright racism, its about subtle ways in which the messages are delivered to us via the media, how blacks are portrayed by the media.

Do you get what I'm saying?

Its not about blaming the guy who wrote the captions.

its about broad media trends of portraying blacks as looters and greedy thieves and white people as benevolent angels sending food and money.

You have no immediate evidence that this represents any trend whatsoever. I'm not saying that I disagree with the idea of larger, racist trend, but it's not right to necessarily tie these two images to that ... and if that trend is as large as everyone says it is, why is it necessary to cling to two images which have at best a tenuous relationship?

Its just that this is a really obvious example of media bias,

Explain how it is "really obvious" then?

So all we've proved is that in that situation Chris Graythen believed that both white and black people "found" food. Where is the racism?

In that a picture of white people (finding food) was picked with the explanation. Not black people.

Beyond that, it's tiresome trying to explain logically why there is not a massive media conspiracy. I'm not saying that media output isn't biased or even racist, but since the media is made up of many people with their own viewpoints and not just purely objective being, it's a huge waste of time to cry that there is bias or subjectivity creeping into the media, especially when people are only willing to discuss these two images as evidence, the "smoking gun" even.

So you're arguing the complete opposite of the premise raised originally? That this guy is the racist but the guy that took the photo of the black guy "looting" isn't?

"really obvious"

"an easy way to show people"

Why is it "worse" then, if not for reasons of race? Semantics?

-- deej.. (ei...) (webmail), September 3rd, 2005 12:36 PM. (link)

What kind of response/conclusion are you trying to draw anyways? Yes, the media is totally fair and balanced. It's not slightly suspect in the least that the representations put forth of people surving in New Orleans are black looters and white finders when there could probably be just as many equal pictures of both with the races switched. No, not at all. I'll bet that photographer does think that "white finders" was a better picture than the "black finders" allegedly standing right next to them. I mean really, who would believe that black people just stumbled across food and grabbed it? They're obviously too busy robbing electronics and gun stores!

Yes, properly IF I was trying to use it as SMOKING GUN EVIDENCE that someone is racist, which I'm not.

Its an EXAMPLE of broader media trends, a really obvious one, that black and white people are treated differently by the media.

I'm not sure how much simpler I can make this for you.
(xp)

Well, I make the odds one in four. Plus, a quick look around Google news shows images of both whites "looting" and blacks "finding". So, your argument is, "If I find a picture of a black guy described as "looting", and a white guy described as "finding", and ignore all other evidence or context to the matter, this can't merely be a coincidence"?

These are the only two 'looting' or 'finding' photos:

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050902/capt.msdp12809022244.hurricane_katrina_msdp128.jpg

A young resident emerges with a box and a drink from a local convenience store destroyed by Hurricane Katrina Bay St. Louis, Mis., on Friday, Sept. 2 2005. Residents have been with little assistance from local authorities since the hurricane destroyed their homes. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050902/capt.msdp12909022243.hurricane_katrina_msdp129.jpg

Local kids try on jewelry in a local shop destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in Bay St. Louis, Mis., on Friday, Sept. 2 2005. Residents of the area have had little assistance since the hurricane devastated most of the homes in the area. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

BATON ROUGE, La. -- They locked down the entrance doors Thursday at the Baton Rouge hotel where I'm staying alongside hundreds of New Orleans residents driven from their homes by Hurricane Katrina.

"Because of the riots," the hotel managers explained. Armed Gunmen from New Orleans were headed this way, they had heard.

"It's the blacks," whispered one white woman in the elevator. "We always worried this would happen."

Something else gave way last week besides the levees that had protected New Orleans from the waters surrounding it. The thin veneer of civility and practiced cordiality that in normal times masks the prejudices and bigotries held by many whites in this region of Deep South Louisiana was heavily battered as well.

All it took to set the rumor mills in motion were the first TV pictures broadcast Tuesday showing some looters—many of them black—smashing store windows in downtown New Orleans. Reports later in the week of sporadic violence and shootings among the desperate throngs outside the Superdome clamoring to be rescued only added to the panic.

By Thursday, local TV and radio stations in Baton Rouge—the only ones in the metro area still able to broadcast—were breezily passing along reports of cars being hijacked at gunpoint by New Orleans refugees, riots breaking out in the shelters set up in Baton Rouge to house the displaced, and guns and knives being seized.

Scarcely any of it was true—the police, for example, confiscated a single knife from a refugee in one Baton Rouge shelter. There were no riots in Baton Rouge. There were no armed hordes.

But all of it played directly into the darkest prejudices long held against the hundreds of thousands of impoverished blacks who live "down there," in New Orleans, that other world regarded by many white suburbanites—indeed, many people across the rest of the state—as a dangerous urban no-go area.

Now the floods were pushing tens of thousands of those inner-city residents deep into Baton Rouge and beyond. The TV pictures showed vast throngs of black people who had been trapped in downtown New Orleans disgorging out of rescue trucks and helicopters to be ushered onto buses headed west on Interstate Highway 10. The nervousness among many of the white evacuees in my hotel was palpable.

Few stopped to contemplate that the reason nearly all the people shown on TV were black was because that's who was left behind when the better-off New Orleans residents with the money and means to escape evacuated the city in advance of the storm.

Nor did they seem to notice that most of the refugees were bedraggled mothers and exhausted fathers and frightened children and ailing old people—ordinary, law-abiding citizens who had had little to begin with and escaped with absolutely nothing except the clothes on their backs and their lives.

And it wasn't just the uninformed, the idle and the bigoted spreading the poison with loaded language.

Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden, himself an African-American, blamed the state for sending "New Orleans thugs" to be sheltered in Baton Rouge and promptly slapped a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the main River Center shelter, which held 5,000 refugees from the storm.

"We do not want to inherit the looting and all the other foolishness that went on in New Orleans," Holden was quoted as telling the Baton Rouge Advocate in Thursday's edition. "We do not want to inherit that breed that seeks to prey on other people."

It was left to the Baton Rouge police chief to go on TV later in the day to try to cool the growing hysteria and point out that a single knife had been seized in the shelter. The mayor later said he had been misquoted by the newspaper.

But the damage had been done. The doors to my hotel stayed locked.

The family that founded cable operator Adelphia Communications will forfeit almost its entire fortune to pay for a $715 million fund to compensate investors who lost money when the company collapsed, the government said yesterday.

The fund was announced as part of an agreement that Adelphia reached with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a fraud case stemming from the management by the company's founders, the Rigas family.

"Today is a day of restitution for the victims of corporate corruption," Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said in a statement.

Investors in Adelphia's stock and bonds lost billions of dollars when the company collapsed and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002 following allegations that the Rigas family was misusing corporate money.

John Rigas, the company's founder, and his son Timothy were convicted last summer of looting Adelphia of $2.3 billion in assets and misrepresenting the company's financial health to investors.

;-)

Yes, this has been my exact argument from the moment I stepped on this thread, and to read anything other into what I've been saying would obviously reak of the worst kind of opportunism and ignorance.

Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that that was what the thread was talking about for the previous 100 posts? You can't just lose an argument and then go "Ah, but only the inhumane would argue about that".

The removed the one i was bidding on tho because it had an unlicensed pic of kanye.

Dom, that picture of the Adelphia guy may reflect what the (mostly white) Internet finds as an info-match for the word "looting", but utterly fails to address the primal racist fear that the word invokes in most white Americans. Which is, I thought, what this thread was mostly about (calling out the racist bullshit surrounding the NO disaster). And your contention that the media isn't biased is patently absurd.

BTW I'm white and have worked extensively in public TV and radio (e.g. MEDIA) for 20 years. Go read The Baffler or something and get a clue.

And yes, Kanye OTM. This entire thing is a racist, classist act of deliberate mass murder by our fascist military rulers. I hope it brings the government down.

That clear enough for all y'all still in denial?

About that 'get one clue' thing you just said...

WHEN AT ANY POINT IN THIS THREAD HAVE I SAID THIS? KTHXBI.

the media is racist because the public is racist

One of the most baffling things about America is that despite its essentially vile profile, so much beauty continues to exist here.
Amiri Baraka

Sleeve, yesterday.

This is rubbish, by the way.

This is rubbish, by the way.

We must report acts of terror quickly, accurately, fully and responsibly. Our credibility is undermined by the careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgements. The word "terrorist" itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term, without attribution. We should let other people characterise while we report the facts as we know them.

BBC editorial guidelines on reporting war and terrorism: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/edguide/war/mandatoryreferr.shtml

The BBC has a policy to never use the word "terrorist"

They said, in reponse to a story about them changing the word "terrorist" to "bomber" on a London bombings story:

It is not the case that the BBC has stopped using the word "terrorist". The word "terrorist" is not banned from the BBC.

We try to be as precise as possible in our language and the word "bomber" is a more precise description, but we also use the word "terrorist".

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/news/2005/07/13/20561.shtml)

Anyone who thinks the BBC don't use the word terrorist clearly closes their ears and

The "We have not banned the word terrorist" was just a bit of quick deflection against "It's political correctness gone made" reportage of their London bombings coverage.

2nd story: quoting Ken Clarke

3rd story: quoting Ken Clarke

4th story: quoting the brother of Makosi from Big Brother.

Shall I go on?

I feel like Mike Myers makes that face to everyone all the time.

the problem is that once you get over 100,000, the only way you can conceptually deal with it is as a mass.

also, remember that "welfare queens" was a bullshit line first used in the Reagan years and always referred to people with cadillacs(ALWAYS cadillacs) who were gaming the public system for cash. Dude, suffice it to say that if you had a caddy and an extra $300, you were out of NOLA by saturday.

and what TV have you been watching? some rightwing fuckheads have just been desperately trying to show all the folks down there as "animals," as folks who'd doing nothing but looting electronics stores and shooting at cops.

who has tried to protray them as welfare queens or kings?

OVERWHELMING news bias in an attempt to lockstep with the American government as regards the devastation in the Southern United States: the strings are showing.

Maybe it's more just the sense I'm getting from what I read when I stumble onto conservative blogs and message boards - the "they're a bunch of lazy goodfornothing crackheads/animals/ who didn't bother to leave" angle.

Meditteranean actually. Hint: there's a bit of a clue in my surname.

The ITV site is a nightmare to navigate and search, but just by clicking around:

http://www.itv.com/news/69696.html

I'm not being funny Alba, but I must have spent about 300 hours over the past year studying how news is reported and the various stylistic traits of the major newsgathering organisations. I know about these things.

i love her 'say what now?' expression.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), September 3rd, 2005.

OTM

No, they'll advise on whether or not the word "looting" is acceptable for photos.

http://www.surrendermartha.com/sbuletmyfrja.html

Ask the Dixie Chicks. And they weren't even on TV, but rather a stage.

also, most of the shirts on eBay don't have the attrition. Should they?

Reading this without realizing that was a typo was very unsettling.

Behold. (my favorite part:
"Late Registration" is fun to listen to, but in many ways it's a con job. It's a clip job, too. Try to imagine Marvin Gaye not composing all of "What's Going On?" but splicing together other people's music and recordings over which he'd chant his musings. He would have been laughed out of the business.

But times have changed. We have Alicia Keys, Anthony Hamilton, Legend and just a few R&B performers who can actually create music. The rest has to be a clever construction.)

The royal 'we' is being used there, I assume.

The rest of "Late Registration," while very entertaining, contains almost no original compositions.

As some of you might know, Kanye West went off the scripted teleprompter on live television for a benifit for the Relief Efforts for Hurricane Katrina. It was an impassioned speech and Kanye was nervous, human, real. He said things that we've all known for awhile to be true.

Watch it here:
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2678975

NBC edited out his most incendiary remark, "George Bush doesn't care about black people" for the West Coast feed and issued an apology for Kanye's outburst.

Today on my long commute to work, KROQ devoted most of their show to discussing Kanye. They mocked him for owning pink polos and Bentleys. These rich, angry white men (my favorite, most empathetic demographic) even had their black friend call in and say Kanye put "race relations back 50 years". They pretended to have an open forum, but as most talk show radio hosts do, anyone who disagreed with the hosts Kevin and Bean was mocked and cajoled. They could admit that most of the people left behind were black but this was only because they were poor. They contended that these two things have nothing to do with one another.

The response to Hurricane Katrina has shown us how little progress has come in the last 50 years.

Kanye's new album came out last week. Let's get it to number one on the charts. Please buy his album to support a hero who stood up for his beliefs and took great personal risk at the height of his career to help people without a voice.

West is no N.W.A. or Chuck D. A lot of signals got crossed on Friday night. But the one that didn't is the most important: Today, "Late Registration" is No. 1, no matter how it was put together or who did it.

N.W.A and Chuck D obviously don't rely on sampled beats and must sing, according to the article's ideas about what are valid forms of artistic expression.

West's big hit single, "Diamonds From Sierra Leone," is completely based on Shirley Bassey singing "Diamonds Are Forever."

Completely! It's just Shirley Bassey and John Barry!
Also, they forgot to mention that Jon Brion's work is all over the album. He's white! Whiiiiiite!

I knew it sounded familiar!!

oh, and fuck fox news, what a bunch of clueless asshats.

Fuck NBC for censoring it. Spineless bastards.

"He didn't just blurt it out anxiously. It was intentional. The word is that West has revved up friends like Jamie Foxx, who does his Ray Charles impression on West's new album. This may not be the end of their take on how race is perceived in the music business."

OMG!!! Kanye is revving up black folks! he must be stopped!!!

this is really the most idiotic and racist review i've ever read.

Rapper 50 Cent has lashed out at fellow hip-hop star Kanye West for accusing US President George W Bush of racism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The In Da Club star believes human intervention could not have prevented the effects of the hurricane, which killed over a thousand people in the US gulf states in August, and sees no point in reprimanding the President for something which was beyond his control.

He says, "The New Orleans disaster was meant to happen. It was an act of God.

"I think people responded to it the best way they can.

"What Kanye West was saying, I don't know where that came from."

Unbelievably, I've actually lost more respect for Fiddy.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44233000/jpg/_44233256_donda_west203b.jpg

Pour one out.

Although, y'know, maybe if she'd listened to her son's "New Workout Plan"...

Pour taste.

thats how u brits spell it right?

you were totally offtm in this thread but i did laugh at this:

lol at the company selling them being called "tragetees"

-- Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Saturday, September 3, 2005 4:09 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

rip louis vuitton mom ;_;

"west, who is black"

http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo305/lejospopo/kanye.jpg

Also, the best thing about this is the look on Chris Tucker's face when it cuts to him.

naw, mike myers getting more and more tightfaced before a moment of complete double take when kanye drops the bomb.

let's be real, both their reactions are utterly priceless

Kanye's twitter OTM?

"man when you take BABYMAMAJETS there's no stuartist"

Life is awesome
11 minutes ago via web

kanyewest
Kanye West

oh god

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Umjy314sQQ

kanyewest

I specifically ordered persian rugs with cherub imagery!!! What do I have to do to get a simple persian rug with cherub imagery uuuuugh

Took me a minute to realize "stuartist" wasn't a bizarre reference to the monarchs

between this and mariah having to stop tweeting because she chipped her nail polish and her manicurist wasn't on hand, today has been good for megalomaniac celebrity twitter mentalism

dating models i had to learn to like
small dogs and cigarettes

is like a poem or something; it's perfect.

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bx9lCCGo1qargt4o1_500.jpg

also
http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bywr3ZkT1qzcigmo1_500.png

I specifically ordered persian rugs with cherub imagery!!! What do I have to do to get a simple persian rug with cherub imagery uuuuugh

looooool

nice suit, way better than the ugly gray wool ones he was rocking circa 808s

his new aesthetic just seems better in general

“‘I’m sorry’ is something that you can use a lot,” he told the graduates. “It gives you the opportunity to give your opinion, apologize for it, and give your opinion again. People say, ‘You shouldn’t have to be sorry for your opinions.'”

lol waht

haha

That's great.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-5-most-confusing-advice-from-kanye-wests-graduation-speech-2015-5

http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/hear-kanyes-art-institute-graduation-speech.html

i disagree completely with business insider's opinion that he was in narcissistic yeezus mode during this speech. he sounds normal and self-aware.

5. "And it's these Floyd Mayweather belts that are needed to prove what I've been saying my entire life. Whether it's the cosign of Paul McCartney grabbing me and saying it's OK he doesn't bite white people. Or the New York Times cover, or the Time Most Influential cover. And now a doctorate at the Art Institute of Chicago."

Somehow, the quotes on their own don't even do justice to the awkwardness of the speech. The speech doesn't follow in a linear fashion, jumping from one confusing comment to the next. So the entire four-minute speech is certainly worth a listen.

he is saying that the endorsement from institutions is useful in helping people get where they want to go. so for the students who might be afraid their art degree is arbitrary, he is reassuring them that it will open doors, rightly or wrongly. what is so hard to understand about that?

I think some people are inherently made uncomfortable when he says reasonable or perceptive shit they can't push him into a memeability box of #lolkardashians and #rants

*and they

like how would 65 percent of music writers even use twitter if they couldn't drop weak kanye zings

yeah def.

he certainly has said his share of (intentionally) risible stuff, but i also think he's one of the least understood famous people. for a nation that claims to celebrate ambition, it's pretty fucked that america does everything it can to beat kanye down at every opportunity and make him look like an idiot. i don't agree with him that his stupid $200 sneakers are democratizing or whatever it is he is arguing these days, but his i wish him endless success and perpetual victory over the haters.

people are just lazy in LOLing at whatever kanye says. easier to just say hes crazy than actually think he might have something worthwhile to say (not that he always does, but he does sometimes).

“‘I’m sorry’ is something that you can use a lot,” he told the graduates. “It gives you the opportunity to give your opinion, apologize for it, and give your opinion again. People say, ‘You shouldn’t have to be sorry for your opinions.'”

this is just referring to polite BS, where people say something, then pretend to apologise for it, before saying it anyway. not sure about the US, but this def fits with british etiquette!

for a nation that claims to celebrate ambition, it's pretty fucked that america does everything it can to beat kanye down

i think something might be up

His house is stupid

"america does everything it can to beat kanye down"

yet to see any of his records banned (or fail)

I guess the moral is that there's not actually that much America can do to beat Kanye down

plus, it all just makes him stronger

the backlash to his honorary degree is the most racist bullshit ever.

also, who gets up in arms over anyone's honorary degree? like who is out there championing the sanctity of this mostly meaningless thing?

seriously, they are so goofy. my college gave one to clive davis just bc it was kewl to have him come for commencement.

but also, do these people think actual fine art phds are more impressive than kanye? the confederate flag jacket could have been a doctoral project.

"it's my flag. now what are you going to do?"

i thought it was conceptually bold and provocative at least.

''Whether it's the cosign of Paul McCartney grabbing me and saying it's OK he doesn't bite white people.''

He genuinely felt that he needed McCartney to get this kind of approval wrt to white people?

I always felt Kanye West is holding more about being a victim of racism than otherwise. For someone who claims himself as a champion and a gamechanger, everytime he speaks of that issue, he just seems so tired.

ok there are totally people who take him more seriously now that he got the nod from mccartney

he is the ultimate victim of rockism, or he has showed that rockism wasn't even the issue. a true auteur -- maybe some people here aren't excited by that or think it's reactionary, whatever -- he is time and again ridiculed for saying he is an artist with an original vision. this despite the fact that every few years for the past decade he has dropped some super original album that changes how music sounds. i would probably be just as bitter and weird if i were him

like, i'm not saying he is the best rapper or the best producer or whatever, but he has produced really interesting stuff and he is still just this punchline

he's one of the most critically acclaimed and popular pop artists alive right now

most of what i read about kanye is gushing praise

if you want to talk about artists who are victims of rockism and/or racism in terms of their talents not being recognised there are hundreds who have fared worse than kanye

i would assume treesh is referring to him being a punchline among milquetoasts of all stripes but especially middle of the road white people, not like the music press necessarily

and by that i mean visible milquetoast types in the media who maybe we wish we could avoid but can't, not like the average dipshit in muskogee who is only heard in like youtube video comment sections

i am pretty sure that kanye has more fans among milquetoast yt ppl than any other current rapper except maybe kendrick

yes, there are still yt ppl with issues with rap but how about arguing for the genre as a whole rather than WAAAH KANYE IS A VICTIM

yeah, that's what i mean slothrop

it's obvious he doesn't need more success or praise or whatever. but the people who don't like him talk about him in this uniquely dismissive way

and those same people have usually no idea who Young Thug is, or could care less. we could talk about the whole genre as a whole, of course. but Kanye is in a different stratosphere at this point.

the average dipshit in muskogee

not everyone has the luxury of ignoring these people. and anyway, i think kanye backlash goes beyond this, like the people who didn't want him to get this honorary degree.

they hate him because of his risible boasting. i don't think they would feel this way about a white dude or someone who worked in a genre other than rap. as far as problems go i guess this isn't a big deal but i think it's symptomatic of larger issues in america and its attitude toward black success and artistry.

sigh, i have no doubt any of the folks on this thread would and do happily argue for the sake of the whole genre, lex

yeah def. but rap's visibility isn't as important as the understanding that it is a legitimate art form that is meaningful to people. that idea is what people find ridiculous, and why they laugh when kanye compares himself to picasso or whatever. they're not reacting the general weirdness of the comparison.

this is why i think kanye should double down on asserting his importance, even if some of his creative enterprises aren't as innovative as he says they are. (the yeezys are just sneakers.) it's not about the accuracy of the claim as much as it is about his right to say it

granted when i saw him in concert he did seem a bit deranged when he started lecturing the crowd and i can sort of see why people would laugh at him instead of finding it noble in this quixotic way. ("I'm a futurist!") but i also think the culture made him this way where he feels the need to justify his right to say the things he wants to say. this shit all started with the katrina comment.

no matter what he did -- short of not being himself, i.e. acting cool instead of earnest, ambitious, and anxious -- america was going to treat him the same way.

tbh, part of his value, to me, his how uncool he is. he's a pretty authentic dude

Good conversation in this thread.

The example that got me was when Watch The Throne came out. That album is track after track of Kanye and Jay-Z rapping about racial expectations and the socioeconomic legacy of racism, often in incredibly personal terms tied to their own identities as artists, sons and fathers. But 75% of the reviews were "they're just rapping about how much shit they own."

But i think Kanye has this awkward and immense desire to be accepted by mainstream white audiences while also going on challenging pre-conceived notion about race, wealth, social justice, design, etc.

well yea it's one of his approximately 96,871,34.872* contradictions

*all estimates rough

i WISH kanye was throwing out real talk or even dropping katrina telethon bombs these days but it always feels like he's badly mishandling every topic, from 'racism is a distraction, celebrities are being oppressed' to 'i understand what bruce jenner is going through because roc-a-fella didn't want me to wear a polo shirt at first'

I think most average Joe people hate Kanye West. Even if they have not really heard him - they have an opinion on him more vehement than anyone else they have not heard.

Mishandling suggests some kind of right way for everything. Like he does not subscribe to correct and acceptable current marketing perceptions.

He is not a politician trying to win votes.

With a team of advisors.

Telling him what the correct thing to say on every issue is. OR IS HE?

i WISH kanye was throwing out real talk or even dropping katrina telethon bombs these days but it always feels like he's badly mishandling every topic, from 'racism is a distraction, celebrities are being oppressed' to 'i understand what bruce jenner is going through because roc-a-fella didn't want me to wear a polo shirt at first'

This is very true.

It's hard to get past his clumsiness and narcissism. Like a lot of rappers, he puts his foot in his mouth sometimes but still has valid things to say. But I think for a significant portion of the population, it's unthinkable that this man might have even the smallest iota of substance or artistic significance to offer.

Most of us probably see him as a flawed artist with at least some merit. But older people in particular seem to view him as a clownish blowhard, and only that.

Transgressive pop stars tend to be most appreciated by people their age and younger. Only changes when they stop being transgressive.

don't know, there are plenty of under-40s who hate Kanye

I said most appreciated, not universally.

I mean, I guess that's true, but I don't know if that has anything to do with him being transgressive. I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of artists whose debut album came out in 2004 are more appreciated by people under 40 than by people over 40.

I guess I don't think the "Ugh, Kanye" sentiment and all the baggage behind it is strictly generational.

or even mostly generational.

Or even marketing.

Consumerism/Achievement may be "the American dream" but there is some strong anti-materialist stuff these days and golden parachute bankers complain about getting shade thrown at them.

most of what i read about kanye is gushing praise

If you're only looking in music critic/fan circles then yes but if not...

if most of what you read is from writers and not random youtube comments racists then really what's wrong with you

Random youtube commenters, ordinary people, etc

Still seems to be an out of proportion dislike for Yeezy though

Seems like Kanye's anger is sort of circular. He works really hard and is clearly working toward specific, ambitious and often explicitly stated goals, and when he reaches them or even comes close, there's this sour air of entitlement and expectation that manifests itself. Like, "I did it, where's my prize?" At the same time, he is restless and creative enough that he'd never be happy simply crowned ... something, so he dives back into the next high-expectation project, with the same frustrating lack of "good job" closure. It's like he's chasing non-tangible rewards and gets pissed there's no clear measure of that kind of success.

swathes of people dislike high profile opinionated black celebrity for some nebulous reason

12 years ago today

September 2nd, 2005 pic.twitter.com/p0ZlAhDVA5

— Andrew Barber (@fakeshoredrive) September 2, 2017

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfo4OQXAP0K/?taken-by=teamkanyedaily

woah.

Manic Kanye: classic or dud?

Classic, but with some dud moments

Kanye Says His Twitter Is His New Book

^ otm

Cocaine’s a hell of a drug

When I read those tweets the voice in my head is always Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

s/o to the half of my twitter feed that's been retweeting Kanye all day long today. might have missed these gems otherwise, thanks guys.