easy it can happen to ANYONE in the Jackson family and to ANY CELEBRITY period.
Exactly.
bgz- Yes, Lance's dance moves has improved. Congrats to him. I really liked the fact that they played that song because the song is one of my favorite songs. A great beat and groove to dance to.
I have some news again. LOL. Kanye West did an interview with
Fader magazine (a music magazine) and there are some MJ mentionings. Very interesting to what he says. I am not gonna post the whole article because it is long. Just the MJ parts. (I apologized for the curse words. Kanye loves to curse. LOL.) Also, the parts that are itatilized (sp) is the questions being asked to Kanye.
http://www.thefader.com/features/2008/11/25/fader-58-kanye-west-cover-story-and-interview
FADER 58: Kanye West Cover Story and Interview
Story Peter Macia
Photography Jason Nocito
"Kanye West wants to make history.” That is how we began the Kanye West story in our December 2003 issue, his first cover. Exactly five years later, he has done so in a way that even we could not have imagined. His personal style—skinny jeans rising out of exclusive colorway sneakers matched with high fashion sunglasses—has influenced kids from Flatbush to Fukuoka, and now he is finishing work on his own menswear line, Pastelle, and designing a shoe for Nike named the Air Yeezy. At the same time, of course, his music has dominated the pop charts, with seven of his own songs reaching the Top 20 of Billboard’s Hot 100—twice reaching number one—while countless productions for other artists peppered the mainstream with his ever-changing sound. Kanye West has become a brand synonymous with not just success, but innovation, and its CEO is as mercurial and provocative as Steve Jobs.
But this year was different for West. As the world knows, he went through some difficult personal times, and he appears to have emerged a changed man, simultaneously more mature in his attitude and more childlike in his lack of inhibition. From his absurdly readable blog (he writes it) at KanyeUniverseCity.com to his Glow in the Dark one man show and now his new stripped-bare album, 808’s & Heartbreak, West has become the world’s first interactive pop star. He is breaking down the barrier between himself and the rest of us, and as a result, we feel like we’re a part of his life and art.
And we are. The first single from 808’s & Heartbreak, “Love Lockdown,” went up on West’s blog in September and was re-upped a week later with changes conspicuously in line with the criticisms made in the comments to the first post. In the studio and at his house in the Hollywood Hills, as he finished the album, he takes this same social networking approach to creation, bouncing between associates—Esthero, Consequence, A-Trak, Hype Williams, Fonzworth Bentley and Plain Pat, to name a few—absorbing their suggestions before making pivotal decisions on a vocal drop or lyric. The parallels between his process and our new internet-dependent way of life seem intentional. He is willing to put his inner thoughts, unedited, in public view and sees no point in waiting for old thinkers to tell him what or when to do what he wants. When I met Kanye at his house, an Aston Martin sat in the driveway, Andy Warhol pieces hung on the wall and I walked into the most enormous closet I’ve ever seen. But West might as well have been some dude I met at a party. He was mellow and eager to talk about whatever subject crossed his mind—which, most of the time, was Kanye West.
For this issue, we’re talking to the people who inspire us, who give us something to talk about every issue. You, of course, do that, but also, by pushing the things we love to the masses, you’ve become almost like an ambassador for us.
Yeah, I just think about when Jay-Z would be like, “I do this for my culture, I do this for the hood.” I’m doing it for that. I’m doing it for where I came from being the only dude in my class that dressed in a certain way, and then finding there’s other people who think like me too, they just weren’t in my school. And I think that’s what the FADER kids are made of, people who were different or wanted something better than what was the norm. But I had to come to the realization, it wasn’t just the search for something different, but something better, a better solution. I never forget that. I just don’t want people to think that because I’m big I’m not into the same things I was into that made me big. For y’all to put me on the cover, it’s kinda dope. It feels like I’m on the right path.
In FADER #20, that was in there. Everything that you’re doing now was budding in that story.
I was saying it from the gate: I’m into Louis Vuitton, I wanna be pop. I spent my whole check on those two bags I wore for those pictures. Those are some of my best pictures, other than having a really bad haircut. Now, the only thing is pop. I really like popular culture. I’m all about Walt Disney, Coca-Cola, Louis Vuitton, Nike. I want people to remember me the way they know Nike, that level of impact.
Who was the last person who really had it like that? When I was a kid, it seems like there was a lot of great pop music. There was George Michael, Michael Jackson.
Murakami once said, “I don’t mind being hated if I’m popular.” There’s a chance of that happening with this album—that it’s pop, potentially hugely popular, but not with the same people who loved your other albums.
Let’s hope it’s pop. They asked me what genre to put it under. I was like, Put it under pop, because I’ll wear that. I love wearing a label that people think is uncool. Because it’s like, is it not good music now? Music is special to people, so they hold it really tight to themselves. A lot of times when it becomes popular they feel like it’s not theirs anymore, they feel like it’s not just a part of their little group. But I feel like music is for everyone. When you were a little kid, did you really think about how many kids sang “Frére Jacques”? I make music that is good, and it should be the biggest.
Do you think there are people who like your music despite themselves because it appeals to something more basic in them?
There was something about being a little kid…there was no reason why I would like something or wouldn’t like something. My mom never listened to songs that particularly appealed to me. Back then, the only songs they had for kids were made by the Muppets and shit. The songs I was listening to, I liked the melody but the information, it dealt with stuff someone went through, a real life situation. I think it takes experience to be a great poet and communicator, and as life goes on I have more and more experiences, so hopefully I’ll just get better and better. Because it’s like, how do you wanna communicate? You wanna communicate through rap? Through poetry? Through song? The thing is getting the point across, and I think in music, message and melody are the keys. It’s the reason why people teach you the ABCs with melody behind it. And [808’s & Heartbreak] is the ABCs of life and relationships.
Does this album feel like your purest vision then?
I always felt like that, every time. When I did The College Dropout, it was really a new idea that caught people off guard. This album is a complete new idea, some whole different shit that’s gonna change music again. I think it’s our responsibility to be fearless, to have the masses’ and radio’s ear and still push the envelope. That’s why I was always supposed to be the independent champion. And that’s why it was such a big, terrible thing when I ran on stage on Justice [at the MTV Europe Music Awards]. It was like, Aw, he’s one of them now. He’s no longer the kid who went to art school and stuff. It’s like, now he’s just…
Do you feel like you’re getting to a point with music where you’ve done all you could? Like you could move on and focus on your fashion line or something else entirely?
I can’t foresee myself not wanting to make music. What was so great about this album was at any given time, I could just Superman in the booth and pull out arguably the best rapper in the world. Is this the final frontier of music? I would think its not quite conquered yet, there’s still a ways to go. There are levels.
Did you see the Michael Jackson in Budapest concert? When I look up two, three years from now, and I’m doing my own concert for five hundred thousand people, it’s like, maybe this was a beginning point. There’s gonna be people that, as big as a celebrity as I am, really just discover me on this album.
The Kanye glasses were everywhere though, from Canal St. to malls in Oklahoma. Were you surprised at how ubiquitous those became? Because straight up, those are weird ass glasses.
I think there hasn’t been a Michael Jackson since Michael Jackson, but when stuff like that happens, it’s little pieces of what he had, his level of influence. And it’s like that’s either the one-off or it’s the beginning of a lot of it.
Do you think that’s your white glove moment?
Yeah I do think it was very much like that, but you know, Michael Jackson is the god of all pop music of all time. And it’s blasphemous to compare yourself to god, but that was very Michael Jackson-esque.
A piece of history
Live Review: The Acorn @ The Metro
