Speaker 1: You are now listening and waiting on reparations A production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Yeah it's waiting. Uh, it's way now,
Speaker 1: yell yo, Knife is the illness. Don't matter any state
Speaker 1: I'm in. I'm wrought like an uncut gym. This is
Speaker 1: the way I win. Wrappers acting FRONTI for money, So
Speaker 1: I don't play with them. Your favorite rappers out here
Speaker 1: making America great again. But I just played a winning
Speaker 1: focus on the state I'm in. Staying Tim still told
Speaker 1: Boots time to break him in hearing through the wire.
Speaker 1: I was steering through the fire. I was focused on myself.
Speaker 1: I'm appear that you admire Dope Knife Lingua Franca. We'll
Speaker 1: be preaching of the choirs, waiting on reparations. Now the
Speaker 1: booth can retire. Nigger take chords, swing swords like a showgun.
Speaker 1: Y'all fair, Now, all hail to the dope one ye yea.
Speaker 1: Waiting on reprobations, yea, wait in reprobations. Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah that's good. I'm dope knife Franca and we are
Speaker 1: waiting on reparation. Well, what good? What's good with you? No?
Speaker 1: I started to ask you first. I ask you first.
Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm good, Like I I you know, the
Speaker 1: studio thing I've been talking about like the last month,
Speaker 1: like I'm finally finally like done, you know, fully getting
Speaker 1: that it's been It's been really it's been rough. I
Speaker 1: don't know why it's been so slow, but it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, one day I'll move a desk in there,
Speaker 1: and then I won't go back there for like another
Speaker 1: like week, and then you know, but finally I've got
Speaker 1: like all the stuff in there, so it's good to go.
Speaker 1: I'm good to start using it and finally start recording
Speaker 1: at my prolific MC pace that I I once had
Speaker 1: going what about you? How was your week? Oh? Also,
Speaker 1: I'm getting prepared for that Afroman show that August eleventh
Speaker 1: at Victory North and Savannah, Georgia. So yeah, that's like
Speaker 1: pretty much preoccupying like every aspect of stuff right now.
Speaker 1: What about you? Yeah, I mean important thing, I hope. No,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm back on my commission grind. We had
Speaker 1: our first in person meeting at City Hall last Tuesday,
Speaker 1: first in person meeting in a year and a half,
Speaker 1: and you know what, actually felt good to be back.
Speaker 1: I thought I would be like resentful that I can't
Speaker 1: hang out with like no pants on on camp, you know,
Speaker 1: on the camera, eating snacks, taking you know, turning my
Speaker 1: camera off so and go pee mid meeting. But actually
Speaker 1: it was really nice being back there with my colleagues.
Speaker 1: Um sinse of like more of a human element. It's
Speaker 1: really easy to just hate these bitches sometimes when even
Speaker 1: here it's just like, yeah, they're like cameras aren't even
Speaker 1: all you don't even know if they're in the meeting
Speaker 1: and ship, but it's like, oh, they're there, and you know,
Speaker 1: like you, oh, I like your raincoat and you know whatever.
Speaker 1: Just banned this basic banter to bring people together to
Speaker 1: remember that we made different. Yeah, we may different ideologically
Speaker 1: or like in how we move through this political um sphere,
Speaker 1: but like we're people. You know, It's it's kind of nice.
Speaker 1: It's kind of nice. It's not gonna lie, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all that's going on on this end. You know.
Speaker 1: We're all people with our with our flaws and our quirks.
Speaker 1: Speaking of people with flaws and quirks, Oh boy, Sir,
Speaker 1: Kanye West is back in the news again, and this
Speaker 1: week we're gonna talk about Kanye West again, talk about
Speaker 1: ye we unpacking some of his his headline making political
Speaker 1: stances old because some of his old controversies, and then
Speaker 1: during a Delbo's well into his discography which has interesting
Speaker 1: um implications for politics as well. So just you know,
Speaker 1: before we dive into the episode and stuff, just what
Speaker 1: are your general I don't even want to say thoughts,
Speaker 1: what was your general reaction to like this new resurgence
Speaker 1: and Kanye's popularity during this album cycle for this album
Speaker 1: Donda He's got coming out. I mean, well, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: even call it a resurgence because as I as I
Speaker 1: kind of looked into his recent musical history, his musical
Speaker 1: output has really ramped up over the last decade. Where
Speaker 1: it went from you know, a couple of years between albums,
Speaker 1: so like we're consistently getting one every two years every year,
Speaker 1: or you know back in fum with that too, when
Speaker 1: did you do NASA's album? Shoot on the subject, so
Speaker 1: back to you know, like producing four or five albums
Speaker 1: in a single year. Yeah, he didn't push ther tease
Speaker 1: album and then NASA's album. Yeah, him and Kid Cutty
Speaker 1: did a project, didn't there. I think that ghosts in
Speaker 1: that period, I think yeah, And so I mean I
Speaker 1: wonder to a degree it does impact the quality. As
Speaker 1: an old Kanye, a lover of ole Kanye, as many
Speaker 1: of us are, you know, I just don't feel as
Speaker 1: inspired by some of the newer material. Do you think
Speaker 1: some of that's like influenced by some of how your
Speaker 1: reaction to his personal antics and stuff like that that
Speaker 1: is affecting how you're taking in the music, or do
Speaker 1: you think the music itself has dropped in quality at
Speaker 1: least become different. I'm far more inclined to give someone's
Speaker 1: music a chance if I think they're a cool and
Speaker 1: good person for sure. Um, and so uh hardst like
Speaker 1: you said some black ship, bra, I don't really. I mean,
Speaker 1: on the flip side, I have not canceled Connie entirely
Speaker 1: from my discography and from my like you know, playlist rotations. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think on account of the things he said either.
Speaker 1: It's just that I obviously got his music just because
Speaker 1: it's on a different tip than it used to be.
Speaker 1: And also I don't want to really encourage this ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I totally agree with you. I don't think Kanye's,
Speaker 1: at least not to this point, has done anything that
Speaker 1: like makes what you thought of his older stuff or
Speaker 1: how you even just interpreted it any different. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. To me there as somebody who's never necessarily
Speaker 1: been like a Kanye fan, I have noticed like a
Speaker 1: change stylistically or like an approach to music making that
Speaker 1: that seems like it's gotten different over the years. That first,
Speaker 1: what do you hope? You know if you if an
Speaker 1: artist stays making the same sounding music for twenty years,
Speaker 1: like are they really growing as an artists? Are they
Speaker 1: really like pushing themselves? Are they really like like hitting
Speaker 1: their creative like peak? And if you don't enjoy the
Speaker 1: new music that's coming out that is changing at all
Speaker 1: of growth? Yea agree, it's just who is that growth for?
Speaker 1: I guess you know what I mean? Like I have
Speaker 1: a feeling that if I if I were like an
Speaker 1: NBA player, or if I like hit it big and
Speaker 1: like the Bitcoin stock, if I was like a young
Speaker 1: rich person, Yeah, I feel like I would really really
Speaker 1: really enjoy likes to say it is music, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? But um, we're gonna we're gonna jump
Speaker 1: into that and more because I mean, we both got
Speaker 1: a lot to say on this, and we also got
Speaker 1: a lot to cover. So we're gonna get into all
Speaker 1: this Kanye madness after the job, after the job. So yeah,
Speaker 1: returned to Atlanta last week, the place of his birth
Speaker 1: and how the listening party last Thursday for US new
Speaker 1: but partially unfinished forthcoming album Donda at the Mercedes beIN Stadium. U.
Speaker 1: There's about forty thousand fans in attendance, which I with
Speaker 1: the Delta, Barian and everything the people all got the
Speaker 1: Delta makes me kind of held nervous. But an addition
Speaker 1: to you know, they crammed for UK people in there
Speaker 1: to experience the album five. The event was also streamed
Speaker 1: exclusively on Apple Music and is said to have broken
Speaker 1: the record for Apple Music live stream with three point
Speaker 1: three million people across the world tuned in to listen
Speaker 1: to the new album. Um, that's before Yeah, It's fine.
Speaker 1: That same evening, the Atlanta City Council issued a proclamation
Speaker 1: honoring Kanye West with the citywide holiday in his name,
Speaker 1: Kanye West Day. They call it. That's right. July is
Speaker 1: now officially Kanye West Day in Atlanta. I want that
Speaker 1: to I want that to sink in. I wanted to
Speaker 1: sink in and marinate just for a second now, This
Speaker 1: was presented by the city councilor for the District five,
Speaker 1: Nataline Archibong, Nataline Archibald, who is currently running for a
Speaker 1: city council president. And she probably thought this was gonna
Speaker 1: be like a doll all know, we're proclaimed a lot
Speaker 1: twenty two Kanye West day. I'll get a great photo
Speaker 1: op with Kanye. Put it on my campaign you know
Speaker 1: card or whatever, and uh, you know, and boost my
Speaker 1: and boost my you know, my standing in the district.
Speaker 1: Little did she know at a time that Kanye would
Speaker 1: be wearing pantyhose over his head and face for the
Speaker 1: events duration. And so the photos of them together, of him,
Speaker 1: of her, of delivering the proclamation to Kanye, he looks
Speaker 1: like he just either has some kids in the back
Speaker 1: of his vand or sold some gold bars from a
Speaker 1: Swiss bank, So it's bad. He was recently at something
Speaker 1: in um in Paris with a little baby and the
Speaker 1: basketball player James Harden and there was a picture take
Speaker 1: of of them all like all sitting together and He's
Speaker 1: got the mask on over his head and little baby
Speaker 1: and James Hardener just looking at him like, Yo, what
Speaker 1: the fund is even going on right now? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like this whole thing, and that's I
Speaker 1: guess why I was saying, like resurgence and popularity. I
Speaker 1: guess that was a wrong way to phrase it, because
Speaker 1: it's not like he's ever lost the popularity, not necessarily,
Speaker 1: but it's just like, you know, if you if a
Speaker 1: hip hop artist can't at least see any kind of
Speaker 1: a hit after like Kanye's run the last like three years,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, then I think we're at
Speaker 1: the point where, like if an artist like establishes enough
Speaker 1: of a of a fan base that they're pretty much
Speaker 1: bulletproof to any everything. And I'm not I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about like canceling, you know what I mean. But it
Speaker 1: just seems like even people who were like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I don't like the Kanye did that, or I don't
Speaker 1: like the Kanye said that, like right now, we're like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I can't wait for this album, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So it's almost like his career is bulletproof,
Speaker 1: you know. At this point, I guess I really don't
Speaker 1: know what he can do. I really know what you
Speaker 1: could possibly do, and we're obviously going to get into
Speaker 1: what he's done, but yeah, I can't at this point,
Speaker 1: I can't think of it really like, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: these people are all in the tank. So Dr Kevin James,
Speaker 1: the president of Morris Brown College, private Methodist, historically black
Speaker 1: liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, also presented West with
Speaker 1: the Merritt how do you say that? Marrit? He also
Speaker 1: awarded Kanye West with a Meritorious Service Award for his mother,
Speaker 1: doctor Donda West. His mother, so he said, doctor Donda
Speaker 1: West started her career at Morris Brown College as a
Speaker 1: professor and eventual and eventual department Chair of English. We
Speaker 1: wanted to convey the utmost respect that we have for
Speaker 1: his mother's legacy. So in addition to I didn't know,
Speaker 1: first of all, I didn't know that Kanye was born
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. I also didn't know that his mother was
Speaker 1: the department of the chair of English at like an HBCUM.
Speaker 1: Which makes sense because I mean, something that was so
Speaker 1: iconic about Kandye when he made his breakthrough was his
Speaker 1: like aesthetic that he broke away from, like the gangs,
Speaker 1: that the life kind of thing, and like learning more
Speaker 1: and more about his history, it's like, well that's just
Speaker 1: like authentically, wasn't him like he was kind of like
Speaker 1: a middle class ass dude, and like was just like
Speaker 1: that's a I guess like normalized like that as a
Speaker 1: way to be black. That is fine to be you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I guess that's what makes me
Speaker 1: wonder about like Kanya is because like a lot of
Speaker 1: his early a lot of his early stuff, like his
Speaker 1: early aesthetic very much was like steeped in that sort
Speaker 1: of like no nonsense, unapologetically black, Like I don't funk
Speaker 1: with you know, I don't funk with the bullshit type
Speaker 1: of ship. And it's just like I don't know, I
Speaker 1: feel like if I were like a Kanye West fan
Speaker 1: like that, because like like I said, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like his whole discography, I don't I don't know like
Speaker 1: all of the classic lines from all of the Kanye
Speaker 1: songs and stuff like that. Like, but it feels like
Speaker 1: everything about him is kind of has to be called
Speaker 1: into question now, doesn't it, Like did you mean? Like
Speaker 1: you kind of have to reassess like a lot of
Speaker 1: like past statements. It's like did he really mean that?
Speaker 1: Like did like what was really behind him saying George W.
Speaker 1: Bush doesn't care about black people and snl if like
Speaker 1: we see what he's doing. Now, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. And it's so funny because
Speaker 1: like you're like, oh, like you're posting the question and
Speaker 1: also saying like if I had at that level of investment,
Speaker 1: I would like want to that like in trogate that
Speaker 1: and then my end as like a somewhat Kanye fan,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, maybe I can answer this one. Nope,
Speaker 1: no one can. No one can't because I actually don't
Speaker 1: care that much. Yeah, I don't care as much as
Speaker 1: I surprisingly as I thought I might try. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really. I'm not really gonna read into it's
Speaker 1: a whole great deal. You gonna be real with him.
Speaker 1: But um, so you know, he was awarded and accolades
Speaker 1: both from the academic community in Atlanta as well as
Speaker 1: the UM City Council, which I find hilarious. Um, in
Speaker 1: upcoming weeks or I guess when I go away for
Speaker 1: for a little bit later, uh, you know, like September. Um,
Speaker 1: I got some episodes stockpile for you. Also, I had
Speaker 1: an interview with someone who's in Atlanta politics that uh,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to share and so just like always, it's
Speaker 1: always like a spectator of Atlanta politics. It's just hilarious
Speaker 1: to see the city council just do some weird random
Speaker 1: like silly ship like this, like call it naming it.
Speaker 1: Kanye West is pandering to super rich people. It's like
Speaker 1: very very on brand for them. So addition all of this,
Speaker 1: you know happening around his um his listening party last Thursday,
Speaker 1: Kanye West is now a part of living in Mercedes
Speaker 1: Benz Stadium. Um Vans took to social media on Saturday
Speaker 1: with photos of a man at the Atlanted United game
Speaker 1: who were who was dressed in the same outfit that
Speaker 1: West dawned at his Thursday listening party, face camouflaged and
Speaker 1: panty pose and in videos from the game of this individual,
Speaker 1: the man who should escorted around the stadium with a
Speaker 1: large security detail and seemingly responds, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: like waves and looks up when fans called out like Kanye,
Speaker 1: Kanye Kanye. So it could be a weird hoax, but
Speaker 1: I'm inclined to believe it was really him, And increasingly
Speaker 1: reports are confirming that Kanye and his team have created
Speaker 1: a studio space, a living quarters, and even have a
Speaker 1: chef um on call to prepare his meals inside the Mercedes.
Speaker 1: Benz is definitely not a hoax. It's real. At first,
Speaker 1: I was like, maybe some guy just dressed up like
Speaker 1: him and went to the Atlanta United game to be funny,
Speaker 1: But like it's increasingly seeming like, no, this is actually
Speaker 1: this is the man. I saw a video on YouTube
Speaker 1: of Kanye West and Jay Z recording the Watch the
Speaker 1: Thrones album in a fucking castle in Australia with Russell
Speaker 1: Crowe sitting in the background. Watch it, Like, trust me,
Speaker 1: this Nick is living in the best state. He's all
Speaker 1: the way up in there. Yeah, just to recap Sims,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got some of these city officials kind
Speaker 1: of attaching themselves to Kanye West with all the accolades
Speaker 1: and stuff. Let's just do a little quick stroll down
Speaker 1: memory lane, so like, you know, like seven months ago
Speaker 1: and ship about like what Kanye's political involvement has been
Speaker 1: as of late months, removed from Kanye having a sort
Speaker 1: of kind of presidential campaign that was filled to the
Speaker 1: brim with GOP operatives who were making albeit stupid and
Speaker 1: misguided or whatever, but on their front, a genuine earnest
Speaker 1: attempt to shave the margins of election in favor of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. We all remember the at this point infamous
Speaker 1: Oval Office visit that. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: shocking and driving going on. This is all I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say in that Oval Office visit. What else We've got
Speaker 1: him championing Candice Owison's Blexit strategy or in other words,
Speaker 1: her imaginary plan for African Americans to make a large
Speaker 1: exodus not just from the Democrat Party but into the
Speaker 1: Republican Party and voting for Trump. In his advocating for
Speaker 1: this whole Blexic thing earned him the praise of Alex Jones.
Speaker 1: You want to read that Alex Jones quote. Oh God,
Speaker 1: nothing would make me more happy. I just assumed he
Speaker 1: was a Democrat and a globalist, says Alex. Said Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: He's has a lot of courage, and he's a maverick.
Speaker 1: Connie West has got talent, you name it. I apologized
Speaker 1: to him for being ignorant myself. See Alex Jones also
Speaker 1: later on. But they would have like Alex Jones and
Speaker 1: Tanya West in the club. I would I would pay
Speaker 1: I would pay money to be near that, not too
Speaker 1: near like just kind of like close enough to like
Speaker 1: binocular distance. Kanye West, Kandy host with shirtless Alex Jones
Speaker 1: next to them in the club. Hell yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I would pay to be like just an close enough
Speaker 1: to just see but not physically you know, be at
Speaker 1: risk of physical harm. This is the same Alex Jones
Speaker 1: who just recently said that there's genetic differences between the
Speaker 1: intelligence of on racial groups and obviously he believes that
Speaker 1: on average, white people are genetically smarter. That that's the
Speaker 1: same Alex Jones that you know. Kanye West is getting
Speaker 1: praise from great transformer campaign manager and editor right wing
Speaker 1: and news site Breitbart, even express wanting to bring West
Speaker 1: on as a columnist after his slavery comments that we
Speaker 1: are going to get into a little bit later. So
Speaker 1: that's Kanye's people for you. You got owns bright Bart
Speaker 1: news editors, former campaign staff or Trump sort of freaks
Speaker 1: and goblins, Canda Zens fucking freaky ass yo. Nothing that
Speaker 1: made me sadder though. Let's okay, quick detour on Candace Owens.
Speaker 1: I was seeing on Twitter. It was this was a
Speaker 1: while ago, but she like posted pictures of her baby right,
Speaker 1: and I know, and her fan base like who she
Speaker 1: you know, she thrives off of like feeding invalidating people's racism.
Speaker 1: Like in the comments, so many people were like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's unfortunate that you have like a you know, on
Speaker 1: unpure blood or like whatever sort of like because it's
Speaker 1: like a mixed race child. It's like, oh, it's like
Speaker 1: it sucks the way that like MUDs turn out and
Speaker 1: like saying like people who like, you know, follow her
Speaker 1: because they like love her work because she is a
Speaker 1: racist being racist about her baby in the comments on
Speaker 1: her so because they're racist. And I was just like wow,
Speaker 1: to be that in the sunken place that I don't
Speaker 1: know how she even psychologically just manages to live through
Speaker 1: what she has done. But that's the thing for like
Speaker 1: those uh, token right wingers and stuff like that. If
Speaker 1: you look through if you look through their comments sections,
Speaker 1: it's all like that. Like Candice Osen's comments section is
Speaker 1: like that where it's like, oh, like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: your fans are all racist and don't really like you,
Speaker 1: you're just spreading propaganda. You look on Blair White's comments section,
Speaker 1: there's bad transpobs in there. Ben Shapiro always has like
Speaker 1: Nazis that hate him because He's Jewish and his comment
Speaker 1: section it's like reaping with you so type of ship.
Speaker 1: But they're grifters at the end of the day, so
Speaker 1: they don't care, you know what I mean, to sell
Speaker 1: yourself to that degree, I mean, I understand to do
Speaker 1: it for the money or whatever, but to subject yourself
Speaker 1: to that like level of not from people that disagree
Speaker 1: with you, but for the people that support you like shit, bro.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so Owen's rare breed of black person dollar
Speaker 1: dollar bills. So we're gonna get into some of Kanye
Speaker 1: West's most ridiculous statements in and antics and the political
Speaker 1: spectrum right after the joke. So we're back, and I
Speaker 1: don't even know where we should start, but I guess
Speaker 1: we could start. He's been just doing wild ship for years,
Speaker 1: but it's been coming. I feel like it's becoming increasingly
Speaker 1: poltical in recent years. I mean, perhaps everything has become
Speaker 1: more politicized, um in the Trump and post trump eras.
Speaker 1: I mean, he did you know he did the basics
Speaker 1: share with like the Taylor Swift thing that other controversies.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was like regular celebrity bullshit before, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, And now it's like, yeah, now
Speaker 1: he's up. So okay, let's start with the time that
Speaker 1: Kanye said that slavery was a choice and his interview
Speaker 1: with Charlotte Mae and the God so Um. He said,
Speaker 1: when you hear about slavery for four years, for four
Speaker 1: new years, that's look a choice. He said, Um, you
Speaker 1: were there for four years and it's all of y'all.
Speaker 1: It's like we're mentally imprisoned. He later unclarified, of course,
Speaker 1: I know that slaves did not get shackled and put
Speaker 1: on a boat by free will. My point is that
Speaker 1: my point is for us to have stayed in that position,
Speaker 1: even though the numbers were on our side, means that
Speaker 1: we are mentally enslaved. Would you know what, I'm not
Speaker 1: even gonna like, okay, hear me out. I feel like
Speaker 1: Conny has a point in that we are previously on
Speaker 1: the show. Listen here, just hear me. On previous almost
Speaker 1: I've discussed like the Haitian revolution um and things like that,
Speaker 1: where the numbers were on the side of the slaves
Speaker 1: and they rose up and like ended slavery. You know,
Speaker 1: like it's not a historically unprecedented act. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go so far as to blame slaves
Speaker 1: for slavery, like, oh, you know, they're mentally enslaved. It's
Speaker 1: their fault that has happened, you know. But like the point,
Speaker 1: the point that he's making that like the numbers were
Speaker 1: on our side and like slaves, like I mean, there
Speaker 1: was like Nat Turner's rebellion, there were various you know,
Speaker 1: smaller slave rebellions that got squashed. But like it is
Speaker 1: kind of surprising that like it we never never managed
Speaker 1: to pop off here the way it did in place.
Speaker 1: It's like Ja make our Haiti, where people were just like,
Speaker 1: we're not having it and they just kind of ended
Speaker 1: the institution of slavery by force. Well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it probably would have had to have been just
Speaker 1: on a larger scale than it ever was able to
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, than was ever able to
Speaker 1: happen for it to really pop off. But regardless of
Speaker 1: the point, because I I hear the point that you're making,
Speaker 1: my issue is just Kanye West is like a multi
Speaker 1: hundred million dollar Cuban being. So he's got handlers and
Speaker 1: people and he himself, I don't even want to not
Speaker 1: give him credit. He himself is a savvy, you know,
Speaker 1: media navigator and stuff like that. Kanye West knows full
Speaker 1: and damn well that the amount of people who heard
Speaker 1: that clarification and that nuanced explanations pales in comparison to
Speaker 1: the amount of people that heard him say for hundred
Speaker 1: years slavery. That sounds like a choice. He didn't say
Speaker 1: the second one first. Yeah, you know, so like I hear,
Speaker 1: I hear it. I get the point. But if that's
Speaker 1: what we were talking about, then I would be able
Speaker 1: to be here, to be here and say, man, I
Speaker 1: think people are being kind of unfair to Kanye because
Speaker 1: if you listen to what he was saying, he was
Speaker 1: really saying. That's not what he said though, And like
Speaker 1: I saw the interview, he could have said all of
Speaker 1: that ship and yeah, yeah, I mean I wanted to
Speaker 1: a degree. It was that he continued to think about
Speaker 1: it and think about how he could make it sounded better,
Speaker 1: better because the backlash, because the backlash and came back
Speaker 1: with something that was like halfway imaginable. I was like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: the numbers were on our side. It's shocking there wasn't
Speaker 1: a slave uprising broad enough to end the institution of
Speaker 1: slavery the United States at any point, um, but these
Speaker 1: things they have to work in like, you know, it
Speaker 1: can't be like taken in a vacuum. Kanye West making
Speaker 1: these statements on their own is one thing. Kanye West
Speaker 1: making these statements on is like, and then also fucking
Speaker 1: with Candice Owens and then also like two years later
Speaker 1: doing the ship with the GOP Like, all of it
Speaker 1: together just paints like are really kind of like fucked
Speaker 1: up picture to me, you know what I'm saying, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: And ultimately, I mean with some of the other things
Speaker 1: that we're gonna discuss today as we move on to
Speaker 1: you know, look at some of what he said during
Speaker 1: its presidential campaign, Like if you take it, I guess
Speaker 1: out of the political context in which we know Kanye
Speaker 1: to be operating, He's fucking what Trump people is hanging
Speaker 1: out with candacel Ones and Ox Jones. If you just
Speaker 1: like look at face value at some of the things
Speaker 1: he said, it's not as crazy as it it could seem.
Speaker 1: But once you like look at it through the lens
Speaker 1: of oh you are you like we're a maga hat
Speaker 1: and white supremacist and ship like they're it's it's it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to divorce it from that ideology like you
Speaker 1: have you know. But so like you heard about you
Speaker 1: heard about the ship that they're trying to pass in Texas, right,
Speaker 1: which what and what now the anti critical race theory
Speaker 1: ship where it's like, oh, you can't teach the I
Speaker 1: have a dream speech, and you can't talk about Native
Speaker 1: American genocide. You can't like slavery, can say the KKK
Speaker 1: was bad exactly. You can't more like make a moral
Speaker 1: judgment on like white supremacy and stuff like that. We
Speaker 1: might not know this now, we might not know it
Speaker 1: ten years from now. Somebody way smarter than me will
Speaker 1: have to analyze it and find out how incrementally these
Speaker 1: things affected it. But there's a ton of right wingers
Speaker 1: who like, oh word a famous rich black eye reinforce
Speaker 1: some some like things that I wanted to believe and
Speaker 1: said that slavery was a choice. Yeah, that ship trickles
Speaker 1: down over time. You know what I'm saying, Like people
Speaker 1: believe like people hear that ship. I mean, look, I
Speaker 1: know we want to all believe that. It's like we're
Speaker 1: all like filled with a bunch of like smart people.
Speaker 1: But it's actually a bunch of stupid people with like smartphones,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And like people are susceptible
Speaker 1: to believing ship that they want to hear. It's just
Speaker 1: the fact we know this. And when you've got the
Speaker 1: Internet and social media just pumping the whole concept of
Speaker 1: disinformation and propaganda and like just giving it like a
Speaker 1: boost of meth. You know what I'm saying. You've you've
Speaker 1: got like that that in turns it's it's two thousand eighteen.
Speaker 1: You've got right wingers being like, oh, that black celebrity
Speaker 1: said slavery was a choice, and then you just fast
Speaker 1: forward three years later and it's like, I think we
Speaker 1: should make that I have a dream speech band. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make that law now, you know all I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not insignificant. It does definitely like rebound
Speaker 1: redound in the discourse and get picked up in other
Speaker 1: places where it does serious harm for sure. Um, So
Speaker 1: there's that. And then I was thinking about the anti
Speaker 1: abortion comments he made during his first presidential South Carolina.
Speaker 1: You don't know about in South Carolinas him Okay, so
Speaker 1: he would got out there and he cried and revealed
Speaker 1: that he said my mom saved my life. My dad
Speaker 1: wanted to abort me. My mom saved my life. There
Speaker 1: would be no There would have been no Connie West
Speaker 1: because my dad was too busy. So like talking about
Speaker 1: how he was almost not he he was almost apported,
Speaker 1: and then he continued sobbing, thinking I almost killed my daughter.
Speaker 1: And he goes into extremely personal detail about his intimate
Speaker 1: conversations with Kim Kardashian about whether or not they were
Speaker 1: going to pursue parenthood and like have North, Um, did
Speaker 1: you know he was going to do this? No? He
Speaker 1: even said he even said I don't like, I don't
Speaker 1: care if she divorces me. After this speech, like yeah,
Speaker 1: what really that He later apologized to her for saying
Speaker 1: like very very intimate stuff that no one, I think
Speaker 1: they're divorced now, Like right, is that? Okay? I didn't
Speaker 1: hear about this one. What he was like she had
Speaker 1: the abortion pills in her hand and like got real,
Speaker 1: like very deeply personal about their conversations about having North,
Speaker 1: and so he then went on to propose that she's
Speaker 1: not cool though, right, I'm sorry, Oh that's not all
Speaker 1: right at all? All right? Word like no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, no no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: what I mean, I would think that in this climate,
Speaker 1: some sh like that should have made it only like
Speaker 1: twenty people in that stadium. Well yeah, so definitely. So
Speaker 1: this is this is this is again an instantiation of
Speaker 1: like the thing I was discussing previously, where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so like the media friends, these is like anti abortion comments, which, like,
Speaker 1: I think, as a person, you're totally allowed to like
Speaker 1: feel this way if you want to on an individual level,
Speaker 1: like you know, feeling regret about almost you know, having
Speaker 1: abortion and then you you're glad you didn't or like
Speaker 1: whatever about your own circumstances. You're glad to be alive
Speaker 1: because your parents didn't make that choice, Like you're it's
Speaker 1: you're like, on an individual level, you're absolutely allowed to
Speaker 1: um to feel that way. I wouldn't I wouldn't classify
Speaker 1: these as anti abortion comments in like a policy sense,
Speaker 1: as much as the personal stance of like this is
Speaker 1: something that he does not agree with. Granted, again, it's
Speaker 1: within the context of the hanging out with Trump hang
Speaker 1: O Canada's owens. It's a press supposedly a presidential campaign rally,
Speaker 1: and so it's extrapolated to be like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: a policy nts of yours consider Lauren Hill has that
Speaker 1: same stance, right, Lauren Hill, because Lauren Hills not sucking
Speaker 1: what Steve Bannon and ship you know what I mean
Speaker 1: exactly exactly exactly, So we can take it as a
Speaker 1: personal stance and not as like some fucking plausibly deniable
Speaker 1: political you know. Yeah, and so, especially when you put
Speaker 1: in the context of so West. So he tells these
Speaker 1: really personal stories about his own debates around parenthood, and
Speaker 1: then he proposed that there should be no more Plan B,
Speaker 1: which sounds really scary, um, but then he's then he
Speaker 1: proposes a Plan A, which is fifty tho dollars per
Speaker 1: year to help women take care of their child. And uh.
Speaker 1: He said that it takes a village, no matter how
Speaker 1: much money you have, and that society has to be
Speaker 1: set up for single mothers to never society has been
Speaker 1: set up for single mothers to never have a village,
Speaker 1: which like, is it pretty you know, progressive like release
Speaker 1: of policy. He later went on to say he did
Speaker 1: not support making abortion illegal. He just wanted to offer
Speaker 1: people another option in the form of financial support for
Speaker 1: raising their kids and so like I've heard this, I've
Speaker 1: heard an argument very often on the left like if
Speaker 1: you're pro life, then like be pro life after the
Speaker 1: child is born, like make sure they have you know,
Speaker 1: universal pre K and good schools and make sure the
Speaker 1: parents are adequately supported and you know, make sure they
Speaker 1: have healthcare. Dada, da da, and like conservatives generally don't
Speaker 1: want to talk about that parts like we'll have your
Speaker 1: child and then and then you're a welfare queen and
Speaker 1: we hate you and we wish you death and like
Speaker 1: you know, all this crazy shit. Um, but like actually
Speaker 1: saying like if this existed, if like you can get
Speaker 1: fifty dollars a year if you were uh like a
Speaker 1: like a new mother, Like imagine how the abortionery would
Speaker 1: actually drop when people are like, oh, you know what,
Speaker 1: I can maybe handle this, so I'm not gonna be
Speaker 1: like a control and just like oh everything. And he
Speaker 1: says it's bad because I didn't like this and that,
Speaker 1: so yeah, that sounds good. What I will say to that, though.
Speaker 1: You know what I will add to that, though, is
Speaker 1: I want to see him say that to Steve Bannon.
Speaker 1: I want to see Kanye West say that exact position
Speaker 1: to Canada's Owens and see what their reaction is going
Speaker 1: to be, and to see if Kanye holds that same position,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, to see if it stays consistent,
Speaker 1: because like I can definitely picture a Republican politician saying
Speaker 1: that therefore that and getting booed out of the building
Speaker 1: into in today's current Republican climate. So yeah, well, zero
Speaker 1: Republicans voted for the child tax credit that started pinning
Speaker 1: people's bank accounts. JU that is like pretty much like
Speaker 1: a scale down version of what Kanye was talking about
Speaker 1: of like give families a month to you know, by diapers,
Speaker 1: pay for childcare five animal cracker is whatever for kids,
Speaker 1: so that you know, I mean not so that fewer people.
Speaker 1: I mean obviously the kids are already alive, so that
Speaker 1: it's not like it's factoring in the choice, but it's
Speaker 1: this idea of providing financial supports for families so that
Speaker 1: it's like less, so like the hardship is no longer
Speaker 1: factored in for people that are in that situation that
Speaker 1: he was, you know, or his mom was in. You know.
Speaker 1: I think that if we had stuff like universal pre K,
Speaker 1: if we d had stuff like uh for or like
Speaker 1: oh my God like like Medicare for all, like dealing
Speaker 1: right now, like, um, I am losing I'm gonna lose
Speaker 1: my current insurance at the end of the month, and
Speaker 1: I'm having a baby on August and so like that
Speaker 1: whole thing. I can completely understand why somebody would be like, nope,
Speaker 1: not having kids, not dealing with that ship. Like imagine
Speaker 1: how expanding all these like oh socialist support to it,
Speaker 1: like would actually get people to like maybe have child
Speaker 1: more children. You know Republicans and Republicans run from that
Speaker 1: ship and they hate that ship. So I mean, like
Speaker 1: I said, I agree with that. I mean I even
Speaker 1: like agree with literally what Kanye was saying, Like if
Speaker 1: there was just I agree with you that, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: if you if you put him in a room with
Speaker 1: Canada's owns and have him say this, they might get
Speaker 1: into a fight. On the flip side, I feel like
Speaker 1: if you put them in a room with Steve Bannon
Speaker 1: and say that, like a lot of these people like
Speaker 1: because you know, the whole like Kanye going to see
Speaker 1: Trump and hanging out in the office and stuff like,
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. That was just Oh, let's manipulate him,
Speaker 1: Let's get the photos and let's like and so they'd
Speaker 1: be like, and so you put them in a room
Speaker 1: with Steve Bannon however and see Ben and be like
Speaker 1: uh huh uh huh, fascinating great, And then they snapped
Speaker 1: the pictures and then they be like, Okay, how are
Speaker 1: we going to manipulate Kanye into actually like because I
Speaker 1: don't know, doing some fun for bringing back up that Trump?
Speaker 1: That Trump thing? Is this when you think, can you
Speaker 1: imagine what that moment could have been? Like one of
Speaker 1: the most like, what's the what's the word I'm looking for?
Speaker 1: One of the most outspoken hip hop artists is in
Speaker 1: the Oval office with a current sitting President of the
Speaker 1: United States. All of the world's cameras are, they're watching,
Speaker 1: and you can end you're also you also you're politically
Speaker 1: savvy and media trained, and you've been a celebrity for
Speaker 1: a decade at this point, over a decade. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine what that mode? Can you imagine if that was
Speaker 1: Lingua Franca? What what? What? What would what would Mariah Parker,
Speaker 1: the human behind the artist Lingua Franca, have used to
Speaker 1: to make that moment regardless of whatever you had to
Speaker 1: do to get in there. You know, it's like, you're
Speaker 1: in there, what would you have made that moment as
Speaker 1: opposed to the shucking and jiv in that we saw. Well,
Speaker 1: I can imagine because I've spoken frequently on the preparedness
Speaker 1: for political life that comes with having been a member
Speaker 1: of the hip hop community, particularly with regards to like
Speaker 1: freestyle and like battle it and stuff like that. Like
Speaker 1: sometimes you get into mode where you're like, I'm not
Speaker 1: exactly sure what I'm gonna do what I get in there,
Speaker 1: but I trust myself because you have because you you know,
Speaker 1: you stepped on stage and started ranting or are you
Speaker 1: forgot your lyrics and you free seldom or whatever, and
Speaker 1: so I I while like, okay, Kanye's like media train,
Speaker 1: Yeah absolutely when in there, which just like I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what I'm about to do, but I got this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's only that's the only explanation. It's the only explanation
Speaker 1: for what happened. He wasn't like, oh, let's oh so
Speaker 1: on my agenda at eleven fifteen, we will pivot the
Speaker 1: topic to uh um lithium mining and like he's not
Speaker 1: He's just don't even think I got this, And he
Speaker 1: just wouldn't. I don't even think it has to have
Speaker 1: been that thought out. I just think that like he
Speaker 1: probably could have gotten I don't even know, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm not even smart enough to articulate it, but I
Speaker 1: just can't imagine that I would have been in that
Speaker 1: situation and that under any circumstances that Donald Trump would
Speaker 1: come out of this smileing just and that and you
Speaker 1: know what, And I'm not even gonna put that on
Speaker 1: like some Trump ship. I don't see myself being in
Speaker 1: a room like that with any sitting American president and
Speaker 1: them coming out of it like thank you guys for
Speaker 1: for putting for for putting me in a meeting with
Speaker 1: that person, like thank thank you guys, like yeah, zip
Speaker 1: tied with a gag in my mouth, like yeah. So
Speaker 1: that that ship is, That's that's the real funny style
Speaker 1: ship right there. That yeah, frankly, alright, So what else,
Speaker 1: Let's get back a little bit more into some of
Speaker 1: his pro life comments. This is the last summer as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, so he said that um uh, he
Speaker 1: would ask how to fun plan as per like single mother.
Speaker 1: He suggested that Israel and Africa would the concept and
Speaker 1: build the wall two point I don't know, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: sounds hilarious if you thinking about the United States provides
Speaker 1: Israel with about three point eight billion dollars million military
Speaker 1: aid at least they did in two is probably more now. Um,
Speaker 1: and is also benefits from around eight billion dollars in
Speaker 1: American loan gard he's annually. So it's like, okay, once again,
Speaker 1: like he's saying some ship that's kind of off the wall,
Speaker 1: but what if it's real? Pain is back. I can
Speaker 1: absolutely give every expected mother fift so not not missing
Speaker 1: the mark terribly, but again it's like, you know, just
Speaker 1: it's just it's more into the theme of it's like,
Speaker 1: it's not like the dude is like a rambling lunatic
Speaker 1: or anything like that. That's not making any sense on
Speaker 1: anything that he says. You know, it's just taking into
Speaker 1: account all the different pieces and everything. Yeah, but let's
Speaker 1: get into discussion of his discography after the jump. Where
Speaker 1: do we start. We are going to start where we're
Speaker 1: all happened. You know, I think that definitely he was
Speaker 1: making beats for a long time. We all know about
Speaker 1: the well, you know about making sixty beats or six
Speaker 1: summers or some ship. Yeah, it was oh yeah, heah
Speaker 1: that line. Um, oh I want to um, oh, it's
Speaker 1: on Spaceships. Yeah, lock yourself in the room doing five
Speaker 1: because the day for three summers different world like three
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, I said sixty beats alright, there's no
Speaker 1: one that had the kids that made that deserved that
Speaker 1: made back. Yeah. Oh man, I remember the first time
Speaker 1: I heard that. I was just like, so, we know
Speaker 1: he was making music for a long time, but Kanye
Speaker 1: West pretty much jumped into the national spotlight with two
Speaker 1: thousand four albums, College Dropout, Dessert, Somebody Going to Paint
Speaker 1: deserve that break there. I mean he was sort of
Speaker 1: like the in house beat maker for Rockefella for a while,
Speaker 1: working on other people's projects and jay Z Memphis Bleek Crew.
Speaker 1: Apparently it was like, hey, guys, like put me in coach,
Speaker 1: Like can you sign me to be a rapper? And
Speaker 1: they were like whatever, bitch, get back in the dungeon
Speaker 1: and keep making beats. They like, we're not for like years,
Speaker 1: we're not interested in signing him to do his own
Speaker 1: like folding studio album, um, which is I find hilarious
Speaker 1: And I think I think when ultimately like saying that
Speaker 1: about Kanye, his legacy, I mean musically a lot of
Speaker 1: other stuff we will remember about him now as we
Speaker 1: have discussed. But like he like he's a prolific and
Speaker 1: ingenious producer, Like he's not actually that's special of a rapper,
Speaker 1: you know, but like but like, uh, his ingenuitou with beats,
Speaker 1: both in the way that he broke the mold with
Speaker 1: his production around the college dropout era and even still
Speaker 1: how he's like progressing whether you like it or not, um,
Speaker 1: whether you appreciate the way his style has changed over
Speaker 1: the years that it has evolved so much, Like you know,
Speaker 1: he's just been you know, he's just produced up shit.
Speaker 1: I'm usually always like a sucker for rapper producers, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, there was even though I was you know,
Speaker 1: never like super into stuff, there was like a are
Speaker 1: of that that I really dug. That was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: he's like rapping on all the songs and he's making
Speaker 1: the beats and that's that's like really cool and ship.
Speaker 1: But later on Kanye like he embraces is like the
Speaker 1: whole you know, the collaborative music making, like you know,
Speaker 1: that pop music sort of thing. So I kind of
Speaker 1: have to question you know, some of the some of
Speaker 1: the moments that I've heard when you said that he's
Speaker 1: really kind of a socio rapper. Like, there's definitely been
Speaker 1: moments that I know, I've heard Kanye as a rapper
Speaker 1: that I felt like, oh man, that was that was
Speaker 1: really fresh. But I also know for a fact that
Speaker 1: I had the prince rights some of this stuff, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, And that he's had writers throughout
Speaker 1: the year. So it's like, I don't know what what
Speaker 1: what of it, Not that it makes it bad, it
Speaker 1: just means no, I don't really funk with it on
Speaker 1: that this came from Kanye sort of vibe. And I'm
Speaker 1: also very skeptical of like people who are already in
Speaker 1: the industry or have ties and like capital back like
Speaker 1: the backing of like music industry capital, like how that
Speaker 1: then allows them to get good at a craft. Like
Speaker 1: there's no doubt in my mind that in the years since,
Speaker 1: I mean, like Beyonce was probably a great singer in
Speaker 1: the Destiny's Child era, but because she's got millions of
Speaker 1: dollars from Columbia Universal whoever behind her, she can afford
Speaker 1: the best She has been able to afford the best
Speaker 1: vocal coaching in the world to get to the pinnacle
Speaker 1: that she is now at same with choreography, like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's an amazing answer. It's like, yeah, if you have
Speaker 1: people paying for the best choreographers in the world and
Speaker 1: the best personal trainers imaginable to ensure that you are
Speaker 1: a great answer, you're gonna become that. And so like
Speaker 1: the fact that Kanye was already in the world of
Speaker 1: music there being a producer and yeah, and afford it afforded,
Speaker 1: the afforded the opportunity to to grow. There's like this
Speaker 1: quote about Einstein, uh, but thinking about like how many
Speaker 1: Einstein's exist, But then like they're they're they're brilliance. It's
Speaker 1: just like you know, they work in that they work
Speaker 1: in a cornfield or they work in a shoe factory
Speaker 1: their whole lives and their brilliance is never allowed to
Speaker 1: If you grow up playing sports and you know, a
Speaker 1: rich country, then it's like you have more opportunity to
Speaker 1: get the best nutrition and the best trading from when
Speaker 1: you're a little kid, as opposed to if you're athletically
Speaker 1: inclined and you're in a village somewhere, then you don't
Speaker 1: get that same coaching and nutrition and you never get
Speaker 1: to develop into the athlete. That you could possibly because
Speaker 1: your circumstances not same exactly. So that's why I don't
Speaker 1: like while like Kanye is to me a so so
Speaker 1: rapper who has moments of brilliance where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that was really cool. But I hope so, I hope
Speaker 1: you're at least occasionally able to do some cool ship
Speaker 1: because you're surrounded by all of the like all of this,
Speaker 1: uh you know, creative stimuli and like access to resources
Speaker 1: that you would need to become a good word smith.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily a Racks to Riches story. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't feel the same way I sent about him as
Speaker 1: they do as someone like Kendrick or you can't be
Speaker 1: like you dropped your first album after like like the
Speaker 1: way the way it's it's presented is almost he dropped
Speaker 1: his first album after years of grinding as the in
Speaker 1: house Rockefella producer, Oh my god, how yeah, slaving away
Speaker 1: in the basement of rock before anyone knew who So yeah,
Speaker 1: are you okay after all of those Grammy nominations that
Speaker 1: you received in the dungeons of the Rockefeller studios. But
Speaker 1: we digressed from the album because college dropout was and
Speaker 1: is a classic hip hop album in my opinion, the
Speaker 1: whole aesthetic, the whole like college kids aesthetic. I'm not
Speaker 1: like a gangster like the rest of these guys. I mean,
Speaker 1: you gotta remember this is two years removed from fifty
Speaker 1: cent Taken Over the World. So g Unit gang Rape
Speaker 1: on a little early two thousand's resurgence of gangster rap,
Speaker 1: dip set, all that ship d Block, which I love,
Speaker 1: you know, And then on his personal blog, Kanye said
Speaker 1: that he was most inspired by the myth educational Lauren
Speaker 1: Hill in the production of The College Dropout and listen
Speaker 1: to the album every day while working on the project,
Speaker 1: which I think you can hear. You can like totally
Speaker 1: hear when you when you once you know that, you're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that makes sense. It definitely sounds like it's
Speaker 1: coming out of that that vein of like you know,
Speaker 1: you remember like when a bunch of rappers had sort
Speaker 1: of a tie into like the neo soul sort of
Speaker 1: like thing. I know, this was several years after that,
Speaker 1: but it had that sort of vibe to it where
Speaker 1: he was like hanging out with Erka Badoo and Andrea
Speaker 1: three thousand and the Roots, and they all kind of
Speaker 1: seemed like they were part of the same sort of
Speaker 1: click you know what I mean, And so up next
Speaker 1: you had late Registration, which I learned recently. His first
Speaker 1: four albums were meant to be a a tetrology about
Speaker 1: higher education to this college dropout, the registrations graduation. There's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a fourth one UM, also on the
Speaker 1: theme of you know, college of graduating, of of making
Speaker 1: it in the world of higher ed UM. But unfortunately
Speaker 1: two thousand seven West mother Donda West, who we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: passed away the age um from complications from life possession
Speaker 1: to mammo plastic surgery, which actually then inspired UM a
Speaker 1: law named after her UM signed by then California Governor
Speaker 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger. UM the Donda West Law, which made made
Speaker 1: it mandatory for patients to receive medical clearance through physical
Speaker 1: examination before undergoing elective cosmetic surgery. Your thoughts on late Registration,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I do see, I do see like
Speaker 1: these first three albums as like uh like a like
Speaker 1: a phase, like a wave, you know, very similarly styled Graduation.
Speaker 1: He kind of starts to peel away from the neo
Speaker 1: soul kind of feel of the first two. Did Graduation
Speaker 1: did late registration have gold Digger, Yes it did. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so he starts to feeling the start feeling himself
Speaker 1: a little bit. You know, I don't think I was.
Speaker 1: I don't think I was jumping off of the train.
Speaker 1: Then whichever album, whichever whichever album had the daft punk
Speaker 1: won the bicker Stronger Oh you mean like Stronger Stronger
Speaker 1: was on a graduation Okay, Yeah, see that's when I
Speaker 1: was like, oh so, yeah, so let's actually let's actually
Speaker 1: I'd love to get into that because um, with graduation.
Speaker 1: After spending the previous your year touring the world with
Speaker 1: YouTube on their Vertico tour, West became inspired watching Bono
Speaker 1: open the stadium tours every night with like incredible standing
Speaker 1: ovations and started to seek out composing like anthem rap
Speaker 1: songs that could operate more efficiently in large stadium than arenas.
Speaker 1: So like that sound like on Stronger and like some
Speaker 1: songs like that, Like he was he had like had
Speaker 1: a taste of like world fame and was like, I
Speaker 1: need to start making music for this performing in this
Speaker 1: particular context and making that audience like what he was doing, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: just putting it out there. Yeah. Um. You also mentioned
Speaker 1: Um earlier. If it's funny about Graduation. Um they had
Speaker 1: cosiding release dates between Graduation and Curtis. I remember, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I remember they had the publicity over the ideas
Speaker 1: of the sales competition. They had a little pr stunt
Speaker 1: where they were competing to see who would have the
Speaker 1: biggest opening weekend. Fifty was dominating and Kanye was kind
Speaker 1: of the like from a sales perspective, like fifty cent
Speaker 1: was number one, then Kanye West was number two, so
Speaker 1: they kind of I don't know whether they coordinated it
Speaker 1: to drop on the same week, but because their albums
Speaker 1: were dropping on the same week, they played up that
Speaker 1: competition in the public eye. So they were talking about
Speaker 1: it on talk shows, websites, interviews and stuff like that, like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you guys, watch Curtis is gonna smash Graduation in. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Kanye won that. Eventually, Danny do when that, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: they had record breaking sales for both albums. I think
Speaker 1: as a result of the you know, the fabricated feud,
Speaker 1: but Kanye did end up winning the winning the fight
Speaker 1: between UM those two. So it was like the battle
Speaker 1: between you know, the prevailing the prevailing UH stereotype I
Speaker 1: guess of like gangs to gangster rap versus this new
Speaker 1: pink polo wearing like uh like suburban tinged like flavor
Speaker 1: that Kanye was bringing like which one, which one? And
Speaker 1: it really he really broke them old and like show
Speaker 1: that all right, even that is only in reputation because
Speaker 1: this is like two thousand eight or nine, and we
Speaker 1: gotta remember the fifties set that that he's competing with
Speaker 1: is pretty much making the same type of music Kanye
Speaker 1: West is baking at this point. I mean, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the album that had AEO technology with Justin to
Speaker 1: like that was that was what was Fifty was pushing
Speaker 1: that that that was that was That's what they were
Speaker 1: going up against each other. So it's not like fifty
Speaker 1: was pushing the hardcore gainst the street ship against Kanye,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying us. But on a side note,
Speaker 1: somebody who was like a fifty fan back then, Fifty
Speaker 1: losing that little competition with Kanye did cause him to
Speaker 1: make a underground album called war Angel that is his Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's his best album. Like he completely just abandoned all
Speaker 1: like commercial ambition for his next project and just like
Speaker 1: a straight up released like an underground like hip hop album,
Speaker 1: hip hop album independently that is like his best work.
Speaker 1: I recommend fifty cents war Angel if you like Damn,
Speaker 1: just learn something new today. Hey, I'm full of useless trivia.
Speaker 1: So this Bring This brings us to his X project
Speaker 1: eight to eight and Heartbreak. Yeah, so he broke off
Speaker 1: from he was gonna do another album in the theme
Speaker 1: of higher ed, but grappling with the death of his mother,
Speaker 1: he decided to take it. You know, it was working
Speaker 1: a more in a dark direction. This was the part
Speaker 1: I think this coincided with when the whole Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: thing happened. Yeah, I did, and so like that come
Speaker 1: out with this album. I was like, I'm done with
Speaker 1: Kanye and like the same for me. For even though
Speaker 1: I kind of like data weights in Heartbreak, it just
Speaker 1: like was so different that I was like, man, you're
Speaker 1: slipping for the people who were already off board the
Speaker 1: Kanye trained by the time all the weird Republican Nazi
Speaker 1: stuff started happening. This was probably the point where they jumped,
Speaker 1: was that, and it was purely musically. I mean, as well,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about beautiful, dark twisted brought brought some heads
Speaker 1: back in, but a lot of people at you know,
Speaker 1: whether you can say they're closed minded or you know,
Speaker 1: people just like what they like. But a lot of
Speaker 1: people were taken aback by the sharp departure and style
Speaker 1: that he went with. There was a lot of auto tune.
Speaker 1: There was very little rapping on eight to eight and
Speaker 1: Heartbreaks and it was it was a lot more about
Speaker 1: melody and you know, and feelings and song song structure
Speaker 1: and stuff. And then we had my beautiful, dark, Twisted Fantasy,
Speaker 1: which I guess is ten years old now, maybe even
Speaker 1: eleven years old. It's messed up. I remember last year
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, we're gonna do like a ten
Speaker 1: year retrospective on the album, and then then then in
Speaker 1: the coronavirus and so I forgot so eleven years ago
Speaker 1: if darctorst and Fantasy came out, I did I think
Speaker 1: this is the best album personally? Oh yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: think universally claimed as like his probably his best work. Um.
Speaker 1: I think because it's sort of mixes to a degree
Speaker 1: some of his like later experimentation with the soul that
Speaker 1: drew people to Kanye in his early work as well.
Speaker 1: I thought beautiful dark twist of Fantasy was like the
Speaker 1: point that you just that you made earlier about how
Speaker 1: he wanted to start making stuff that would work more
Speaker 1: effectively with stadium stuff after he saw Bono and YouTube. Like,
Speaker 1: to me, I feel like beautiful, dark, twisted Fantasy accomplishes
Speaker 1: that by still being like hip hop as fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Like it's still it's still
Speaker 1: boom bab, it's still like sampling, it's still bars, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's not like it's not like yeo,
Speaker 1: we gotta have like the massive trumpet horse section, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean to like pump up, pump up,
Speaker 1: like the crowd of sucking. I don't know, I really
Speaker 1: like that album. No, the album is great. I mean
Speaker 1: in the closer with the Gil Scott Heron sample from
Speaker 1: his common number one UM, which was a piece of
Speaker 1: spoken words to us the realist about the African American
Speaker 1: experience UM and the idealism of American dream UM like
Speaker 1: where else. Like, as I was going back to the album,
Speaker 1: I was like, there'sn't really political here to discuss. I
Speaker 1: don't think. I mean, there's consumer is UM. There's all
Speaker 1: sorts of things that vaguely touch upon um, just suddenly
Speaker 1: American life and which is touched upon by politics. But
Speaker 1: I thought it's really interesting that you know, this regular
Speaker 1: piece that closed down the album UM. You know, it's
Speaker 1: criticized in the nineteen sixteen Revolutionary Youth Movement for failing
Speaker 1: to recognize the more basic needs of the African American community.
Speaker 1: And even though it's edited and reduced down on the
Speaker 1: track which who will Survive in America, just like the
Speaker 1: last track on My Beautiful Dark Twists Fantasy, UM, it's
Speaker 1: still kind of captures this idea of this this persona,
Speaker 1: this African American man who feels caught off from his
Speaker 1: country and his culture UM, which I think is a
Speaker 1: really interesting like knowing what we know today about Kanye UM,
Speaker 1: it's like kind of like weirdly poignant, Like it's like
Speaker 1: it's like an opposite direction of what Guil's got here
Speaker 1: and is talking about, Like Gils got here and is
Speaker 1: talking about like, oh the revel lutionaries. Well, no, I
Speaker 1: mean the more I think about it, the more I
Speaker 1: feel like they're both kind of saying similar things in
Speaker 1: different epics and different ways about it. Yeah, So like yeah,
Speaker 1: girls got here, and I'm saying like oh, these revolutionary
Speaker 1: people who look up to say Guavara and you know
Speaker 1: who the people like the the Young Lords or whoever
Speaker 1: who are out here like agitating for revolution, like don't
Speaker 1: give a shit about what Africa like black people are
Speaker 1: actually going through during this time. And I mean to
Speaker 1: a lesser degree. I mean, Kanye is fighting you know,
Speaker 1: the neoliberal Democratic Party, but some what we're saying, like
Speaker 1: y'all over there, y'all on the left are like missing
Speaker 1: out on like what we really need um and like
Speaker 1: aren't paying attention to the issues that are actually like
Speaker 1: important in our community and so much it was like
Speaker 1: weirdly poignant on an album that otherwise it's just like
Speaker 1: a banger but pure like pretty purely aesthetic and just
Speaker 1: like fun to listen to. UM, like a really interesting
Speaker 1: way to close it off. It's on brand because it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, Kanye was like a kind of poignant dude,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Like not that anyone should
Speaker 1: have been looking to him to like shake their world
Speaker 1: view or anything like that, but it's like up until
Speaker 1: like recent years and always had the are of like,
Speaker 1: all right, that's like a celebrity guy who's doing celebrity stuff.
Speaker 1: But every now and then you hear him saying some ship,
Speaker 1: was like, oh the funk with that? You know? Yeah? Damn.
Speaker 1: So this uh brings us to his twenty thirteen album Yesus,
Speaker 1: which I mean at this point I'm fully fully off
Speaker 1: the train, but I mean it very much is still
Speaker 1: for the same musical reasons. It's not quite as out
Speaker 1: there musically as A to eight in Heartbreaks, but it
Speaker 1: definitely still kind of felt like a departure from the
Speaker 1: more um boom bap style that he was going on
Speaker 1: in Dark Twisted Fantasy, And at this point, for me,
Speaker 1: I just liked it. I was no longer appreciating the gimmicks. So,
Speaker 1: you know, he had a run of merged during the
Speaker 1: the cycle that featured the Confederate flag prominently, and you know,
Speaker 1: speaking out on the issue, he said, react, how you
Speaker 1: want an energy, you got get energy. You know. The
Speaker 1: Confederate flag represented slavery in a way. That's my abstract
Speaker 1: take on what I know about it. So I made
Speaker 1: the song New Slaves. I took the Confederate flag and
Speaker 1: made it my flag. It's my flag. Now, now what
Speaker 1: are you going to do that? I like wonder what
Speaker 1: like you can you Confederates would feel about that Kanye
Speaker 1: was coming to being like yeah, bits my flag. Now
Speaker 1: I really can't imagine, but I don't think that they
Speaker 1: would look at it with whether he actually really intends
Speaker 1: any nuance to it at all. But it's like for them,
Speaker 1: it's just the co side, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I guess that for them when they
Speaker 1: see something going down and it's like, oh, they want
Speaker 1: to take down the statue of General Lee from some
Speaker 1: government been building. Man, where are these s jws? I mean,
Speaker 1: even Kanye says it's not that big deal. It's that
Speaker 1: big of a deal, and like he likes the Confederate flag,
Speaker 1: Like they're not they're not reading into this, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. They're not that digging into those quotes
Speaker 1: any further than what it is. And in this day
Speaker 1: and age when everybody's like worried about their platform or
Speaker 1: is everybody's like talking about concernative platform and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: I just gotta feel like somebody with the platform, like Kanye,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't always be the Mr Magoo of
Speaker 1: like the sort of stuff where it's like I had
Speaker 1: no idea what was going on. It's like that man
Speaker 1: Kanye has a big boy it means a smart person,
Speaker 1: so he knows what he's doing. Yeah, so let's actually
Speaker 1: get into the song New Slaves, um, which I think
Speaker 1: has echoes of some of what he was trying to
Speaker 1: get at in that quote about slavery being a choice.
Speaker 1: Four hundred years of slavery. That sounds like a choice
Speaker 1: to me. Um, let's play a little bit of that
Speaker 1: real quick, come in please by ally coat, diamond chain.
Speaker 1: But in the lyrics, you know, he's talking about how
Speaker 1: um he's he's harkening back to an era where like
Speaker 1: it's post slavery, but black people were still kind of
Speaker 1: framed as um or positioned forced into servitude to various
Speaker 1: kinds you know, picking you know, not just not necessarily
Speaker 1: packing cotton. Um. He does talk about that, but like,
Speaker 1: oh you have to be the help um da da
Speaker 1: da da da doing clothes for other people. Um. And
Speaker 1: then he gets into like I guess, being controlled by
Speaker 1: material things like oh, you know you want to Bentley
Speaker 1: if for a coat or diamond chain, all your blacks
Speaker 1: want the same things. So saying like, you know, once
Speaker 1: we escaped Jim Crow once we escaped Chattow slavery like
Speaker 1: still having this being this enslavement to materialism. I think
Speaker 1: it's sort of like that found that came up with
Speaker 1: like yeah, But the thing is, at that time he
Speaker 1: was pushing the materialism exactly. He was like depending on
Speaker 1: people to buy the Confederate flag, teacher, this whole thing,
Speaker 1: this is on the this is this is all during
Speaker 1: the phase where he was going at it with who
Speaker 1: was it, like Gucci or something with with with vers
Speaker 1: with some fashion company because he didn't get like his
Speaker 1: own line of something. And it was like, man, the
Speaker 1: fashion industry is racist because they won't let Kanye West
Speaker 1: have like his own line of something something. And he
Speaker 1: was just making like I would invented the leather jogging pants.
Speaker 1: You don't remember all of that stuff. Like he was
Speaker 1: like pushing like blatant, like vapid materialism at the same
Speaker 1: time that these are the points that he was making
Speaker 1: and songs like the Slaves like literally at the same
Speaker 1: time the same point in time, I'm sorry, that's all good. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm waiting to the rest of the later recks. And
Speaker 1: it's just like he later goes on, it's like fuck
Speaker 1: you in your corporation. Yan niggas can't control me. But
Speaker 1: it's like you work for Nike, they don't work I'm
Speaker 1: sure in his head he's like, oh they work for me,
Speaker 1: Like no, NATD like they they they're shareholders. They signed
Speaker 1: your check. Yeah, they're shareholders around the company. Um and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I mean there's a lot there's a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting stuff in here. He talks about the d
Speaker 1: A teaming up with the c c A. Did you
Speaker 1: think of the album just in general? I did in general,
Speaker 1: and it's like I kind of honestly dug this somewhae
Speaker 1: industrial vibe. I didn't give it too much of a
Speaker 1: chance of like repeat listens for it to really like
Speaker 1: thinking for me, Um, but it won't bad. I just
Speaker 1: like didn't appreciate the gimmicks. I didn't appreciate the Confederate flagship.
Speaker 1: I did not appreciate the song that. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was catchy as fun, but I didn't appreciate a song
Speaker 1: called black skinhead on here, Like none of that ship
Speaker 1: was cool to me. Um. So I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: resist a little bit wow because my morals, I guess
Speaker 1: I was like, this is Cashy's fun, but I don't
Speaker 1: can't funk with it. The next project would be a
Speaker 1: little bit of a spectacle. And I don't even think
Speaker 1: for any political reasons, but just it was just like
Speaker 1: a mess of a rollout. His album The Life of Pablo,
Speaker 1: it was famously like released, and then after it's released,
Speaker 1: he just kept making changes to it, which I guess
Speaker 1: strikes a you know, more interesting question for the music
Speaker 1: industry as a whole. But still the fact remains. You know,
Speaker 1: album came out and then like two days later you
Speaker 1: go on iTunes and it has like two more songs
Speaker 1: added onto it, And then two days later you go
Speaker 1: by and it was mixed a difference so that it
Speaker 1: sounds completely you know what I mean. But that was
Speaker 1: pretty much the story of this one. But it just
Speaker 1: like his current album Donda, it also had like a
Speaker 1: lot of high surrounding it with like listening parties and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. It's the little thing I kind
Speaker 1: of mixed feelings, but like I appreciate and enjoy about
Speaker 1: his later discography is the sort of gospel influence. I mean,
Speaker 1: I grew up around gospel of music. I think gospel
Speaker 1: music is kind of tight. Frankly, I just think like
Speaker 1: the core of the chorus, the choral sounding like the
Speaker 1: like harmonies and things like that. It's like really dope.
Speaker 1: And so, I mean, I, to be honest, did not
Speaker 1: really I didn't listen to Jesus Is King just because
Speaker 1: like at this point I had sort of like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I probably heard it, but like it doesn't pay attention
Speaker 1: to this point. I was just like yo, yeah, because
Speaker 1: like I said so. On the US charts, the album
Speaker 1: became the first ever to top the Billboard two hundred,
Speaker 1: top R and B and Hip Hop Albums, Top Rap Albums,
Speaker 1: Top Christian Albums, and Top Gospel Albums categories all the
Speaker 1: same time. So yeah, it was a straight up it
Speaker 1: was a straight up like gospel album. It's just like
Speaker 1: gospel singing. I mean it's a little it's a little silly,
Speaker 1: like He's got this one almost like um, I'm closed,
Speaker 1: like oh you my chick fil A we closed on
Speaker 1: Sunday like stuff like that, where it's kind of goofy
Speaker 1: and like funny and like a tongue in cheek um
Speaker 1: hip hop way the way that you know, we just
Speaker 1: make jokes, make metaphors that are a little you know,
Speaker 1: I guess a little a little less it's strictly uh
Speaker 1: reverend in like a gospel kind of way. But no,
Speaker 1: it's just praising to just Prason Jesus the whole time. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I I never really got into it because
Speaker 1: I mean it's more so for me what I appreciated
Speaker 1: about like some of uh, like I guess the life
Speaker 1: of Pablo. Um, what's that? Um? It combined the sound
Speaker 1: of gospel with like hip hop content when it gets
Speaker 1: really stract, like as a as like a non religious person,
Speaker 1: and it gets real straight and to like the you know,
Speaker 1: Halleujah praised the Lord. Chance the rapper kind of started
Speaker 1: it with that Color and Book album where he was
Speaker 1: like doing the gospel rap ship and then okay, so
Speaker 1: you know again, you know, admittedly, maybe I should have
Speaker 1: done this for preparation for this episode, so bad on
Speaker 1: me in my journalism skills, but I have not taken
Speaker 1: the time to listen to Jesus King or really or
Speaker 1: really you know, I can't say that I'm like eager
Speaker 1: to hear Donda at all. So yeah, apparently Donda I
Speaker 1: was supposed to come out last Friday. Now it's supposedly
Speaker 1: dropping August six. He's still working on it. Um. So
Speaker 1: we shall see how it goes. I didn't And that's
Speaker 1: that's sounding like it's going to be like a gospel
Speaker 1: and let's see real quick, let's see what people are
Speaker 1: to say. It's gonna be mad funny when the Small
Speaker 1: Princess all proceeds for this album go to the stop
Speaker 1: the steel really, so it sounds like he's gonna be
Speaker 1: dealing with themes about you know, his a recent divorce. Um,
Speaker 1: it's gonna have some continued religious influence akin to Jesus's
Speaker 1: King and things like that. Um. But yeah, so it
Speaker 1: may have some of that gospel e sound. One of
Speaker 1: my friends, uh know, somebody who was at that thing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they have COVID now, I probably, but they
Speaker 1: were just it's the sort of person that you would
Speaker 1: expect to say, oh man, it was a life changing experience.
Speaker 1: It was so great. This is good. This album is
Speaker 1: gonna change in the world. And YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA YadA.
Speaker 1: So fans are definitely amped over. Yeah, yeah, let them
Speaker 1: have their fun. It's cool. But yeah, that's it for us.
Speaker 1: This week will be I guess checking out Donda when
Speaker 1: it drops August six, just to see or not. I'll
Speaker 1: probably for guess I'll probably forget augustly so will come
Speaker 1: and go and I'll be like, oh ship I forgot.
Speaker 1: I think it's told me when that ship comes on
Speaker 1: regular TV check it out. But what do you say
Speaker 1: you are? You feel like rapping? Yeah, of course, a Joe,
Speaker 1: can you drop a beat? Ha ha? Here we go,
Speaker 1: here we go, ha ha ha, lady rapper. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: but panty Hole was gonna tad yelling a fashionist life
Speaker 1: lately as was lashing only half the lights half the light.
Speaker 1: Maybe he'll drop the album to night maybe golf on
Speaker 1: the grammatically catluss like who knows what kind of state
Speaker 1: they gave me him for all? Like fucking note you
Speaker 1: could you be hanging out with Canadians staying in the
Speaker 1: A again hosted them? But say he's been staying him?
Speaker 1: What the way to live through? What? You would never
Speaker 1: explain this ship? You gotta hand it to him that
Speaker 1: whatever he's got on his mind. And I appreciate a
Speaker 1: canny human, but when you getting played by Trump and
Speaker 1: Candy songs, you should probably ask yourself, Man, I should
Speaker 1: plan on going Franca and we are waiting on reparation.
Speaker 1: Hurry up, Kanye, got millions, bro to help me next week.
Speaker 1: Tell me out I'm losing my insurance. Okay, alright, alright,
Speaker 1: see you next week. Everybody Winning on Reparations is a
Speaker 1: production of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts on my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, check out the radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.