The self -proclaimed god

Rapper Kanye West released the album and made him listen to 20 million people

Kanye West with his wife and mother of his two children, model Kim Kardashian, New York, 2015

On February 11, 2016, three events occurred at once: at a press conference in Washington, scientists announced that they managed to record gravitational waves, thereby confirming the hypothesis of Albert Einstein; Hillary Clinton and Burni Sanders clashed in the next round of Debatov as part of a campaign to nominate a US presidential candidate from a democratic party; Rapper Kanye West arranged in the New York Madison-Square Garden listening to his new album The Life of Pablo. Which of these events was more important for America is not so obvious.

Party for millions

The son of a professor who taught English at one of the universities of Chicago, and a photographer, who once consisted in the ranks of the Black Panther radical party. A fashionista who put an implant of diamonds on the lower jaw (seriously, and walks, sparkling). The speaker, whose replica addressed to his address, George Bush Jr. once called the worst moment of his presidency (when the Hurricane “Katrina” bleed a new Orleans, West said that Bush spit on the African American). A poet who knows how to roar the word “shit” four times with himself and gave lectures at Harvard and Oxford. A scandalist who uses to jump out on the stage during large ceremonies and declare that the awards are distributed not to those people. The father of the family, who married the star of the reality show, which became famous thanks to home porn. The musician, against whose performance, at the largest British festival in Glastonbury, a petition was filed with 130 thousand signatures ... Kanye West went into the center of the hall, stuck the wire into his black laptop and pressed the Play button.

Kanye West at the moment is the main rock star in the world. Unless, of course, to means by rock not guitars, bass and drums, but a world outlook

Thousands of people in New York paid money to see how a 38-year-old hip-hop musician in a warm company of relatives and friends puts songs from his computer-and then from the phone-accompanied by a static show of mod. Tens of thousands in twenty -three countries, including, for example, Macedonia and Estonia, paid money to see the live broadcast of this spectacle. The total audience of the premiere of The Life of Pablo amounted to 20 million people. In the history of pop music, there were many superstars obsessed with a mania of greatness, but neither Michael Jackson, nor U2, nor Madonna dared to turn a home party into a stadium concert of an all-planned scale so brazenly and shamelessly.

How does he manage it? The thing is that Kanye West at the moment is the main rock star in the world. If, of course, it means not guitars, bass and drums by rock, but a world outlook.

Music instead of words

Previously, diamonds and presidents, before the collections of clothing and nervous breakdowns on Twitter, Kanye West-is truly big, great, if you call a spade a spade, a musician. The now self -proclaimed god and genius, West began primarily as a producer, a person who makes music so that others read rap under it - and did it that it was no longer so important who pronounces what words. A native of the city middle class, who has no street childhood, drug trafficking, or other traditional ways to reinforce charisma for hip-hop, West, at first, flaunted in the public in a pink polo and with a funny school satchel-and forced himself to take himself seriously not a word, but sound.

"Kanye to President": they write about this even on T -shirts

In a hip-hope, based on the processing of someone else’s, and before that there were outstanding masters, but West’s methods are good, among other things, their multiculturalism and stemming from it with general accessibility. This is a postmodern orgy, unceremonious cultural appropriation of everything that hands will reach, a melting boiler, in which the classic of the African American stage, the Daft Punk group and God forgotten Hungarian art-rings are equally in demand. A good example in this sense is the Power song made by West in 2010, where the mating of the marginal French ethnodiscis, broken Funk Bit and the King Crimson group at the output gives a bitter anthem of its own ego, in which there is as much self-fiction as self-flagellation.

The Life of Pablo also has enough skillful handling of semelias (for example, 30 Hours, a sad story from a university youth made of the composition of the Great Awant-Pop-musician Arthur Russell), but West would not have been above, and the new album confirms its claims to the status of an independent composer. Kanye's works have already been performed by string quartets, but then he takes a new bar. Take at least Wolves with its three instrumental voices that vog around each other along the Mobius tape, or opening the Ultralight Beam plate, a melancholy gospel with a solemn choir, almost an opera sore-arrya and a sincerely in the middle of a sincere harmonica. Perhaps the most beautiful thing that has so far happened with sounds this year.

In general, after Kanye West, a common thesis that hip-hop cannot be considered music for technical reasons (they say, rappers do not know how to sing and play instruments), about the same legitimate as a statement that Vladimir Sorokin is not literature, because he uses other people's discourse.

Around solid Kanye

It is clear, of course, that one talent for the title of rock star is not enough; This status deliberately implies a certain scale of the personality. And this, of course, is also about Kanye West. Almost according to Dostoevsky, he believes in religious, in religious that the world can be turned over with beauty-and makes all efforts to that, regularly changing the rules of the game. If West continued to make a triumphantly orchestrated hip-hop, which brought him glory and respect in the first three albums, he would still remain in the Higher League-but Kanye began to execute things unheard of for a person who occupies the first places in the rating of sales of the “billboard”. With manic persistence, it breaks into foreign territories and masters new languages ​​in an emergency mode. With his zeal, only his impulsiveness can be compared, forcing concerts to interrupt the sake of exclamation speeches about the fashion industry, media and the status of a celebrity.

Kanye West and his laptop at The Life of Pablo album presentation

West can be frantic, like on the Yeezus album, where the music in places consists of a piercing scream of the protagonist against the backdrop of heavy low -frequency noise - or maybe impeccably delicate, like on the 808'S & Heartbreak record with its sincere synthetic ballads. From purely selfish motives, it rebels all American pop music. 808's & Heartbreak, with his rare intimacy for hip-hop, gave a ticket to the life of a sowing about heart affairs Canadian Drake, who by now turned almost into the most popular rapper of the United States. Yeezus has largely extended the boundaries of the permitted one-how minimalistly and aggressively new songs of pop-pods like Beyoncé and Rihanna sound, for many reason precisely he. He, in fact, reads about this on the new album: "I invented Kanye, there were no others, now, it is worth looking around, there are continuous kanye around."

Designer and curator

In terms of the means of production, West is also an advanced. Not the first year he has been collecting talented colleagues to come up with music together. It is characteristic that another area of ​​the application of his efforts is fashion (West releases its sneakers, and now also the clothing line). In the records, he also often acts in the manner of the designer, or rather - the curator responsible for aesthetic navigation. The Life of Pablo-in a sense, the ultimate embodiment of this method. In addition to the aforementioned Drake, there are approximately all important heroes of hip-hop as of 2016, from the virtuoso clever Kendrick Lamar to the sweet-haired sufferer The Weeknd. Probably, only Kanye West can combine Rihanna and Bitmaker Madlib on one record. In its diversity, The Life of Pablo is a guide at the same time both by what its author knows how, and according to the main genres of modern city pop music. It is ideal to get acquainted in detail about how things are in the USA in terms of sound culture.

Naomi Campbell and other models during a fashion show at the presentation of the new album, Los Angeles, 2016

However, not only from this point of view. The flesh from the flesh of the celebrity-culture and at the same time its cut off a break, regularly violating the conventions and the framework of decency, Kanye West as a musician is inseparable from Kanye West as a hero of news. Twitter-shells about the sexual habits of Kanye, his fashion collection, complex relations with his colleague Taylor Swift, from whom he once tried to take the well-deserved reward of MTV, family life with the heroine of the tabloids Kim Kardashian, a sense of his own greatness, a sense of his own insignificance, children, parents, parents, parents. The Life of Pablo and about all this too. Sometimes directly: one of the songs is devoted to complex internal relations with the father as a role model, in the other there are lines “I think that Taylor and I can have sex /After all I made this bitch famous”, which entailed a separate material in The New York Times. More often - indirectly: through sources of samples, metaphors, intonations, freely jumping between the triumph and despair.

His own masterpiece

The genuine area of ​​Kanye West is life-making, the main work is himself: the person who took pop culture for his wife sincerely fulfills marital duty. He is his own Gezamtkunstzter. In August last year, speaking with another speech at the MTV award ceremony, Kanye West honestly admitted that before going on stage, he smoked, and said that in 2020 he was going to run for the president of the United States. Laughter laughter, but actually for the country in its current state it is difficult to choose a more successful personification.

The genuine area of ​​Kanye West is life-making, the main work is himself: the person who accepted pop culture for his wife sincerely fulfills marital duty

As today's America, West is a ball of insoluble contradictions between ideals, myths and stories. The embodiment of a national dream, he rose on a social elevator to the very peaks - and immediately began to behave indecently there. A grand talent - and a tram boor. The narcissistic brag, having every reason for both love and boasting. Genius and Govnyuk, who willingly uses both definitions. The blackness, which is adored by the whites - and who still feels his race as a stigma. Of course, he will not run for president. Almost certainly. More likely. Likely. However, why not? In the end, so far, Kanye West has achieved all the goals set for himself, and this will be a paradox in his spirit. As he himself said, when the sound of the last track was silent in Madison-Square-Garden: “I am 38 years old, and I just want to bring as much beauty as possible to this world.”

Photo: Atlantic Images/Splash News/East News, JPYIM/GETTY IMAGES NORTH america/AFP, Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Photo: Matteo Prandon/Bfa/Sipa Usa/East News