Keef said of his come-up that he used to use complicated metaphors in his raps until DJ Kenn told him to chill. He came to the conclusion that such a style is “doing too much,” and that he would stick to concision. That’s why the original “Don’t Like” worked in a way that its remix did not. G.O.O.D. Music came in and did too much, which naturally hampered the original, raw energy of the track.
By now, you see what I’m getting at. Minimalism in rap can take different forms, but it manifests well in records when the right balance is struck between contrasting elements at play. That’s why Pusha T will be remembered more for “Grindin’” or “Numbers On The Board” than he will for “Millions,” the beat for which probably would have made for a better Future song.
Kanye West says that he is now a minimalist in a rapper’s body, quite the departure from the extravagance that characterized most of his career, from hiring full orchestras to play on Late Registration, to getting the entire music industry to sing on “All of the Lights,” to hurting his back with the weight of his Horus chain. Yeezus, though, he wanted to be a minimalistic endeavor. Compression, taking the same energy he’s always had, but funneling it into ten visceral tracks instead of letting it expand into the overwrought glory of his past albums, is the idea. Just like Steve Jobs, he’s committed to applying that mentality to every aspect that surrounds his product. The infrequent one or two-word tweet. The album art that consisted of a single piece of red tape. Even his outfits have turned away from the loud in favor of the monotonic. Everything points back to this aesthetic, whether or not he still does rich people shit and uses the entire music industry as a guest producer.
Steve Jobs, much like Kanye, was as obsessive in his personal life as he was about his work. Dude tried to just eat only apples for a while. Every day he wore a simple, minimal uniform of a black turtleneck and jeans, which only further cemented everyone’s perception of him as an icon. Kanye says that today it takes him much less time to get dressed in the morning, now that he doesn’t have to decide on a different “kill self” outfit every day.
This obsessive nature is reminiscent of yet another icon that Kanye has been referencing: Patrick Bateman. Kanye once announced to the world: “Sometimes I get emotional over fonts.” In perhaps the most famous scene from American Psycho, Patrick Bateman is in a board room comparing the typeface specifics of his business card with those of his colleagues, and he gets visibly heated when his own is upstaged by Paul Allen’s card. He later kills Paul Allen. The simultaneous obsessive vanity and self-disgust as taken to fictitious extremes by Patrick Bateman is what has defined Kanye’s often seemingly contradictory career. He explained it all ten years ago on “All Falls Down.” He’s so self-conscious, and he hates himself for the vanity he sees when he looks in the mirror, but it’s not going to stop him from trying (and some would say succeeding) to be the flyest individual to ever walk the earth.
It is necessary that we excuse Kanye if he doesn’t really throw away his Maybach keys in exchange for work in a factory. Doing rich people shit is his skeuomorphism, the vestige of the “kill self” maximalism that’s still in him—his gold chain is just much smaller now. If he got rid of that, he’d start to look like rap’s Windows phone, and God ft. God knows we don’t want that.
can we get several pages on Yeezus? I lreally enjoyed reading your piece here — thank god you came up after googling Mayback keys. minimalism is a god-send. (btw does “ft” mean f that?). what happens to Al Green after this album? does funky matter anymore? I don’t want to give the man too much power but he put the carcass on stuff. here is somebody devoted to shape. yet he escapes it especially riffing over black bodies swinging in the breeze, gloriously sincere, distended, jazzy — I wouldn’t call that minimalism. the man wants to be loved and frankly it’s a relief after a lot to be feared (BAM — drowning is right). the game feels curiously and appropriately stale in proper context (i.e. minimized — he’s going to come on people, die for his “) because the work is becoming worthy of attention, even rapture (no kidding about fly, something historic happened on this album, especially for those who were introduced to KW with it and don’t have to choke down years of b.s. immunity), for me (who can deny the Philip Roth-hating bitches their day in court?) all the testicular doozies almost get vaginalized after New Slaves — Hamptons blouses and mouths and fur coats and spunk, but did you hear the machinic grist dancing with manic coherence and the need for mother? where did we get this previously, the novelistic tv, heroin juice, Stokely Carmichael, robot John Cage, Trainspotting and Skinny Puppy? reggae oracle done in ways that are painful to contemplate, rivaling William Gibson. think of how boring dance music actually is. who did the music on this album? what clubby sweatshop did they have to endure before the dreamy technophilic actually meant something? swear to god, I love this album. anybody who knows anything remotely as good as this please, I beg you to tell me what it is.