No, he’s a genuine talent.* It just so happens that having musical talent doesn’t mean you automatically are also a public policy intellectual or even a reasonably informed citizen.
*I try to be sparing with the word ‘genius.’ Mozart was a musical genius.
Yeah, exactly. He ain’t Mozart.
Other rappers respect his ability, so I guess I’ll acknowledge there must be something to it, but I don’t hear it.
Rap is an art. It’s a little elitist to dismiss it. It right up there with the alt-right complaining about how elite people with professional jobs and educations are and then they turn around and decide they’re too elite for rap or hip hop. Don’t be a like the alt right. Rap and Hip Hop have roots and meaning.
Rap’s fine. But Kanye isn’t the best rapper ever, not by a longshot.
Fachidiot.
As always, the Germans have a word for this. A fachidiot is someone great in their field, but blisteringly stupid outside of it.
I don’t know whether he’s a great ‘rapper’ per se but he’s a master of music production. As far as I can tell his style is directly descended from Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, and worthy of comparison with it. (Though I don’t know how much credit goes to him versus other producers on his albums etc)
That’s a great word. Fach meaning “trade/profession” and the idiot* part speaks for itself.
As to Kanye, I’ve never heard anything by him that rivals the stuff by the early 90’s guys.
*I love how “idiot” implies narcissism and self-involvement, coming from the same root idio- in idiolect and idiosyncracy.
I don’t think anyone here has dismissed rap per se.
Also, if no one else here will carry the banner for elitism, I’ll sign up!
Kanye is good at what he does, like not a little bit good but more than a rap artist kind of scope good. To say he is no Mozart comes off as pretty extreme elitism. I don’t like many of his songs, or his attitude and certainly not the way he presents himself, but I certainly know he is not in the minor league, and yes he has talent… even if it’s not my kind of talent.
I certainly won’t apologize for that. Mozart is one of the sublime geniuses in the history of Western civilization. Again, it’s a word I don’t toss around lightly. If my sparing use of it constitutes ‘elitism,’ then I proudly accept the label of elitist.
If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought you were referring to Jay Z
If you label pretty much every artist alive today as no Mozart, that’s fine. I think it’s problematic to do it to say only rap artists and one that actually writes songs, runs a business is in fashion and is also one of the top selling artists in the 21st century.
He does it too. But the production on ‘We Major’ seems very Spector-esque to me.
I certainly do. Triggercut probably will get mad at me for saying so, but I don’t think anyone in the pop/rock/hip-hop tradition can be put in the same league as the big classical composers (Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, J.S. Bach, Scarlatti, Debussy, et al.). Of course, it’s all apples and oranges. That ‘Long Tall Sally’ doesn’t come up to Der Holle Rache doesn’t change the fact that it’s perfect.
As for Kanye being one of the top selling artists, that means precisely nothing to me, only because I refuse to ever accept the argument ad popularum as a measure of aesthetic worth. He does seem to me as talented as any pop artist I have heard since the millennium, if that makes you feel any better.
Wow. Not even a Michael Jackson, Prince, or Freddy Mercury?
I’m not sure I follow the value of a comment that you essentially apply to everyone (e.g., “he’s no Mozart”). The comment basically loses all value.
For Kanye, while’s he’s clearly talented, I’d say “he’s no Prince” or the like. There are artists that I think are in the same league as Prince, but Kanye ain’t one of them. Regardless, the point still stands that even if he were Prince-level, that doesn’t necessarily translate at all into any sort of expertise in other areas. It’s one of the oddities of celebrity culture (at least in America) that we think being a great singer or actor gives the person some sort of veneer of authority.
I don’t apply it to everyone. JS Bach and Beethoven and a few others are aesthetic peers of Mozart. Most aren’t. But yes, to say a composer is no Mozart is not a very harsh critique anymore than saying a writer is no Shakespeare.
In any case that precise quote comes from Timex and you will have to ask him in what sense he meant it. What I said was that I (try to) reserve the word genius for the true greats, not just folks with a lot of talent (which Kanye assuredly is). Beyond that we are just going to get into some rather tiresome semantic hair splitting, I fear.
Tsk tsk, it’s Der Hölle Rache . From possibly my favorite Mozart opera*, which I mostly know the German lyrics of by heart.
I like the Queen of the Night’s first aria better, though: O zittere nicht, mein lieber Sohn with the descending melismas that give me chills.
*okay, Singspiel
So, on topic, is this bad?
I mean everyone agrees for the most part, but I don’t hear it. Then again, I also think the Beatles get too much credit at times. I can’t deny their insane influence, but most of their songs aren’t anything special. Same for the Rolling Stones who have like… three good songs.
I think Jay Z, Dre, Eminiem, DMX, hell 50 Cent at times are all better than he is. But maybe his style just doesn’t click with me, because all those people I listed would probably disagree with me.