
Replying, Kanye said the 66 year old veteran doesn't know anything about music and even going as far as saying that his kids will be ashamed of him. Read the letter that got Kanye mad after the cut..
Kanye in the NYT? WTF???
I
 feel like opening with “What kind of crazy, fucked up world is it where
 this guy is considered to be culturally important!!???” But that’s your
 line.
Sure,
 he made some great music for himself and others. But in spite of what 
the aspirationally-cool media keeps saying about him, unlike other 
creators in his genre like Jay-Z, Tupac, Biggie or even M.C. Hammer for 
that matter, it’s unlikely that we’ll be quoting too many of Kanye’s 
songs 20 years from now.
 He didn’t open up new avenues of public discourse like NWA, or 
introduce the world to a new art form like Grandmaster Flash, or even 
meaningfully and memorably address social issues through his music like 
Marshall, Macklemore and Kendrick. In my opinion, his productions are 
his best work – and I admit I’m jealous of several of them – but I don’t
 think he’s on quite the same level as Timbaland and Rick Rubin among 
several others. His songwriting – meaning the stuff with melodies – is 
sophomoric at best. I was embarrassed for Sir Paul – one of the greatest
 Artists of our era – by their collaboration, though it was pointed out 
to me that this got him his highest chart position in decades. So I 
guess he didn’t mind. But I kind of did!
Instead
 Kanye’s greatest achievements have been in the form of excessive 
behavior, egomaniacal tantrums and tasteless grandstanding. What he is a
 true artist at is living his life out loud – and shoving it down the 
throats of the rest of us whether we give a shit or not. He’s like that 
flasher who interrupts a critical game by running naked across the 
field. Is that art??? Maybe it is. Maybe as Caramanica says, life as “an
 unending data stream” is a new art form. But should it be, honestly? 
Hell, Forbes named this guy one of the 100 most influential people IN 
THE WORLD in 2005 and 2015!! Seriously??? Influencing WHAT exactly?
In
 the review of the endless new album, Caramanica wonders if “being 
slightly finished is the new finished.” And that just makes my blood 
boil. The great musicians, writers, poets, rappers, performers, dancers,
 players, conductors, directors and producers work all their lives for 
that one moment of complete perfection – that one brilliant performance,
 that one perfect song, that one enduring and life-altering work. 10,000
 hours is peanuts in comparison to the real amount of time spent by true
 artists in their lifelong pursuit of excellence. But no one else that I
 have seen is this happy to have the audience watching all along the 
way. They are working to the culmination of something; to the exquisite 
feeling of completion that comes from working and reworking until that 
moment when their creation, or their performance, is as good as it could
 possibly be. This guy is just feeding the media machine and I’m not 
even certain to what end. Maybe he JUST needs the attention, like that 
flasher, and isn’t happy unless he’s the center of it.
What
 galls me the most though is the thought that he and others – especially
 the media – might actually BELIEVE that he’s an artist. With a capital 
“A.” That what he’s doing is of any real consequence besides for the 
sheer train wreck gawker value of it.
I
 don’t even know why I’m so angry about this. Except maybe I lament for a
 world where being truly, world-shakingly excellent at anything – at 
least in the field of popular music if not elsewhere – is no longer 
absolutely necessary. You can be a star today just by creating a public 
life that people pay attention to. That’s it. All you have to do is be 
interesting or likable or shocking enough and you can have your 15 
minutes of fame…even if that means that no one will remember you or what
 you’ve done in just a few years. Line ‘em up. How many “popular 
artists” have come and gone in just the last decades. In my mind (which 
is a pretty busy as often too judgmental place, I will admit) real 
artists make stuff that changes the world and LASTS.
I haven’t heard it yet. Is that what The Life of Pablo is? If so, then I take it all back.
I just needed to rant to someone.
Cheers, B


 
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