![]() The swing and jump blues that paved the way for R&B and rock and roll was replete with koanic classics like “Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop” and “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee.” ![]() Where would music be without nonsense? Louis Armstrong’s epoch-making bedrock of the Hot Five Recordings are replete with scat singing in songs like 1926’s “Heebie Jeebies” and “Skid-Dat-Dee” and 1927’s “Hotter Than That.” Even the most elementary rap scholar can trace modern rhythmic swag back to the Thirties work of Cab Calloway, who would pepper his songs with bursts of zah zuh zaz and hi de hi de hi de hos. Uproxx called it a “flatulent troll job” while a Pitchfork headline said he “trolls everyone.” A Stereogum writer said he felt “unk’d,” and another said it was “clearly a goof.” Consequence of Sound called it “a musical poop joke,” and Vulture gushed “Kanye West inhabits a theatre of the absurd where scatological squibs count as songs.” It’s obvious that Kanye’s new politics may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Championship Belt will not be threatened by lyrics like “poopy-dee scoop.” However, dismissing “Lift Yourself” as the musical version of trollface.jpg is shortsighted and ahistorical.īy any reasonable metric, the lyrics to “Lift Yourself” are complete and total jabberwocky: “Poopy-dee scoop/Scoop-diddy-whoop/Whoop-dee-scoop-dee-poop/Poop-dee-scoopty.” But immediately washing your hands of them ignores a long, proud, defiantly pop tradition of gibberish in popular music. However, the nonsensical “Lift Yourself” has been the surprising talking point. the People,” assisted by an astonishingly patient T.I., is basically a meta hall of mirrors about the entire fiasco up to that point feel free to wade into West’s defense of indefensible politics at your own peril. Throughout this pea-soup-thick social media fog of outrage, Twitter dunks, memes, smhs, boycotts, thinkpieces, outreach, opportunism, concern and recalibrations, you would be forgiven if you didn’t notice that Kanye West also released two new songs. The media – perhaps correctly – has been dismissing Kanye West outright despite his reign as the most critically acclaimed artist of the 21st Century (he’s topped the Village Voice critics poll four times – a feat only Bob Dylan can match). (Much thanks to Childish Gambino for wrangling everyone’s attention, at least for a little while.) But one thing is clear: Twitter has been an absolute Chernobyl toilet for a week. It’s not really worth engaging in the endless fan fiction of debating whether this is performance art, a mental health breakdown, or just the gears of fame and social media grinding up another one of their loudest lights. ![]() His TMZ outburst reduced two centuries of American slavery to “fake news.” ![]() They were, at worst, a dangerous amplification and normalization of men’s rights activism and MAGA racism/sexism/xenophobia. Is there a such thing as bad press? This month, Kanye West – undeniably one of the most famous, successful, critic-proof hip-hop artists in history – went on what can best be described as a “negative press tour.” His baffling series of public provocations were, at best, a Gabbo-style alienation of his massive fan base. Imagine if I ain’t say somethin’/Wouldn’t none of these niggas say nothin’? I don’t wanna say nothin’ wrong/But it’d be wrong if I ain’t say nothin’ Pray for me/I’m about to hit the ‘Ye button
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