We've all heard it by now, unless you've been under a rock or got your phone stolen like me the other night…long story. But it's been written about everywhere by now, even USA Today and TIME did pieces on the now infamous yet not surprising rant done by Kanye last night during the Sacramento show off his Saint Pablo Tour. Quite a few "fuck you's" have been dished out, a couple "he's crazy's", and simple "shut up's" as well since the event, but once the Ticketmaster refunds have been received and the twitter hashtag trending has subsided I encourage everyone to take a look at the video along with the transcript done at FADER and then make their way back to this piece.
Have you done it? Dope. 'Preciate it, now let's start to actually pay attention to what Kanye is saying. That's right, let's actually listen to what "Cray-'Ye" had to say. (Although witty, don't take this title seriously since that's insensitive to the fact that 'ye is actually seeking help right now.) Which I know is hard since his delivery isn't necessarily flagging up signs of, "Hey, I'm about to drop some actual knowledge", but instead, "Yo, look at me throwing a temper tantrum again so that I stay relevant." But just hear me out on hearing Kanye out.
I've read articles speaking of Kanye throwing shade to tons of people, saying a big "f-you" to some "former" best friends, and simply just going off on random tangents. And honestly, seeing as I did buy tickets to his Anaheim show for Saint Pablo, I was pretty upset I gave this fool my hard earned money (also keep in mind that my show just got cancelled and I'm receiving a full refund)…but I digress, stay with me here. That is until I actually saw the video and read the transcript along with it, and was surprised. 'Ye actually had something insightful to say. Yes, I said that out loud, slightly regrettable about it, but only slightly.
He starts out saying, "Hey Radio, fuck you! Radio, fuck you!", which of course sounds like another start to an infamous Kanye Temper Tantrum, but if you don't completely shut down past this point you can actually get past the yelling and hear the truth. He follows with, "I know it’s a lot of real niggas working at radio, real people, real programming directors with wives and kids that love music, that can’t play what they want to play because they’ve been paid to play that bullshit over and over and over. And when I say that bullshit, what I'm saying is we love Drake, Drake is great. He’s a great artist. But Frank Ocean is great, too." You can't help but admit that the man has a point. After a 5 year hiatus, the beautiful Frank finally dropped his sophomore album, along with a magazine, and a whole other video/audio project, something which has huge artistic merit, and did we hear any singles off the album on the radio? Not one. 'Ye even mentioned half of A$AP Mob, including Pretty Flacko, but I'm positive we're not listening to Cozy Tapes, Vol. 1: Friends on the radio anytime soon. But I bet you can recite at least half of Drake's album word for word if I asked you on the spot. I remember I was riding in the car for an hour sometime recently, and in that hour I heard 4 different Drake songs and 2 of them had to of played twice. Not to mention that everyone and their mama, knows what "major key" means or that lions probably upped in popularity in the last year thanks to DJ Khaled's genius publicity.
He continues on to clarify that he's not dissing the people who work in radio, but the infrastructure it's built on. Which is true. Admit it. How many times have you actually listened to the radio in the last week, unless you forgot your aux at home? Or how many people do you know who say they hate the radio simply because everything they play is something they heard months ago before it ended up on the radio? And why is that? Because the system that radio is supported by is old, it can't keep up with this new age of streaming. At least in terms of playing "hot, new music" radio falls short and in trying to keep the lights on, settles for "hot, old music" for for-sure listeners. Unfortunate, considering most on the radio are either already huge stars or the track has been paid to be played. There's hardly such a thing as an up-and-coming artist on the radio anymore, I mean unless you're in Pop…or just lucky. Of course, there's things such as Sirius Radio, I mean why else would we have Sway in The Morning? But those are small exceptions in the grand scheme of the Top 100.
Needless to say, point proven Kanye. Soundcloud killed the radio star.
If the structure of radio is flawed, then what other structures are flawed? Let's take a wack at our government's structure, there's definitely some flaws there. Once again, it sounds like 'Ye is saying f-you to our boy Barack and "I guess I'm with Her" Clinton, but if you look closer maybe he's just pointing out something we all know, but don't want to say out loud. Barack, God bless his soul, although we wish we could squeeze another term out of him, didn't necessarily end with the same fire that had us all wearing his t-shirts for months or screaming "Yes, We Can!" at our tv screens. And that could be blamed on multiple things, but one of them could be that you can't snap your fingers and make things law as president. There goes that flawed structure again. And it's the same one Hillary is built off of and has been maneuvering in for decades, which Kanye feels may have a lot to do with her downfall at the polls. This part of the rant, also brings light to why Kanye keeps yelling we've been lied to by Facebook and Google. We all thought that Hillary had no chance of losing, why would she? Everyone from our hairdresser to that one girl you befriended on Facebook for lecture notes, thinks Trump's an idiot. So what went wrong?
Facebook and Google lied to us. Don't get mad, that's their jobs. They're built off of algorithms to notice what we're searching and posting and spit it right back at us, to supposedly make our lives easier. Great when you've been googling beauty gurus for the last hour, not so great when you're in the middle of an election race. Yeezus has blessed us with yet again another point. Moving on.
But what about the shade he threw at Auntie 'Yoncé and Hova? Okay, that part was just speaking from hurt, which he points out. He basically just received villain of the year award for the last 7-8 years for running up and being a Beyoncé stan, and to repay him Bey supposedly said if she didn't win Video of the Year Award over him, she wasn't performing. Not the best "thank you", I must admit. And apparently, Jay-Z has been too busy playing patty cake with Blue to return Kanye's phone calls. So I don't really have any analysis for this part except the man is hurt and lashed out.
Let's be clear, I'm not defending the man and his behavior by far. He has a lot of communication skills he needs to work out with his therapist. (And I really do hope that his hospitalization is helping him get a peace of mind.) So what's the overall point of all of this then? That Kanye actually had a lot of actual truth to speak, it's just unfortunate that Kanye is the one to say it, since he's been painted the villain of all entertainment. And as we all know, it's always easier to hate the villain than it is to hear them out. I know I'm guilty of it. My advice? Try to drown out all the yelling and try to catch a transcript of his rants from here on out.
Also, please call the man back, Jay. Some of us actually want to hear "Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 2" live on tour. (Which now I will probably never get to do, guess I can get those Anderson.Paak resell tickets now.)
I really do hope that the Kardashian-West Family is doing okay though, they've had a rough two months.
*Keep in mind that edits have been made since finding out that Kanye cancelled the rest of his tour. Including the Anaheim show I was supposed to go to 3 days after this event…Long live Yeezus or whatever.
**Also keep in mind that a few more edits have been added since finding out that Kanye's been hospitialized. Long live Yeezus…with no sarcasm. Mental health is important ya'll.
