Time Magazine shows hip hop Love
I hate to mention Kanye West twice in one blog, like ever. But I have to discuss the fact that he's on the cover of Time Magazine. I will buy this issue tonight and read it, but first, I'll share my thoughts on the subject.
For the record, I really like Kanye. He's cool. I hear that the angle for Kanye's feature is that he defies hip hop's stereotypes. "More GQ than gangsta, Kanye West is challenging the way rap thinks about race and class.." they say. That's all accurate, but to put this brotha on the cover of Time is a slap in the face of "real rappers" (let's just put it out there. Kanye's steadily improving, but he was fairly ass-like when he started.) who've been doing that same thing for years, like oh... say, Mos Def, Common, Talib Kweli, Chuck D., KRS-One... Now Kanye is gonna gets to be the poster boy for thought-provoking rhyme slingers? Are you serious?!
I won't say more than that until I read the article...
posted by Atsui_Gal @ 3:03 PM
6 Comments:
how ya'll like the new joint? I give it an ok...he's def stepped his rap game up...has some whitty lines in there...i'd give it 3.5 mics (and i'm operating on the old school source scale...when they were hardcore about rankings..u know circa 90-92). I suppose today it'd get a 4. I do like the skits though...
You must have some bootleg tracks. I've heard singles have been leaked online, I'd like to subscribe to that service.
I haven't heard it all yet. But I'm feeling Gold Digger and his stage energy is crazy. Homeboy is good for the hip hop game. But, people take him too seriously. Like he almost got nominated for a gospel award just because he said he needs Jesus the way Kathy Lee needed Regis..
Kanye is generally on point in my book.
Exerpt from my book, page 274: "Kanye West is generally on point."
But I do question how he can try to raise awareness about diamonds (from Sierra Leone) while he's been blinging quite brightly for years. Maybe I missed something and he wears all 100% guaranteed child labor free shit, but I doubt it.
I love that song and video though - except that last scene where he's playing all Amadeus on the two harpsichords.
I think 'Gold Digger' is aight, but maybe that's because I heard it before it was a rap song. He read it on Def Poetry Jam last summer. At that time, he said it was inspired by his mom when he finally started to see dough roll in. I haven't heard the whole thing yet either, but I really haven't heard him say much to make me sit back and think.
I too have a problem with 'Diamonds'. The video gives me the chills, but I don't see him giving up the bling in the name of the children.
They had an article on Vibe.com about Kanye's Diamonds. They interviewed some people who Kanye could have talked to before putting the diamond industry on blast, and those people said that he misrepresented the situation. What I remember is that one lady who works for a non profit or something said Kanye's song is the equivalant of writing a rap about the lynching of black people without acknowledging the Civil Rights Movement.
Apparently like less than 2% of the diamonds in the U.S. could even be conflict diamonds. Conflict diamonds are labeled as such because the countries have to show the facilities and prove that certain standards are being met. Now, I'm sure that foul shit still goes on. And I'm willing to bet that Kanye is onto something. But he may be raising awareness about something that's more historical than current.
I don't care what kind of improvements they have made in the diamond mining industry, they have still raped African people of their land in order to make billions mining African resources while leaving the people poor.
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