kanye west just keeps getting better…
i’ve been planning a post on k. west’s new album “late registration” for a while, and now i couldn’t have a better reason. briefly, i heard an advance version about 6 months ago, and it was terrible. it sounded like kanye had given all of his best beats to common for the “be” album. but i recently got an updated advance copy, and it’s pretty spectacular. he’s added some of the released singles, as espected: “gold digger” is excellent, as is “diamonds from sierra leone.” but there are also some unexpected gems, and a visible increase in political consciousness: on “heard em say,” he notes “i know that the government administers aids,” and on the excellent “crack music” - “how do you stop the black panthers? ronald reagan cooked up an answer”. so things are generally looking up, and the beats are good too.
on to the present subject: on a telethon broadcast for new orleans on msnbc (possibly viewed by millions), kanye appeared with mike meyers. while meyers dutifully read the teleprompter, kanye substituted his own text, including the following:
“I hate the way they portray us in the media … If you see a black family it says they are looting if you see a white family it says they are looking for food.”
“We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war now fighting another way and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us.”
and then, after letting meyers return to his teleprompting, kanye looked directly into the camera and said: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
mike meyers just looked at him dumbfoundedly, and the broadcasters cut away immediately. it’s pretty difficult to overstate the importance of this (though it appears that msnbc cut the clip out of its west coast broadcast). fucking sweet. i will try to upload the video here so you all can se it.
Here it is:
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I was just about to write a very similar post. The new Kanye probably has more filler than the first, but the good stuff is pretty good. ‘Golddigger’ and ‘Diamonds’ must be some of his best beats yet, though it’s unfortunate that Jay-Z’s verses on the remix are kind of lame (though I like “I sold kilos of coke, I’m guessing I can sell CDs”), and Kanye’s bars on the original are rubbish (but his bars on the remix make up for it, “When I say diamonds in this song … I’m talking about Roc-a-fella, my own, my chain, these ain’t conflict diamonds, is they?”).
Crack Music is brilliant, for the lines you mention, as well as:
I also like the main thrust of the song, about rap as a kind of mirror-image of crack, a destructive chemical which capitalism is pushing on _white_ America:
On the murder in New Orleans, check out Alphonse Van Worden.
Comment by Tim @ 9/3/2005 2:53 pm
The internet works fast. Check out this remix of Kayne West’s already fantastic ‘Goldigger’: ‘George Bush Don’t Like Black People’.
Five days in this motherfucking attic
I can’t use the cellphone I keep getting static
Dying ’cause they lying instead of telling us the truth (…)
Screwed ’cause they say they’re coming back for us, too
but that was three days ago and I don’t see no rescue(…)
Swam to the store, tryin’ to look for food
Corner store’s kinda flooded so I broke my way through
Got what I could but before I got through
News say the police shot a black man trying to loot
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/08/katrina_kanye_remixe.html
Comment by Moll @ 9/12/2005 3:23 pm
Kaynes the guy from the Hood.
At the football match he got booed.
Dish it out, but he can’t take it.
As a rapper he can’t fake it!
Comment by Rob Read @ 9/13/2005 10:19 am