FYI, Mobb Deen has never been conned in his life.
Full disclosure: I haven’t considered myself much of a Kanye fan since around when he broke his promise to marry Mr. Rainey’s daughter, but I absolutely acknowledge his importance and influence on certain segments of society, and to a lesser extent, rap. So keep that admission in mind before you try to blow my mama’s crib up because you’re mad that some Internet nigga you’ll never meet said vaguely impolite shit about a rap nigga that doesn’t give a rat’s cunt hair about whether you breathe or not.
So how exactly are we supposed to process the shenanigans masquerading as an excuse for an album roll out? Like many of you, I have to admit that there’s something inspirational and endearing about watching a superstar subvert all traditional notions of how an album should be produced and presented to the public for the second time in his career. There aren’t a lot of artists that work within the confines of major record labels and/or mass sportswear production that are powerful enough to bend corporate America to their flightiest whims,. I imagine we all kinda admire that Kanye seems to be able to get away with anything other than saying Taylor Swift’s name. Side note: how many more generations have to pass before a famous black man is able to call a famous white woman a “bitch” in public without rousing any opprobrium in the media? I don’t actually need this to happen and I’m not looking to die on any misguided hills but I’m curious. I’m only curious about anything besides new sex partners and potential Arsenal transfers like twice a year, so I want answers. Thanks.
Back to Kanye. So he’s essentially launched a few singles that didn’t quite do it for the masses – they weren’t flops per se, but I don’t know anyone that wants to hear “All Day” or that other song with the cute video with his daughter. Those were songs that got the attention they got by mere virtue of the fact that Kanye is Kanye. There’s nothing wrong with that and that the level most pop stars aspire to but from a more critical standpoint, those singles were the life of pablum and certainly not attention grabbing enough to launch a KANYE WEST album in 2015-6.
Which reminds me; Kanye has had this ‘issue’ for a little while now. He can’t get out of his own way in the studio for long enough to just drop some shit niggas really wanna hear. The closest he’s come to a really dope single in years was when he tried to ruin “Mercy” with that Italo-Disco cokehead beat interlude (usual the right moment at the club to whisper to your target for the night that you’re into assplay – nullus). I know a lotta folks consider those grandiose instincts illustrations of artistic growth, but for a nigga that loves hollering about how much he wants to be Michael Jackson, Kanye has been making the wrong moves for a long minute. Michael wouldn’t have made Yeezus. Then again, he’s dead so I should leave him outta this.
So what does Kanye do these days in lieu of making us dance by putting his best shit forward? He essentially brainstorms and focus group tests his albums in public view now. He trickles shit out and you morons invest so much time and emotional investment in those morsels that when he eventually drops the entire thing, you can’t help liking it – even though it’s probably not that good. I won’t knock him for that shit though. It’s lowkey brilliant. The man tricked every critic in America into group thinking My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to the position of the best rap album of the 2010s by collating a tape in real time.
And guess what? He’s about to do it again. I haven’t heard anything yet but if I wasn’t over my arbitrarily self-imposed word limit, I’d spend the next two paragraphs writing the breathless reviews of the The Life of Pablum we’ll be drowning in through the end of Black History Month. I’m probably just the best hater you’ve read but I’m amazed that a nigga that can barely rap well over a decade into his career has finessed us into this position. I understood it when folks like Outkast & Missy got away with this sorta shit back in the day (I know, I’m older than Egyptian Lover) but I don’t understand y’all and Kanye. He gets a pass for all the bullshit in the world and his music hasn’t justified that privilege for like eight years. Fuck wrong with y’all?
Anyway, I just wanted to get this out before the torrent of bullshit starts. I really don’t care as much as this screed suggests but I’m on a plane and I can’t sleep so I figured I’d hate on a deserving target because fuck Kanye. Taylor Gang Or Die. Or something.
