[Severian]

Originally Posted by evollove

Never heard the Kanye song. I just now read the lyric. It mostly sucks, but perhaps with music the lyric has more force. On paper it's mostly about how great he is and how shitty she is. Sampling "Strange Fruit" was a very, very poor choice, both artistically and morally. If he wanted to pay tribute to Nina, he should have sampled a different track and written words about an entirely different sort of woman.

There are other problems with this song. Example:

Now you sittin' courtside, wifey on the other side
Gotta keep 'em separated, I call that apartheid

The fuck? Look up the word "apartheid" you brilliant wordsmith.

My two cents. From someone who doesn't particularly like Kanye. Or hip-hop.

Musically it's one of his most powerful songs. I doubt you'd like it but not everyone can have my impeccable taste

Thanks for REPLYING btw. The rest of these goons can't be arsed apparently.

[Severian]

"Apartheid" may not be tasteful, but I believe it fits as a metaphor. Not a great metaphor, and it may reveal that Kanye's understanding of the word is limited, but on a basic level it works I think.

[evollove]

You're so hot, I want you back,
Feel like Ghandi just as he got whacked.

Just come back to me, okay?
Don't say our love is dead like MLK.

You don't know what you're doing to me.
Bitch, you're worse than slavery.

But I want you back, you're so hot
Don't be mean like that guy Pol Pot.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by evollove

You're so hot, I want you back,
Feel like Ghandi just as he got whacked.

Just come back to me, okay?
Don't say our love is dead like MLK.

You don't know what you're doing to me.
Bitch, you're worse than slavery.

But I want you back, you're so hot
Don't be mean like that guy Pol Pot.

Bahahahahaa ok yeah point made. It's a false equivalence. Separating two people is not the same as apartheid, even if it is, technically, a form of segregation. I get you. I just think it works as a lyric and is it as dumb as those examples you came up with.

Also I've decided that as a middle class white man with a college education, I kind of have no right to judge what "Strange Fruit" means to black people. "Strange Fruit" belongs to black Americans. I may not find the juxtaposition entirely tasteful, but I don't think it matter much whether I find it tasteful or not, and I don't think I have much of a right to criticize how the lyrics are reinterpreted by a black man.

Dats just me tho.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by evollove

You're so hot, I want you back,
Feel like Ghandi just as he got whacked.

Just come back to me, okay?
Don't say our love is dead like MLK.

You don't know what you're doing to me.
Bitch, you're worse than slavery.

But I want you back, you're so hot
Don't be mean like that guy Pol Pot.

Hey girl, you know, our love was boss
It had to end, but at what cost?
Now I feel this sense of loss
It's pretty much the holocaust

[evollove]

You can win.

But we're joking. He was serious. I can take a lot of tastelessness in music as long the artist knows it's tasteless.

Whatever. I doubt he'll be boycotted anytime soon.

[louder]

Originally Posted by evollove

You can win.

But we're joking. He was serious. I can take a lot of tastelessness in music as long the artist knows it's tasteless.

Whatever. I doubt he'll be boycotted anytime soon.

Kanye's lyrics aren't always necessarily that serious. He has a dark/warped sense of humor. He's mentioned it in a bunch of interviews as well.

[louder]

After a prolific — yes, seriously — conversation with Ellen DeGeneres on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Kanye West joined the host for a little game of 5 Second Rule. West and DeGeneres took turns answering questions like, “Give us three things that are hairy?” in five seconds. (West’s answer? “BALLS! BALLS! BALLS!.”)

KW: I think my sense of humor is really dark and super twisted and stuff like that. It's like, "Is this a funny joke for real? Or am I just rich?" See? That was funny.

For some reason, people refuse to see how naturally funny he just is, and take him more seriously than they should.

[louder]

Originally Posted by Severian

"Apartheid" may not be tasteful, but I believe it fits as a metaphor. Not a great metaphor, and it may reveal that Kanye's understanding of the word is limited, but on a basic level it works I think.

I mean, at least he made a joke about his own people's history. It would've been much worse if a non-black person made that joke, to be honest.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

I mean, at least he made a joke about his own people's history. It would've been much worse if a non-black person made that joke, to be honest.

This is what's I was getting at when I said that I didn't have a right to have a problem with his use of "Strange Fruit." It would be kind of fucked up for me to criticize or even question how a black American chooses to re-interpret that song. It doesn't belong to me.

That's my decision. Same with Apartheid, not that I had any problem with that one. But ... it's not my place to question HOW "Strange Fruit" is introduced to a new generation of music listeners. It just isn't.

And you know, in the Kanye forum where I also brought this up, I explained the song's history and a lot of people told me they had no idea where the song was from. They didn't know the history behind it. Now they do. Why? Because Kanye's music started a discussion.

Also, the response has overwhelmingly been "no this is not I bad taste" among other Kanye fans.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by evollove

You can win.

But we're joking. He was serious. I can take a lot of tastelessness in music as long the artist knows it's tasteless.

Eeeehhhhhhh.... *shakes hand in "ehhh" motion* ... I'm not so sure we can take his seriousness at face value. In the next song on the album he raps about heartbreak, being left by someone he loves who has made herself unavailable to him ("it's getting cold, better bring your ski clothes, I'm peaking through the key hole of the door lock by myself...") and then raps about Chewbacca.

Whether he's serious or not (sometimes he certainly is, other times clearly not, sometimes it's anyone's guess) is part of the odd dichotomy that Kanye's music presents. Do we love to hate this, or hate to love it? Or just hate it? Or just love it? Is he in on it? Is he out of it? Is he Picasso or Escobar or Paul the apostle?

The answer is 42.

[Severian]

MORE WORDS!!

I got an interesting take on this from my girlfriend last night. She told me her interpretation was that Kane was actually using "Strange Fruit" and juxtaposing it with materialistic and narcissistic lyrics intentionally, in an effort to show how vapid and inconsequential these things (divorce, drugs, relationship problems, alimony), are compared to what black America has been through. I've listened to the song a lot lately, and the phrase "black bodies swinging in the summer breeze" comes up more times than I remember. It kind of writhes under the surface of the song and then bubbles up, and when it does it's like a punch to the gut. You're listening to lyrics about Instagram and not being able to do cocaine, and then you hear "black bodies swinging in the summer breeze," and it snaps things back into focus.

I think "Bloood on the Leaves" might be a very deliberate compare contrast piece. I think my girlfriend was right and that the point of the song is to make the main narrative sound totally empty... to remind people of how things are and how things used to be. And as f***ed as they are now, we shouldn't forget that it was not really that long ago that these lynchings still took place frequently.

I always thought the point was to compare the suffering of celebrity to the suffering of slavery and segregation, but I think the point might be to say, "hey, I think life is so hard because I have to pay alimony... but 100 years ago I would have been swinging in the summer breeze."

Just a thought. Sorry. Not trying to be a dick, or be confrontational. Interested to see if I'm making any sense.

[Severian]

This is by far the most interesting conversation in this thread, and yet, y'all aren't saying shit.

Y'all are BALLS.

[Rob Instigator]

not concerned with Kanye's pseudo-political weaksauce.

[Severian]

Kanye's sauce is so not weak that Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Village Voice, Pirchfork, Aziz Ansari, some chick from SNL, Will Toledo and I, to name just a few, have attested to the undeniablility of his genius.

Just sayin' ... y'know... that you're wrong. There may not be a systematic and empirical way to prove that you're wrong, but there's everything but that.

Kanye West makes great music /FACTS

[Severian]

Anyway shut up so people can talk about my words and stuff. And hopefully not respond too sourly to being called "BALLS."

[Rob Instigator]

I've been blasting Future's latest and Rich Homie Quan's latest and they are great and I love how my car vibrates and I love the fucking tracks about drugs and intoxication and overuse and degeneracy.

[h8kurdt]

 

A day late, I know, but 5 years on he's still missed.

R.I.P Adam Yauch 'MCA'

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I've been blasting Future's latest and Rich Homie Quan's latest and they are great and I love how my car vibrates and I love the fucking tracks about drugs and intoxication and overuse and degeneracy.

You haven't even listened to DAMN. yet have you?

I feel you though. Not big on Homie Quan, but I get in the mood for Fugure sometimes too. Usually just blast a track or two. Not an "album" artist. But whatever.

You seem to like hip-hop the way I like horror movies. Not classy horror movies like Nosferatu, but, like, Dead Alive ... or Nightbreed.

[Rob Instigator]

I have spun DAMN, but it doesnt boom my trunk like the hot trap hits. sorry.