Live From the Bay: Kanye West Glows in the Dark

May 29, 2008

To explain what it is I love about Kanye West I submit three tracks for your consideration. The first is “Cause I love you”, a wrought love letter that opens Lenny Williams’ 1978 classic “Spark of Love.” The second is “Nothin Like Home”, a Havoc-produced cut off Mobb Deep’s 2001 release Infamy which samples “Cause I love you.” Havoc takes the catchy string arrangement, speeds it up and keeps a chorus of ooohs and aaaaahs on a loop. The song is probably my favorite off the album, a shining example of Mobb at their best post-Hell On Earth. (Insert snarky, obnoxious title) P comes correct and Hav delivers a great, pragmatic flip. The final track is Twista’s “Overnight Celebrity.” From the opening, rich orchestral crescendo it’s clear you’re going to be getting something very different. As Twista gets himself pumped up Kanye brings in Lenny’s most impassioned moment of the song, ushering in mood setting excitement, and then the hook begins, in which West speeds up a sample of Williams’ introduction up to the portion where he holds the I in “you know I love you”.

Kanye doesn’t stop there. A gorgeous piano loop, the double timed bongos, an infectious knuckle crack wood block and Hip Hop Violinist Miri Ben Ari are all tossed into what became an outstanding single, but the point is that the contrast explains Kanye’s success in a nutshell: He is simply going to work harder than anyone else to put out the best product on the market. While in the past Hip Hop has valued the natural born talent who makes it look easy, (See: Biggie and Jay) this decade has arguably belonged to Rapaholics like studio rat Lil Wayne and Kanye’s uncompromising perfectionism. Many rappers talk about making a cinematic album, Kanye brings in Jon Brion, the ear behind inventive, quirky scores such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I <3 Huckabees to executive produce Late Registration. From diction and delivery to his music videos to his beats, everything this dude does is huge. No aspect of his career has been overlooked or slept on. Mr. West is turning himself into a brand, when you hear it attached to anything you can rely on it being as large and ambitious as his infamous ego.

On April 19th, Kanye brought his work ethic to San Jose’s HP Pavillion, which for one night, aided by an otherworldly set and a teeming mass of devout followers, was transformed from a hockey arena into a Church of Scientology. Featuring a laughably absurd premise, the show’s minister is Kanye in a post apocalyptic Mad Max get up, a talking spaceship that suspiciously sounds a lot like the automated female narrator from Midnight Marauders, a life sized, naked, talking Barbie doll, fire, smoke, a cotton candy lightshow and special effects worthy of Industrial Light & Magic. The stage is meant to simulate the barren face of a foreign planet and features a hydraulic screen at its center. A live band is playing in an orchestra pit beneath.

The show itself is a tight, efficient Kanye West highlight reel featuring retarded segue skits and several live reinterpretations with varying levels of success. (A string heavy, stripped down “Heard em say” is strangely beautiful; a grinding, percussion heavy “Good Life” is not) Particularly effective is a trio of backup singers who wail and riff on several of Mr. West’s choruses, giving them new life. Most striking was the use of thundering timpani to accentuate bass and Mr. West’s punchlines. This show featured more call and response than I had ever imagined possible. This drove home the point that Kanye was able to do this, as in rely on audience participation and pack the arena in the first place, thanks to his inescapable punchlines and sticky hooks.

Kanye has made remarkable progress as a performer. I saw him last six years ago, promoting College Dropout, where he stumbled over his lines and spent most of the show out of breath. It was a barebones affair and the only time Kanye seemed invested is when he took 15 minutes out to rant over the “Spaceship” instrumental on how he had been fucked by the Source and XXL because his debut didn’t get the classic rating it deserved. By the third song this evening he looked like Patrick Ewing in overtime, but endured with an Iverson-like stamina. (Save a bizarre interlude in which he sits off to the side of the stage and drinks from a canteen while “Don’t Stop Believing” is blasted over the loud speaker. The entire crowd of 80s and 90s babies participated in a sing along which was kind of great, I shit you not) His breath control was impeccable and his enthusiasm was electric. He would get carried away in the moment and sing his own choruses off key with goofy yet endearing results. On occasion he’d let out spontaneous bursts of energy in the form of an awkward hop skip across the stage best described as a cross between crip walk and goose step.

West performed a majority of Graduation, an album described as arena rap which appropriately translated quite well to an arena. One glaring absence was “Big Brother”, his conflicted tribute to mentor Jay-Z. Perhaps this was a statement. It would appear Mr. West has begun taking cues from another significant, game-changing artist. His outlandish stage show, art house music videos, meticulous preparation and grandiose vision all smack of vintage Michael Jackson. At 24, I was the oldest person I saw in the arena not showing people to their seats or selling shit, this wasn’t your typical grungy white male, blunts and hoodies Hip Hop set. Many of Kanye’s detractors disdainfully view his work as more Pop, a label I’ve always taken knee jerk exception to. On this evening I saw the merit in their insight, and just maybe this isn’t a bad thing.

Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese’s concert documentary on the Rolling Stones currently in theaters follows the band performing a two night event at the Beacon Theater, a rare smallish venue. Over the past several decades the Stones have made themselves rich icons as their aging, affluent fan base has continued to shell out increasingly exorbitant sums to watch them perform in packed stadiums. Their children have joined the crush, equally eager to shed allowance and join the spectacle, buying $12 cocktails and $40 t-shirts to be able to say they saw legends before they hung it up. As I watched Kanye West live, and marveled at his sheer scale and precision, what was truly amazing is that no one had taken this approach to Hip Hop performance yet. I got the feeling that what I was watching was the shape of things to come.

Comments for "Live From the Bay: Kanye West Glows in the Dark"

Kanye really flipped “Cause I Love You” the best thus far, including Scarface’s recent re-hashing of it. I’m mad that I won’t be able to see a Glow in the Dark performance…I don’t think there’s any other emcee in the game right now who would actually be able to pull something like this off.

— Jos-B May 29, 02:44 PM
Nah, nottz flipped it better on scarface – girl you know

— yow May 29, 03:29 PM
Very astute conclusion, I can easily see 10 years from now there being a bunch of “Kanye Wests.” The irony is that we finally get a guy who thinks differently and he is unfortunately going to/already has spawned a gazillion biters.

— Roam May 30, 06:28 PM
i agree on all points, abe.

— franchise May 31, 03:18 AM
Kanye = Diddy gone dork.

— Tray Jun 3, 07:42 PM
never thought Id see a review like this here. Oh well…

— hater? Jun 6, 01:36 AM
yeahh well.
knaye’s a bitch.
he lost all his meaning.
listen 2 spaceship and the listen 2 his recent stuff.
there’s no comaprison to the actual meaning of the song.

— c-rizzle. Jun 7, 03:31 AM
true true.
what happened to Kanye?
sizzle then fizzle I guess.
:/

— Vox The Bear Kid Jun 7, 03:03 PM

Live From the Bay: Kanye West Glows in the Dark · by Abe Beame

Comments for "Live From the Bay: Kanye West Glows in the Dark"