i know its not hip to listen to kanye anymore. fuckit i dont really care what ppl do if it slaps. I know thats not a popular stance either. I dont really give actors the same grace, i guess bc i gotta look at their face. I will still consume the content of a visual or audio artist even if they're pretty reprehensible tho. I just wont give them money.

Anyway, i guess BULLY doesnt technically drop til the end of the month but Ye did his Ye thing and put it out already and its....good? Certainly the best thing hes done since Pablo. Certainly waaaay more sonically palatable than all the distorted noise shit hes been doing the last 5 years.

standouts:
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
CIRCLES
Highs and Lows 2
MINDFUL
SHOWTIME (this is really very really good, nothing but a bass and some autotune - his ear is still so sharp, i have to admit it)

It is the same when it comes to AI and art (Music, Visual, Writing, etc.), If you give it any attention, the powers that be will think that people are interested and continue to invest time and energy and money into it, and continue to make the problem worse.

You are giving this shi$%y person the attention that he is seeking. He gets encouraged to make more, or someone financially backs him, lends him credibility, etc. and steals attention and resources away from other artists that truly deserve the shine.

F&^k Kanye and Timbaland.

Peace,
Doitall76

I listen to good shit - it’s not that deep

He hasn't apologized for his attempts at normalizing trump and nazi imagery, and you are here saying that's okay with you. Step in the Name of Love is a great song, but R Kelly made it, and I'll never listen to it, because I am not willing to support that sick behavior. Some are.

>He hasn't apologized for his attempts at normalizing trump
>and nazi imagery, and you are here saying that's okay with
>you. Step in the Name of Love is a great song, but R Kelly
>made it, and I'll never listen to it, because I am not willing
>to support that sick behavior. Some are.

I have never been one to say the cliche "If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything", but that seems very poignant for this.

it is the same reason that I don't listen to Goldlink anymore. Man he was really dope. He could still be dope but I won't know because I don't give him any attention or support after he comments trying to claim that Mac Miller stole his style and ideas a year or two after Mac's death. I just can't throw my support behind such a crappy person.

If you listen to any of Timbaland's AI stuff, or Listen to any AI music, you are supporting the very thing that is going to kill human expression of art, the very thing that brings you to this board.

I just can't support music by really bad/borderline evil people.

Bruh, Kanye just recently put his daughter on a track with Puffy. This was her father putting her into that circle. I mean WTF!!!!

I may be on another one today, looking like Esther on Fred, but man nah with that.

Peace
Doitall76

>He hasn't apologized for his attempts at normalizing trump
>and nazi imagery, and you are here saying that's okay with
>you.

I said he made a couple dope songs. I missed the part where I gave him a pass for all that.

you can't be that dense.

I don’t care - as in, I don’t pay attention, I don’t follow the news, I don’t follow politics, I don’t give a shit what anyone does - I actively avoid knowing or thinking about any of it.

That has no bearing on my personal feelings or personal moral compass about xyz

Kanye needs mental health care, not my condemnation. If he makes a good song, I don’t have any issue playing it in my car.

keep supporting the worst in human behavior because the output is hot. but hey, we don't expect you to have the courage or ethics to draw a line in the sand.

That man didn’t do anything wrong and isn’t bothering anyone, and honestly whether he clicks on Kanye’s music or not isn’t going to change anything.

I think this is a “to each his own” type of situation.

Sometimes I wish I could ignore everything happening outside and not know about it.

But….i can’t. And I don’t know if this makes sense, but for me I can’t listen to rappers that I don’t like or whose persona is unlikable to me. Even if the music is considered good. And Kanye - I REALLY can’t rock with him or his persona anymore.

Cats wanna act morally superior bc they deleted “thru the wire” from their iTunes lol okay.
Who gives a fuck? it’s all subjective
It’s the same ppl that don’t listen to R Kelly anymore so they think they’re “doing something”but they still bump Billie Jean without hesitation - Im supposed to take that seriously?
Where does it start? Where does it stop?

At a certain point it’s just music man
Me personally, i have the capacity to hold the following thoughts simultaneously:
“Kanye is a trash bag” /// “Showtime kinda slap”
🤷‍♂️

>Me personally, i have the capacity to hold the following
>thoughts simultaneously:
>“Kanye is a trash bag” /// “Showtime kinda slap”
>🤷‍♂️

Holding these two thoughts at the same time doesn't mean anything, ethically, and it certainly doesn't make a definitive moral statement about a listener. It's possible to have these two thoughts at the same time, and it's not unreasonable.

If anything, I'd argue there's value in the ability to recognize a sort of instinctual like of something in spite of finding someone morally dubious ("I like this song, even though I find the creator awful as a human being"). It's honest and it recognizes that we, as humans, are complicated and contradictory, that all the pieces of ourselves don't automatically align. That's a good thing, imo -- that recognition.

If the world were just a matter of observations, we could stop there. But we don't just live in a world of observations - we're not just isolated bubbles without relation to anything - we also act. And as much as we'd like them to be otherwise, our actions are rarely isolated from the world. Instead, our actions are shaped by it.

Obligations press in on us, always, without our invitation or consent. We can actively acknowledge and respond to them or ignore them (which is also a response).

>At a certain point it’s just music man

At a certain point, maybe, but not only at that point. At a certain point it may be just music, from a particular perspective, but it is never only just music.

I won't list all the ways our listening (or watching or reading or clicking) might be enmeshed in the world - how it may have implications beyond "just listening" - because I think we mostly know them. (Unless someone wants me to try, lol...)

Instead, here I would only say, when we see that dissonance - when we say, "This is an awful human being" and "This slaps" - we are presented with a choice, or rather, an endless series of choices. It's up to us to (try to) do the math and (try to) come to a decision.

The math that might help us make a good decision isn't always clear. There's not a master equation with the same set of variables that we can apply every time. The world is fuzzy, it doesn't work that way.

And we can't always be confident in our appraisal of the situation, *or of our effect in it*. We can't always know the nature of the creator of what we consume, and it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to assess the real impact or meaning of our listening, on ourselves and on others.

I think this is what you are wrestling with here:

>Cats wanna act morally superior bc they deleted “thru the
>wire” from their iTunes lol okay.
>Who gives a fuck? it’s all subjective
>It’s the same ppl that don’t listen to R Kelly anymore so
>they think they’re “doing something”but they still bump
>Billie Jean without hesitation - Im supposed to take that
>seriously?

>Where does it start? Where does it stop?
>

If anyone thinks they have saved the world by making this sort of choice, I agree with you -- they are foolish. But I think it is equally foolish to look at the choices of others and try to measure their hypocrisy, as insufferable as they can be. We are all trying, ineptly, for the best and the worst reasons. But the trying is good, even if inept.

Or: I don't think it's foolish to *try* and make good choices, authentically, or to recognize that actions and value judgments are rarely "just" what they seem. And while I agree that in many ways it IS all subjective - there is no master equation, these problems are radically singular - that's not a get out of jail free card.

It doesn't mean there's no reason to try and gauge one's responsibility in these choices. If anything, it means we try all the more, to understand the particularities of the situation, to take it seriously.

(But not too seriously! The world will be there tomorrow, usually, regardless of what choices we make. That, too, is part of the impossible math.)

So while I'll skip the Kanye - it doesn't hold any appeal to me, at this point, there's more than enough music in the world to explore and enjoy - I don't begrudge anyone the pleasure. I hope we try to do the math, as best we can, but your math might be different than mine.

But maybe we keep ourselves open to the possibility that the math should be checked and checked again. Variables change. Our knowledge and feelings change. Situations change. And when we pay attention to these things, over time we may come to think differently about ourselves and our obligations and our place in the equation.

That also changes the math.

(But yeah, the world will be there tomorrow, usually.)

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

.

> “I won't list all the ways our listening (or watching or reading or clicking) might be enmeshed in the world - how it may have implications beyond "just listening" - because I think we mostly know them. (Unless someone wants me to try, lol...)”

What implications are there?
Admittedly, I feel the latitude to hate Kanye the person but bump Kanye the music, because I just don’t think it matters or means anything ultimately - certainly not within the rich history of shitbag artists of the world.
I stole the music. He didn’t get my money. I didn’t even google his name. I play the music alone in my car. With the full knowledge that Kanye is a shitbag.
The most out of pocket thing I did was probably bringing the album to this forum lol
What am I missing?

But there is a difference between not caring about something, and “being ok with it” - put another way, there is a difference between indifference and co-signing something

Plz explain how stealing Kanye’s music off the internet = “supporting the worst in human behavior” ? Not following that one. I’d be doing more damage by simply liking a tweet.

I get it, the times got yall in your feels - but getting worked up over anything that Kanye Omari West does, says, or thinks is not for me.

>But there is a difference between not caring about something,
>and “being ok with it” - put another way, there is a
>difference between indifference and co-signing something
>
>Plz explain how stealing Kanye’s music off the internet =
>“supporting the worst in human behavior” ? Not following
>that one. I’d be doing more damage by simply liking a
>tweet.
>
>I get it, the times got yall in your feels - but getting
>worked up over anything that Kanye Omari West does, says, or
>thinks is not for me.

Go ahead and take the blue pill so you can enjoy the music of a man who has lost all morals.

Peace
Doitall76

>Go ahead and take the blue pill so you can enjoy the music of
>a man who has lost all morals.

I’m to assume you’ve purged your music library of:
Kanye
Diddy
R Kelly
Micheal Jackson
Eric Clapton
Chuck Berry
Dr. Dre
Chris brown
Drake
Lauryn Hill
Led Zeppelin
I can’t even begin to list all the rappers that are homophobic as fuck, but I’ll go ahead and assume you’ve deleted the 100s of songs that say “faggot” in them (this is a process I’ve actually started, believe it or not)
I could go on
I’m assuming you never step foot into art museums either - those would be minefields for someone if your high moral character!

Yall really out there if you think all the art and content you consume on a daily basis all comes from people who share your morals - that’s naive af my dudes

or at least a well-intentioned community.

IRL, in friendships or in the best communities, we often give each other space, even when we disagree, because we recognize each other's good intentions. In the best friendships, we may even use our disagreements to both deepen our own understanding of a problem, but also to open ourselves up to the many-sided-ness of the world.

(It's one of the weird paradoxes of friendship that those relationships are more flexible, in this way, than our other relationships. You might expect it to be different.)

There are times we draw lines with each other, or yell to sound the alarm, certainly, but to our friends we often extend more grace than we do with strangers, with people to whom we have less obvious connections.

If we assume the best of intentions of everyone in this conversation, what is the best way to proceed? At what volume? In what tone?

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

>I don’t care - as in, I don’t pay attention, I don’t
>follow the news, I don’t follow politics, I don’t give a
>shit what anyone does - I actively avoid knowing or thinking
>about any of it.
>
>That has no bearing on my personal feelings or personal moral
>compass about xyz
>
>Kanye needs mental health care, not my condemnation. If he
>makes a good song, I don’t have any issue playing it in my
>car.


I was going to leave this alone, but you are talking out of both sides of your mouth.

"I’m to assume you’ve purged your music library of:
Kanye
Diddy
R Kelly
Micheal Jackson
Eric Clapton
Chuck Berry
Dr. Dre
Chris brown
Drake
Lauryn Hill
Led Zeppelin
I can’t even begin to list all the rappers that are homophobic as fuck, but I’ll go ahead and assume you’ve deleted the 100s of songs that say “faggot” in them (this is a process I’ve actually started, believe it or not)
I could go on
I’m assuming you never step foot into art museums either - those would be minefields for someone if your high moral character!

You are saying that you don't care and pay attention to the news politics, or give a **** about what anyone does, but you are clearly paying attention to a lot.

If you are fine jamming out to someone who refuses to take responsibility for his own mental health, praises Nazi's, wears KKK outfits, sh!ts on jewish people, puts his 11 year old daughter on a track with the Diddler, etc. You do you. If you love jamming to his music, and actively want to hear what he says and let that crap seep into your brain, that is on you. I just have a problem with people promoting the a$$hole who is actively trying to burn the world.


Peace
Doitall76

No, I don’t pay attention to any of that stuff, and actively try to tune it out
I’ve also adopted a a lot of nihilism in response to the fact that shit is so fucked. Everything that’s happening now - this is what we as a country have asked for, and it’s what we deserve.
That’s my coping mechanism. I’m just trying to keep my head down and let it play out.

That doesn’t meant I live under a rock.

You can grandstand about ye all you want - but you draw the line somewhere else, and your line still includes a whole bunch of shitbags as well. Everyone’s does, because there’s too much great shit made by shitty people in human history.

My line is, if you like it, rock it, just try to be aware of the facts surrounding the artist. Your line is different, that’s cool. But plz don’t act like your side of the street is clean just bc you don’t listen to Kanye. It ain’t.

>No, I don’t pay attention to any of that stuff, and
>actively try to tune it out
>I’ve also adopted a a lot of nihilism in response to the
>fact that shit is so fucked. Everything that’s happening now
>- this is what we as a country have asked for, and it’s what
>we deserve.
>That’s my coping mechanism. I’m just trying to keep my
>head down and let it play out.
>
>That doesn’t meant I live under a rock.
>
>You can grandstand about ye all you want - but you draw the
>line somewhere else, and your line still includes a whole
>bunch of shitbags as well. Everyone’s does, because
>there’s too much great shit made by shitty people in human
>history.
>


I'm going to stop going back and forth with you, as you and I both have better things to do. But, I applaud you for being able to tune a lot of things out. That is necessary from time to time just to make sure that your mental health is good. Paying attention to every single thing will stress you the hell out, and that's not good either. This is a genuine statement, not carrying any kind of sarcasm or being facetious.

For me, there is so much good music that I can pay attention to and discover, that there is no reason for me to look to someone that I find to be repulsive. There truly is soooo much music that I haven't gotten to listen to, And the time on my clock is ticking away, and I can easily prioritize so much better music.

I will admit 100% that I am on a soapbox today. Your message probably would have been much better received over at Boxden. There are plenty of Kanye fans over there. I don't believe that many of them are over here.


Peace,
Doitall76

.

As a visual artist first, I’m pretty hardened to this shit, for better or worse

Gauguin fucked three 13 year old girls
Caravaggio was a literal murderer and also a pimp
Degas was an anti semite
Bacon was an an abuser who forced multiple lovers to suicide
Do we even need to talk about Picasso? Pollack?

No seriously. And I peeped it before they made it known that they were working together. No one would have believed me though.