Thread: Kanye West says he will ‘run for president.’ Because politics is entertainment.

Kanye West says he will ‘run for president.’ Because politics is entertainment.

By Janell Ross August 31 at 11:16 AM

Kanye West is running for president, y'all. Yes: President.

On a megachurch-like theater-in-the-round stage set up at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards, the rapper informed the world that he will be seeking the presidency in 2020. And also that he had just smoked something.

What follows is a brief summary of the bizarre and possibly stage-managed events.

West began his meandering speech with an anecdote about visiting the grocery store with his daughter and receiving backhanded compliments from store clerks, as well as the more pronounced experience of being booed by 60,000 people at a baseball game. (This was, of course, an oblique reference to West’s fall from public grace after his 2009 decision to storm the stage at that year’s VMAs as Taylor Swift accepted an award. West felt the award had been bestowed in utter error and should have gone to his friend, Beyonce.)

On Sunday, West’s speech transitioned into a public apology of sorts for past bad behavior, public drunkenness and displays of anger directed at what he seemed to imply was the wrong individual. Yes, he implied it, but never quite said it. West then spoke of a kind of -- we will assume -- metaphorical death for the right of successful artists to voice their real opinions publicly. He lamented the way that corporate giants like MTV, a division of Viacom, exploit the weaknesses, emotions and ideas of artists for publicity and profit.

Amid all this, there are a few ideas that were particularly rich in their Kanye West-ness. He compared a nomination for a VMA award and subsequent loss to time on the auction block.

West has long toyed with some ludicrous equations between the historical and current conditions of black America and the fully optional chains of stardom.

But this extended series of non-sequiturs reached its peak when West made the announcement that adds his name to a story that everyone seems to be talking about.

“I don’t know what I stand to lose after this. It don’t matter though, because it ain't about me; it’s about new ideas, bro, new ideas. People with ideas, people who believe in truth,” West said. “And yes, as you probably could have guessed by this moment, I have decided in 2020 to run for president."

Yes, that happened. And no, most of us couldn't have guessed that.

His discernible platform: Repealing the artists' enslavement codes and installing “people with ideas.” You might call that the politics of entertainment. Given all that is happening right now in the 2016 race, you might also call this the nadir of politics as entertainment.

And we're not even just talking about Donald Trump. For what it's worth, West isn't even the first rapper to announce a run for the White House this year. Waka Flocka Flame, an artists whose work merited a sort of profile in the New York Times xxxxxxx this year, did the same. And, in a possible homage to the 1992 Dr. Dre Hit, "The Chronic," a 15-year-old Iowa teenager has also announced plans to seek the presidency under the name, Deez Nuts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/t...entertainment/

Urkel much? 4 reasons why Kanye sounds like that

Arienne Thompson, USA TODAY
10:05 a.m. EDT August 31, 2015


(Photo: Kevin Mazur/MTV1415, WireImage)

Kanye West has a new sound — and it has nothing to do with the MTV Video Vanguard Award winner’s music.

It’s his speaking voice. It’s nasal. It’s a little high-pitched. It’s even a bit nerdy. And it has lots of fans scratching their heads.

When he accepted his award at Sunday night's VMAs, Twitter quickly called him out for switching in and out of the bizarre cadence.

So what exactly is he doing? Why the Urkel-esque affectation?

And why won’t he let it go?

It’s called code switching, and it’s more common than some Kanye critics might think.

“It’s a way of communicating with an ‘in’ group, particularly when you are consciously, and sometimes unconsciously, disconnecting yourself from the larger group that may be under attack,” says Neal Lester, an English professor specializing in African-American literature and cultural studies at Arizona State University.

Put simply, West changes the way he speaks depending on whom he’s speaking to. When he appeared on his mother-in-law Kris Jenner’s failed talk show in 2013, he laid the strange voice on thick. Later that year in a radio interview, West defended his use of what he calls the “white voice” as a tool to disrupt classism.

“It wasn’t about race; it’s about class,” West told The JV Show on San Francisco station Wild 94.9. “Even when you get invited to certain dinner parties, or even when you’re in certain magazines, it’s still a Dinner for Schmucks situation. Are they inviting you to be a part of what they’re doing? Or are they inviting you to laugh at your (gold) teeth and ask you a million questions?”

When Kanye West appeared on Kris Jenner's failed talk show in 2013, fans were stunned by his bizarre voice. (Photo: Barry J. Holmes, AP)


Lester says West’s deflection is a clever defense tactic that many black people have had in their toolbox for centuries.

“If you want to be part of the gang, then you have to behave the way they do and you have to let them know there is nothing inadequate about you. Coming in with (black) vernacular and then switching to ‘standard English’ is not about inadequacy, but it’s perceived that way,” he says. “What we do is show that, yes, in fact, we have mastered this and, yes, in fact, we can play that game.”

But, why would West, whose self-adoration and off-the-charts confidence have been the foundation of his brand, feel the need to change himself in that way? There are a number of theories:

1. It’s a multilayered performance/PRstunt.

West's rap persona may be just that -- a persona. (Photo: Rich Fury, Rich Fury/Invision/AP)


VerySmartBrothas.com editor in chief Damon Young says West’s “white voice” performance is just everyday code switching taken to the extreme.

“A lot of us have code-switch voices. (But) you don’t want to code-switch and sound like a completely different person, and that’s what Kanye does. It’s like you close your eyes and you think you’re listening to Justin Bieber.”

Young adds that West may also be trying to balance the message in his music with his more mainstream image as a member of the Kardashian family.

“His music has gotten angrier and less accessible. As his music has gotten more id-ish, his speaking voice — when he’s not making music — has gotten whiter. It’s like, ‘I’m not the big scary black man — I’m cool. I’m nice.’”

Artist and doctoral student Fahamu Pecou, who wrote his thesis about West, says that like everything the rapper does, this code switching is methodical and calculated.

“As the audience shifts, his objective shifts,” Pecou says. “He doesn’t just want to be a successful artist, he wants to be an icon. The code switching is all part of a larger performance that is very conscientious and very strategic.”

2. It’s the real Kanye.
When we hear West using the “white voice,” we’re getting a more authentic peek at him, Pecou argues, because his rapper persona is the code switch. “His mom was a college professor — he’s been exposed to the arts all his life. He is a cultured person,” Pecou says.

He adds that West isn’t alone in shifting between identities in the hip-hop world.

“The switch actually comes when it’s time to be a ‘rapper,’ because we have certain expectations of what a rapper should look and sound like and where they should come from.”

Pecou and Young agree that West’s infamous appearance on NBC’s star-studded Hurricane Katrina telethon a decade ago, where he blurted out, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” was a glimpse into who he really is.

“You could feel the tension that he knew he was about to say something that was not going to go over well, but it felt really true to him,” Pecou says.

In fact, Young says the telethon moment stripped West down to who he may really be: a guy with performance anxiety.

There was “a bit of hesitancy; his voice went up an octave, and that’s the same voice Kanye uses in these interviews. Maybe like a lot black people, he gets scared when he’s in front of a bunch of white people.”

3. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
For Lester, code switching becomes an unconscious act.

“My wife is the one who makes me aware of it,” he says. “The rhythm changed, the nuances changed. That’s not something that I’m consciously turning on and off. Everybody has this level of performance that you slip in and out of.”

It’s not just about black people moving in white spaces, either, Pecou adds. People code-switch to offset differences in race, gender, ethnicity and language.

“We all kind of shift and adapt based on the environment that we’re in and the projected outcome we want to have,” he says.

“In many ways, it’s less about a switch and more about reading a room. You perform accordingly. As Americans, we’re always in environments where that transformation is necessary.”

4. He’s morphing into a Kardashian ’Stepford husband.'
Not likely, says Young. "I don’t think we can blame the Kardashians for that. We can blame them for a lot of things: global warming, my gas bill. But, I don’t think we can blame them for Kanye.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/p...d-up/71435336/

Idiot.

Kanye who?

Originally Posted by MW

Kanye who?

LOL!!

http://www.alipac.us/f9/%91deez-nuts...nt-n-c-322313/