In the wee hours of Friday, shortly after midnight, Kendrick Lamar dropped a new surprise album entitled 'untitled unmastered.' Along with this enigmatic title came an enigmatic title image:
Early commentary on this album has pointed out that it may be closer to a series of sketches than a completed product; certainly the choice of the word 'unmastered' in the album's name suggests this interpretation. However, in thinking over what this album presents, I am struck by the complexities that Kendrick has incorporated into it solely based on these naming conventions alone. An untitled piece of art is not necessarily an incomplete one.
Wassily Kandinsky's 1916 untitled painting
What an unmastered work is remains unclear, at least in this context.
The track names are equally nebulous. Rather than providing specific titles, there are only dates, suggesting that these are works that were abandoned at some point. But what point? What do these dates represent? Start dates, end dates, abandoned dates, studio session dates? This question of dates is not trivial. For example, some of the material in these songs has been heard before on late-night appearances and in other contexts and these dates don't match those in the title for the track. Instead of a specific date, as most the tracks have, 'untitled 7' dates from 2014-2016 and incorporates a range of different recordings that are abruptly connected. Thus this track spans a broad swath of time, beginning with a 'song' that might otherwise be called 'Levitate' (in the vein of 'Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe' from Kendrick's first major album, 'Good Kid, M.A.A.D City') and ending with what sounds like an improvised jam session with friends. Abrupt shifts during a track are not unusual for Kendrick as they abound on 'To Pimp A Butterfly,' but here they reveal that while what we're hearing may be 'unmastered,' it is not unedited. At one point during the start of the jam session, Kendrick states, 'This is a fifteen-minute song!' The whole track is only 8:16, and at that point we are already five minutes in. Consequently, the listener is made acutely aware that either there were cuts or that this was not really a fifteen-minute song. Either way, what is presented to us on 'untitled unmastered' should not be accepted necessarily at face value.
I have two possible interpretations of 'unmastered' for this album. The first is that these are tracks that predate 'To Pimp A Butterfly' and he is suggesting that it is that album which is masterful. Indeed, the tone and language here is somewhat out of place with that on 'To Pimp A Butterfly,' whose trajectory explores many different nuances of controversial terms (and almost entirely eschews the word 'bitch'). So perhaps Kendrick did undergo a change in his artistic outlook between 'Good Kid, M.A.A.D City' and we are seeing its evolution here; these tracks, then, are from before he 'mastered' his art. Alternatively, perhaps these songs simply didn't fit the overall narrative. The albums that bookend these tracks (if the dates on 'untitled unmastered' are accurate) both, ostensibly, had a plot--the plot of 'Good Kid, M.A.A.D City' is outlined more clearly, but there is definitely one on 'To Pimp A Butterfly' as well. These tracks could be leftovers that were not quite right for those albums and didn't fit with the overall structure.
And yet, even on 'untitled unmastered,' Kendrick has a linking device with a rallying cry 'Pimp pimp, hooray' that appears between various songs and is the last sound on the album. So although these may be 'unfinished' or 'unmastered' tracks, in the end, Kendrick presents a 'master' copy that links together what has come before, and what was originally a simple title proves to be far more complex.
Over the past weekend, while you were going about your business, Beyoncé managed to drop a song pretty much out of nowhere on an unsuspecting public, then take over the Superbowl halftime show like she was the headliner. Also she reinvented her role in contemporary culture, overpowering the limitations frequently imposed on female pop stars to engage directly with an escalating civil rights movement. Lastly, she almost fell down while performing but recovered without even missing a beat because when she isn't busy with all the rest of this, she evidently takes the time to do some squats. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's go back to the song that launched a thousand--or perhaps even more--think pieces.
'Formation' is, as many commentators have pointed out, a song that indisputably engages with blackness, both in its video's imagery and its sound by drawing on tropes associated with black culture, particularly that of New Orleans. Not surprisingly given the subject matter, the video incorporates images from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, culminating in Beyoncé on top of a police car sinking into a lake. 'Formation' conjures up similar imagery to Kendrick Lamar's most poignant contribution to the new civil rights movement, the song 'Alright' and its video. Indeed, it would surprise me if Beyoncé had not had aspects of Lamar's video in mind when preparing hers. But that doesn't diminish from Beyoncé's achievement in any way. The issues that are raised by both--the neglect of black communities, the terror state imposed on them by the police--are the crucial issues at the core of this civil rights movement and their importance should be central to this new Black Art.
Due to the subject matter, the polarizing nature of this song may not be a surprise. Yet there is more here than a debate about civil rights; instead, there is a larger shift in our understanding of what Beyoncé means. As Danielle C. Belton points out at The Root, Beyoncé has been, for many, 'some ethereal, race-less, colorless transformative nymph who could doo-wop pop whatever you projected upon her,' but that this image was always, to some extent, a façade. Belton continues:
What if I told you Beyoncé was always political? Even when she was
doo-wop popping in Destiny’s Child. What if I told you that to be black
in a public space, with all eyes on you and choosing carefully how to
handle that spotlight is a form of politics, a negotiation between the
self and the world that all black people must make?
I want to build on Belton's idea by expanding on just how significant it is that this 'transformative nymph' chose to make this video. For it is not only Beyoncé asserting her identity (i.e., her formation) that is key, but particularly that she did so without shying away from the core tenets of today's civil rights.
Prior to 'Formation,' I would argue, Beyoncé was a pop star first, and all other identities second--with this moniker comes certain constraints, particularly for female artists. Acting in a sexually provocative way is virtually mandated; perhaps it is for this reason that many of these women tackle the issue of gay rights, as they are subject to critiques for performing their gender in such a public way, a tradition that extends back to at least Madonna and continues to Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus today. Yet on other issues, female pop stars wield virtually no power. One prominent example is Britney Spears, whose mental health problems were little more than fodder for the paparazzi surrounding her. Female pop stars are expected to sing and act their parts, but otherwise to remain silent.
Even more so in the realm of hip hop, where the lack of women's voices is a critique often leveled against it. This lacuna becomes even more apparent when considering many of the songs that espouse the values of this new civil rights movement. Take, for instance, the opening to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, when Rosie Perez violently dances to Public Enemy's 'Fight the Power.' She may be the one fighting, but there is no indication that this is her fight; instead, she is silence as we hear the lyrics of Chuck D. (in the song's video, women are notably underrepresented).
Beyoncé's music has always resided comfortably in the realm of pop, although she is not wholly disengaged with hip hop, particularly since her husband is Jay-Z. Indeed, the vast majority of her songs would fail whatever the pop song equivalent is of the Bechdel Test, in that men are integral to their narratives. She may be crazy in love, she may be drunk in love, he may be a baby boy, he may have left and is now realizing she is irreplaceable, but there was always a he. Even when he is absent, she is singing to her single ladies about the man who should have put a ring on it. Occasionally, Beyoncé also brings in a girl power song, a pop trope that goes back to at least the Spice Girls' Zig-Ah-Zig-Ahs, but without too much power and far more emphasis on girl. Indeed, the terms found in Beyoncé's career are youthful: child of destiny, girls running the world.
In an age where Disney stars frequently need to throw off the shackles of their childhood careers, we are used to the idea of Lady Pop Stars Growing Up In The Public Eye, a move that can be signaled by a song (Miley's 'Party in the USA' turns into a 'Wrecking Ball') or, in the case of Brit Brit, a song about the ambivalence of growing old ('I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman'), combined with a movie (Crossroads), and one extremely notorious VMA Award kiss from Madonna. Just as their provocations must be sexual, their coming of age is as well--there is nothing particularly controversial about 'Wrecking Ball' as a song, but there certainly is about the video. In terms of age, Beyoncé is fully grown, but it is with 'Formation' that she finally matures in terms of her music. Rather than court sexual provocation, she has focused her energy instead toward the more crucial issues of our day: on black identity and why black identity is in peril. In this, she is unique (so far) among her contemporaries (the vast majority of whom are white).
Beyoncé slays at Superbowl 50
Not only this, but she unveiled this new image at the most public venue imaginable: during the halftime show of the most watched television program of the year. That this song and its subject courted controversy is not surprising; after all, as Bey herself states, 'You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation.' But unlike the female pop stars before her, this is the look of power, not the look of provocation. Welcome to Queen Bey and her Formation.
If you have not been watching FOX's 'Empire,' you may not know that one of the most integral elements of the show it its music. After all, it is the story of a hip hop label called Empire Records, one that was founded by the protagonist of the show Lucious Lyon, who you can see as a kind of fictional Jay-Z. Right now, his sons are battling over who will take it over; two of his three sons are also talented musically, while the third one feels left out of the family because he is not (unless it involves something called 'music therapy' where J-Hud sings to you or joining in for a trio of 'Lean on Me' in an elevator. If you aren't watching this show yet, I must ask WHY NOT???). As a result, we get a lot of songs on 'Empire.' Sometimes, these are songs being recorded in Ghetto Ass Studios, which is a real place in the Empire universe--in fact, to prove that the title is not just a nickname, they have recorded at Ghetto Ass Studios more than once. Sometimes, these songs are performed in the club, Leviticus, with family and friends and people who just signed record contracts with Empire and Rhianna-stand-ins named Tiana and random bystanders joining in:
In fact, 'You're So Beautiful' shows up a number of times on the show: Jamal (middle kid) alters the lyrics to publicly come out of the closet at the annual Lyon White Party (okay, maybe picture a blend of Jay-Z with Sean 'Puffy' Combs); we see Lucious singing the song to Cookie right before she goes to prison; and we even see Cookie consoling herself with the song while she is in prison, sans weave, sans animal prints, and sans heels (could this even be the same Cookie?):
Thanks for this screen capture go to Price Peterson, over at Yahoo, who has arguably the best 'Empire' recaps in all the land
'You're So Beautiful' is this feel-good hit, one that everyone in the Empire universe knows, and one that has clearly been around for at least seventeen years since that is when Cookie originally went to jail. It works as a feel-good song because it has that catchy chorus, with all credit due to Timbaland, who is writing the music for the show. This song is very much in the vein of Timbaland's number-one hit, 'The Way I Are,' which operates on similar catchy-chorus principles--except that 'You're So Beautiful' has better grammatical conceits.
But what is 'Empire''s 'best' song? I need to put that in scare quotes because it depends on how you want to evaluate that. Certainly, I would put 'You're So Beautiful' in the running because of its general all-around catchiness and its versatility for various key points throughout the show (e.g., coming out at a party, singing in the club with friends and family, pre-trial ballad, prison consolation song). But I'm going to make a controversial choice for best song of 'Empire' and say that, for me, it is unquestionably youngest son Hakeem's 'Drip Drop':
First things first: this is a terrible song on many levels. Please don't misunderstand me when I say it is 'Empire''s best. It is inane to a point where I might have to look through Kim Kardashian lyrics to find something worse. Just one screen capture from a video with the lyrics should help to demonstrate my point:
This cracks me up every time I look at it.
But I feel very confident that if 'Drip Drop' were recorded with the right combination of artists, it would be a giant hit. For is it any worse than Rhianna's 'Birthday Cake'? I would argue no (those of you who follow the blog would likely not be surprised by this, given my animosity toward 'Birthday Cake'). What I think 'Drip Drop' does is parody the exact kind of hit that we would expect from a Drake and Co., right down to the mandatory Rhianna-eseque appearance by Tiana. I would love for Lil' Wayne to drop by Empire Records and add a verse because I think it would fit perfectly, plus I have faith that he would find a way of parodying the parody and invoke toilets or something <-- NSWF link. Don't listen if you are easily offended. Not censored.
Let's move on to the the ridiculous video featuring ridiculous hip hop girls in ridiculous outfits, dancing around in a ridiculous manner. When Hakeem first presents the idea during an Empire board meeting (this company has the best freaking board meetings), he suggests using a green screen to allow him to be on a jet ski with several girls hanging off of it while singing the song--if you want a recap, the best can be found at Grantland. And what, I ask, could be more of a parody than a jet ski? It screams ostentation, unnecessary, and ridiculous. Perhaps that's why it was the favorite toy of Eastbound and Down's anti-hero Kenny Powers? <-- NSWF link. Don't watch if you are easily offended. You may need more context if you don't know the show. But it most certainly involves a jet ski. If you think of Hakeem as as hip hop's Kenny Powers, but with Jay-Z/Sean 'Puffy' Combs as his father, frankly his whole character starts to make much more sense.
Now there have been other songs on 'Empire,' arguably better songs. The most popular of these was likely Jamal's 'Keep Your Money,' which he recorded in response to Lucious cutting off his money (which all ties back to the fact that Jamal is gay, and Lucious is very much not okay with that). 'Keep Your Money' also benefited from Cookie's intervention, as the link demonstrates, as she walks in to Ghetto Ass Studios and offers her opinion about how the song should be mixed. 'Empire' is drawing on two common tropes here: the Empire is strongest when family members work together and the artists are at their best when they are speaking 'from the heart.' The first reduces the show to a cliché; as last week's episode demonstrated, this is a deeply broken family, one that can also be torn apart by these same characters when they are at their worst (things got all bordering on a V.C. Andrews novel). Cookie is trying to be the glue that holds them together, but she is also constantly hurt by the actions of those around her. Maybe she can fix a studio recording, but she hasn't been able to fix all of their problems yet.
As for the second conceit, that artists need to draw on their inner lives, this is certainly a thread that has permeated 'Empire.' In the show's opening scene, we saw Lucious in a recording studio, urging a young star to draw on her most painful memories to bring out the emotion in a song. Must we be so romantic, I ask? Must Jamal feel the pain of living in some non-gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn with tacky kitchen cupboards to find his voice in 'Keep Your Money'? Is this not simply reinforcing the notion that artist biography and output must be intertwined? Why can't we just 'drip drop' with Hakeem? The show seems to posit that 'Keep Your Money' was a breakout song for Jamal, one that cemented his reputation beyond the small clubs where he had previously been playing. Implicitly, its hit status grew because of its authenticity and its ties to Jamal's life. But I doubt that would happen in reality.
It's worth noting that in the week that FOX released 'Drip Drop' and 'Keep Your Money,' the latter was downloaded more than the former; however, I wonder if the fact that 'Empire' purposefully presented the former as verging on parody influenced this reaction. For my money, 'Drip Drop' still wins, simply because it so succinctly sums up a specific sound and ambiance that I expect to hear on the radio. Is it good as an artistic product? Not even I would claim that. Would it be popular? I suspect yes. Throw Lil' Wayne on that track and you'd have a hit song in no time.
"My theme is memory...These memories, which are my life—for we possess
nothing certainly except the past—were always with me." Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Last week, I binge-watchedthe mini-series version of Brideshead Revisited (my dog has now seen the entire series three times in his short life), and perhaps that is what has put me in a wistful mood. This week, I found myself listening to original songs that were later remixed into hip hop and getting annoyed with the kids today, what with their remixing and maiming originals and grumble grumble grumble. This isn't really a post about memory, per se, because I have no memories of these songs in their original format. But it is a post about feeling that something is missing in the present day that existed in the past, and what could be more Brideshead-inspired than that?
1) Curtis Mayfield, 'Move On Up' (Remix: Kanye West, 'Touch the Sky')
Let's start with the Mayfield:
Correction: let's start with that suit. Wow.
Let's move on to that vibe. Also wow. The high-energy, the sound of the brass, the multiple layers. What do I mean by multiple layers? There are many different things going on simultaneously. For instance: follow the drums, which have a driving, complex beat (it's not just drum kit here but also features congas, which adds to its depth of sound). The horns, which are tight and brassy. The strings, which add an important ostinato above (move on up, get it?). Most of all, notice the tempo, because it is integral to the drive of this track.
Kanye's version:
Do you see how he missed the whole thing by slowing it down???
I feel like this is part of some ca. 2006 trend by Jay-Z and Kanye to add funky horns to hip hop (which would be a great campaign slogan for someone, possibly Hornography):
And I guess in slowing it down, there is more of a relaxed-soul classy vibe or something. The Jay-Z video certainly implies some kind of upper-class, sophisticated, fondue-plate eating aesthetic. But I hates what Kanye has done to the Mayfield track now, after listening to the original a few times. Also, where did the awesome drums go? Now the beat is far more generic. Boo!
2) Trammps, 'Rubber Band' (Remix: The Game, 'Hate It Or Love It')
You may not know the original here, unless you happen to play Grand Theft Auto 5 (I only know this because of YouTube comments):
Outstanding. Also, the matching one-piece suits: outstanding.
You may be familiar with the remix, which was featured on the 2005 track 'Hate It Or Love It,' a collaboration between 50 Cent and The Game:
My objection here is more subtle. Listen to the original and count carefully. You'll notice something during each chorus. It doesn't fit into groups of 8! It breaks off at 'Palm of your hand,' which is on 7, and it never really recovers. Pretty much all dance music ever fits into groups of 8 (hence why, when you go to dance class, people count to 8). Here, instead, it breaks in the middle. You can follow the vibraphone part if you want to hear this a bit more clearly. What does this mean? I'm not sure. I could read something into it about how the singer feels broken or disjointed or whatever. But honestly, I just think it sounds great. A bit of irregularity in a very unexpected place.
Of course, this is not the case in the 50 Cent/The Game version, where this irregularity has been neatly straightened up to make groups of 8. Take another listen, I think you'll be able to hear it pretty quickly. It even loops at the vibraphone, so you can here the repeat. Boo!
In a thought-provoking post for this blog about Nas and the National Symphony Orchestra, Kira asked, 'Are hip hop artists performing the politics of respectability in these spaces?' This past weekend reinforced to me the fact that hip hop artists have obtained respectability, as evinced by the fact that they have entree into all kinds of 'venues' from which they were previously shut out. Three examples will suffice:
1) Hip hop is all the freak over NPR: Yes, NPR. The station that has long demarcated a certain higher level of radio culture--and is generally perceived as the choice for white, educated listeners, as this parody evinces:
In the past week alone, I have listened to hip hop appearing on numerous shows, mostly in a contemplative or esteemed light. There was the Radiolab segment discussed previously on this blog. Jesse Thorn, on Bulleye, offered his take on Nas's Illmatic as the best hip hop album of all time. A segment on Ask Me Another featured a version of $25 000 Pyramid involving hip hop songs, with actor/comedian Hannibal Buress providing the clues. Evidently, NPR believes that its listeners are conversant with 'classic' hip hop, enough so that they will understand the clues of this game. I think that NPR is correct here, but this is a bold statement about how completely hip hop has been absorbed into contemporary American culture. Also, there is a very white rap of 'Rapper's Delight' here (at around 1:30). The contestant even substitutes 'NPR' into one of the lines. That's right. There is now, theoretically, an NPR rap.
2) Hip hop at hockey: I attended Game 2 of the Tampa Bay Lightning versus the Montreal Canadiens on Friday night. During the second intermission, as the zambonis were driving around the ice, they were accompanied by the start of Notorious B.I.G.'s 'Hypnotize.' This is new, at least since 2011.
I cannot think of a single sport that is whiter than hockey. When I was a kid, there would be, literally, one black player in the league at any given time, and that one guy was Grant Fuhr (there is a whole Wikipedia category for precisely this topic).
'Hockey music,' in my experience, tends to reflect this demographic. Favorite styles include heavy metal (perhaps not surprisingly, this track gets played to start the third period at Lightning games) or dance music from the 90s. Yes, it must be from the 90s. Yes, it must be dance music. You might be wondering what we listened to before that and the answer is organ music and Stompin' Tom Connors. A great example that is even featured on the EA Sports 2011 NHL Game:
Biggie? No. I used to think that the fact you could hear hip hop anywhere was notable, but that was at bars and such. Now that you hear it at hockey and on NPR, I am willing to declare that we have reached a new era of cultural saturation.
3) Terrible rap beefs on TSN: What is TSN? The Sports Network. It is the Canadian equivalent of ESPN. And you won't believe what Drake said this week on TSN about Jay-Z. At least, you shouldn't believe it, because it's pretty silly:
Drake claims that Jay-Z eats fondue. From a plate. If you can imagine. I can't because I don't know, exactly, how you eat fondue from a plate. It needs some kind of warming mechanism to keep it viscous, like the type traditionally placed under a fondue pot.
Let's take a moment here. What does this even mean? Supposedly, that Jay-Z is not keeping it real, because only fancy people eat fondue. At least, this seems to be the general interpretation of this statement. He has moved beyond bougie, to whatever class where you eat fondue off a plate on a regular basis. Now, I am not, by any means, advocating a return to the violent outcomes of previous rapper beefs. But when one side is accusing the other of fondue eating? That seems like we have entered a new level of respectability, to go back to Kira's quote. Drake made no claims against Jay-Z's ability to rap or produce or do all of that music stuff. He just might be a little high-faluting for your average person.
Be sure to read this story on A.V. Club, which features some classic commentary on this particular beef. Perhaps Alton Brown will weigh in for Team Jay-Z. Perhaps Jay-Z will respond by besmirching poutine. Perhaps those radio bleeps ('f******') really are bleeping out 'fondues.' 'Cheese rules everything around me.' And let's not forget that Jay-Z has claimed in the past that he 'checks cheddar like a food inspector.'
Stay tuned for what shapes up to be the most mouth-watering rapper beef ever to go down. Or at least one of the most respectable.
My consideration of the Vogue cover got me thinking about KK as a type of modern anti-muse, and more generally about the idea of the muse in the first place. Muses have been around for a long time, as you undoubtedly know, dating all the way back to the Greeks. They were supposedly the inspirational force that helped artists create their products. The Greeks had nine of them, each of which represented different disciplines:
It's funny how 'Thalia, Muse of Comedy' and 'Salome, Beheader of John the Baptist' could be easily confused in this depiction
The concept of the muse has been around for a very long time, likely because anyone who is creative knows how hard creativity can be. What causes that spark of inspiration (or lack thereof)? That being said, the role and personification of the muse has changed drastically. In fact, I recently argued (on a different blog) that Annie Wilkes in Stephen King's Misery is effectively a muse, only a nightmare version of one, because sometimes you need some tough love to complete your creative work. By which I mean, sometimes you need to be hobbled and in fear of your life to write a novel.
However, there can also be those who hinder creativity. For the sake of this post, I am calling them anti-muses (which is oversimplifying the situation), and they too have a long history. In the modern context, anti-muses are women (but not always), which is a reflection of how genius has been construed over the past couple of centuries in Western culture (a brief history of genius, from Antiquity to present, is summarized in this review of Darrin M. McMahon's book about this topic). Around the eighteenth century, a genius was viewed as a man who possessed great talent, but who had to struggle with it to share this talent with the world in its truest artistic form. Women could not share in genius because they had other roles, the most important of which was motherhood. They could create life, whereas men could create art. Gendering genius was inherent in the concept from its origins in Antiquity, but became particularly powerful during the nineteenth century, when (European) women would willingly give up their creative endeavors because they felt their contributions were less meaningful than those of men. My background is music, so I can think of numerous female composers whose outlook adhered to this philosophy. Clara Schumann, for instance, was hailed as a great interpreter of genius in her piano performances, but her compositions were deemed less worthy of attention--and the genres that she chose were most often the types of pieces that would be performed in the home (such as Lieder and piano works) rather than grandiose, public performances of symphonies or operas. Fanny Mendelssohn gave up composition once she was married because she felt it was no longer an appropriate activity for her with her domestic and familial obligations. Perhaps the most maligned figure is Alma Mahler, whose penchant for creative men led to this delightfully misogynistic summary of her life, portraying her as combination slut, magically temptress, and harridan:
If you're interested, Alma Mahler's compositions are very interesting. She gave up composing while married to Gustav Mahler because he felt that her work impinged on his genius.
By now, you're probably thinking of one of the best-known recent anti-muses, Yoko Ono, whose relationship with John Lennon was the subject of much ridicule during his life. Ono's fame as an avant-guard performer and artist has been re-evaluated since then, as has that of Alma, Fanny, and Clara, which I feel is a great step forward in putting the genius/muse model aside and acknowledging that creativity can stem from either direction, without a need for gender--this trope remains stunningly persistent. There is even a (sort of) nice song about Yoko (even though it mocks her artistic creativity, and implies that John 'gave up musical genius' for her):
In fact, there are select cases where both couples can be admired for their creative ability on almost equal footing. Let me present the couple (and work) that I think most fully represents the ideal of the creative pair today:
(If you're curious, Beyoncé did contribute to writing this song, so she is not simply a performer here).
There is a peculiar dynamic between KK/Kanye and Jay-Z/Beyoncé, at least in the court of public opinion. I have no idea what kind of dynamic they share behind closed doors. Jay-Z and Kanye have a professional relationship in that they have collaborated on albums (Kanye produced The Blueprint's 'Izzo (H.O.V.A.)'....okay, maybe he is a genius). One of Kanye's most infamous moments occurred because of Beyoncé, when he interrupted Taylor Swift on stage at the 2009 MTV Video Awards to definitively state that Bey deserved the best video of the year (or possibly of all time). More recent news stories have speculated that Jay-Z does not want to be best man at Kimye's wedding if it will be later featured on a reality show and that Beyoncé may go so far as to boycott the event all together. Are they friends? Enemies? Frenemies? Is KK Kanye's Beyoncé? Is this an Illuminati plot? No lack of speculation.
I suspect that part of this public perception of a peculiar dynamic involves creative inequality. As I mentioned in my previous post about the Vogue cover, many (most? all?) of us find KK to be a bewildering celebrity. She has seemingly attracted an enormous amount of attention for accomplishing almost nothing. How is this possible? No one has cracked this code yet--I mean, there have been proto-KKs, such as Paris Hilton, but they seem to have faded more quickly. If anything, KK may be even less talented than Paris. I submit to you their singles:
Shut up, I kind of like 'Stars are Blind.' 2006-2007 was a tough time for pop music:
Brit Brit was out of the zone
Rihanna was okay but not 'Please Don't Stop the Music' good
Lady Gaga was just a sparkle in Stefani Germanotta's eye
Beyoncé was all Dreamgirls, which is fine, but not 'Crazy in Love'
This song is terrible. It has no redeeming qualities. In fact, it may have one quality that makes it even worse: it was 'released' as part of an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. There, you feel really icky now, don't you, and you want to go get your ears cleaned out with soap.
Perhaps KK peaked at the right time, with the advent of media like Twitter and reality shows becoming the predominant genre of television. But if she is famous due to luck (and money), then what is even more bewildering is the fact that she is engaged to Kanye West. Certainly, we should all be skeptical about his claims about his own genius, but he has had a lasting and profound effect on popular music. It is hard not to ask questions, Arrested Development style, about what KK is doing with him.
All of this skepticism came to a head when Kanye released his video to 'Bound 2,' a video that, once you have seen it, you can never unsee (and I am not embedding to this post for that very reason). I likely do not need to detail what happens, since it was all the talk for a week or two there, even inspiring parody videos and an episode of 'South Park.' In a sense, Kanye wins again, because he has created a work that is now inextricably linked to the song, just as Michael Jackson did with 'Thriller,' Britney Spears did with 'Baby, One More Time,' and Nirvana did with 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' This is part of the role of the video, of course: to provide a lasting visual association with the song. But the criticism (positive and negative) leveled against Kanye for 'Bound 2' ranged drastically, from uncanny valley, to covert critique of American society, to Kanye's Gigli moment. Honestly, I am still not sure what to make of it, but I'm still not sure what to make of Yeezus as a whole, so maybe that is not surprising. If you are the type of person who feels that Kanye is being led astray by KK, then you are probably in the appalled camp, since it seems that a talented man is under the spell of a talentless hack and creating a sensationalistic video with little artistic merit. In other words, an anti-muse. You might even blame all of Yeezus--undoubtedly Kanye's most divisive album to date in terms of public approval--on KK. This falls into the 'it's all her fault that the genius has lost his touch' trope of the anti-muse, much like those New England Patriot fans who blame Gisele for the lack of recent Superbowls. The gendered genius returns, bereft of the muse he needs to succeed.
I would like to suggest that KK may have been Kanye's muse for longer than was immediately apparent. One of the (bizarre) facts that has been revealed in the course of their relationship is that Kanye has waited for years to have the opportunity to date KK, but she was always with football players or basketball players or busy recording the single worst song ever to emerge from a recording studio and I am including 'Popozao' in that assessment. This unrequited desire may have surfaced a bit earlier in Kanye's career, because if this video is not meant to depict KK through its blatant inclusion of a KK look-alike, then I will watch 'Bound 2' again by choice:
As with my post about the Vogue cover, I am left with more questions than I began with:
1) What on earth would it say about Kanye and KK's relationship if this is meant to be some kind of Kanye fantasy? Because I HAVE A LOT OF QUESTIONS. Beautiful, dark and twisted, indeed.
2) These lyrics seem remarkably acute in describing KK, particularly her love of all things material. But they seem remarkably inaccurate in describing contemporary Kanye (trips to Florida? He hangs out in Paris now). This leads to another great puzzle in the Kanye canon: has Kanye changed? Is Kanye allowed to change? (Yes) Has he lost it because of these changes? Were these changes effected by his anti-muse? Or is his anti-muse symptomatic of these changes? Can change be good?
The general public opinion seems to be not in this case, as evinced by the countless YouTube comments asking 'What happened to you?' on Kanye's more popular tracks (like this one. I had to add 'Homecoming' because it has been stuck in my head for the past week or so). There is a larger question here about artistic development--one that I hope to address in a future post--and I would always caution against mapping biography too closely onto artistic products. But this is my question time, and these are my questions.
