Kanye v The People

Kanye v Taylor Swift
Elizabeth Granato
Features Editor

Here we go again. Looks like Kanye West is refueling a firestorm of drama with Taylor Swift but this  time, it’s with a lyric from his new song “Famous”. Basically, he is saying that he made Taylor famous. Taylor’s family, friends, and her “Swifties” are not happy and took to social media to express their anger. Kanye being Kanye, thinks nothing is wrong. Let’s take a deeper look into this situation, look back at their past drama and see if Kanye is right by claiming that “he made her famous”.

Last Thursday, Kanye showed off his clothing line at the Yeezy season 3 fashion show. Along with the fashion, he also played songs off of his new album The Life of Pablo and debuted the trailer for his upcoming video game Only One. Not long after the show, the lyrics from his song “Famous”, which the song played at the show, quickly made the rounds and it raised a lot of eyebrows. The lyrics were obviously about Taylor Swift and many were confused because they thought the beef between them was over. Apparently, everyone was wrong.

That same day, Taylor’s brother Austin took to Instagram and posted a video of him throwing out his pair of Yeezy sneakers with the caption, “Getting a head start on some spring cleaning. Here we go again”. Some of Taylor’s friend’s “liked” the video and took to their own social media sites to express the situation. Gigi Hadid, who was in attendance at his show and is Taylor’s friend, took to Twitter and stated, “My attendance somewhere does not mean I agree with everything being said in the music playing there. My friends know of my loyalty”. Of course, Kanye was not having all of this hate coming his way.

He went on a 16 tweet tirade, which some of it did not even make sense, claiming that he never dissed her, he asked for her blessing to use the lyric and that people should respect his artistry. Although Taylor has yet to make a statement about the situation, a rep for Taylor told Billboard that Taylor was not told about one of the lyrics that is in the song. It will be interesting to see if she will comment on the drama or not. For now, let’s take a walk down memory lane and revisit the moments in Taylor and Kanye’s love/hate relationship.

The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, where it all started. Taylor was nominated for Best Female Video and she ended up winning the award. She got up on stage to give her acceptance speech and then out of nowhere, Kanye comes up on stage and steals her moment. He takes the mic from her and says now the most infamous line in award show history, “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ll let you finish, but Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!” Once he finished his unnecessary rant, he gave the mic back to Taylor and she was stunned.

When Beyoncé won an award later in the evening, she let Taylor come on stage to have her moment. Kanye took to his blog to “apologize” for his actions. Kanye did almost the same thing at the Grammys last year when Beck won Album of the Year. Kanye stormed the stage acting like he was going to speak but then quickly walked off. The next day, he slammed the Grammys and said that they should “respect artistry”.

Flash forward to the 2015, Taylor presented Kanye with the Video Vanguard award and even joked about the infamous 2009 moment saying, “To all the other winners tonight, I’m really happy for you, and I’mma let you finish, but Kanye West has had one of the greatest careers of all-time.” They both hugged and then Kanye went on with his speech that seemed to last an eternity and ended with him saying he’s running for president in 2020 and a mic drop.

At this moment in time, there seemed to be no “bad blood” between them. Kanye even sent her white roses and lilies, which has become his signature thing to do now apparently. Now five months later, it does not look like Kanye will be an honorary member of her squad.

Now to the claims that he made her famous. Before the 2009 incident, this is what Taylor had accomplished: 15 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, 1 Academy of Country Music Award, 1 American Music Award, 1 CMA Award, 5 CMT Music Awards, including two straight wins for Video of the Year in 2008 and 2009, 3 Teen Choice Awards, 1 Grammy Nomination and of course the award that she won that evening. You might want to re-think your words Kanye. Are you Team Taylor or Team Kanye?

Kanye v Kanye

Zhana Johnson
Senior Features Editor

For the past couple of years rapper Kanye West has become a petty dabbler of sorts, trying on different personas and hobbies. It’s almost as if he is in perpectual competition with himself, trying to out do the wild, the offensive, the head stratching decisions he made just months before.

With his career becoming more focused on materialism it only made sense that he would eventually try his hand at a fashion line. For a man that not only considers himself the greatest the artist of all time and a style icon, the stylistic choices for his clothing line are questionable. But then again who wouldn’t pay hundreds of dollars to look like an extra in a George Romero movie?

Kanye’s YEEZY Season 3 was a strange fashion event held in Madison Square Garden where he also unveiled his new album The Life of Pablo, streaming it during the entirety of the show.  The album had been delayed for some time although the song Facts (Charlie Heat Version) was previously released  in January. With the extra time that he was afforded Kanye extended the album to 18 tracks.

The album’s opening track Ultralight Beam, which he performed on Saturday Night Live on Feb. 13, is arguably one of the best tracks on an album saturated with self praise and reflection. His fifth appearance on the long running comedy sketch show involved some weird futuristic hip-hop with pixelated clouds zooming past on a screen and and a choir harmonizing in reflective gear and everything washed in ultraviolet blue light.

Chance the Rapper and gospel icon Kirk Franklin both made appearances for their features on the song, making the performance which was equal parts madness and gospel revival. He also brought out Young Thug, Kelly Price , El DeBarge and The Dream. This particular appearance upstaged the level of weird and slightly mesmerizing achieved when he brought Vic Mensa and Sia out with him last year as they crouched on the ground, sporting glowing contacts.

One of the highlights from the show was a sketch chronicling SNL semi-regular Kyle Mooney’s love of rap and his aspiration to be the best albeit nerdy and white rapper alive. To do this he must defeat Kanye West in a boss level rap battle. The sketch culminates with him confronting the confused rapper. The golden nugget comes when Kanye rises to the challenge, delivering the most new age meta Kanye verse you could probably imagine.

“What if Kanye made a song about Kanye, calling out old Kanye…that would be so Kanye,” he muses. I always believe that this new Kanye, and we’re talking post “College Dropout” here,  is at his best when he has someone to collaborate with and add levity to his inward dialogue. On his album he has up and coming Chicago artist Chance the Rapper, as well Chris Brown, Rihanna, Post Malone and the elusive Frank Ocean among others.

You can view the YEEZY Season 3 live stream now on TIDAL.com if only to watch how amazingly awkward and bored all of the models look standing in formation for an entire hour. Hopefully the pay check was worth it.