Are you saying that Ye pushed that narrative because he wanted people to still keep convos of him in the rap conversation ? I don't know if I'm misunderstanding

Entire reason why Ye said this was not because of insecurity or what others were saying bout him not being a real rapper because he had writers, it had to do with how the media would downplay his artistic vision because he was labelled as a rapper. He been sayin this since 2006 on air

If you read my post I had genreless in quotations because to me genreless was just another term for white people putting Kanye on some sort of pedestal. My original point was that Kanye using Fiona Apple’s producer and naming Portishead as influence helped cultivate Kanye’s white hipster fanbase. I know about the history of rap, that is irrelevant to my point. I’m more talking about the specific artists and what they represent, not the genres.

It's exactly this lol, he was goin on those rants durin the Yeezus era because how the industry would downplay him because he was only a "rapper" this shi lead to the how sway incident as well

I don’t remember Kanye ever doing the I’m not rapper, downing hip hop thing he lived & breathed it more than damn nearly all of these guys

He makes a brief appearance in the video too

Fair point yea i guess a lot of ppl say it out of arrogance

Not for nothing, ion really think it's fair to include Childish Gambino in the thumbnail for this because his whole "I am not a rapper" thing was him going at people who were saying he isn't a rapper because he started out as an actor/comedian lol

Well then you shouldn't say genreless when you aren't talking genre but still using literal genre terms but are actually talking about a hyperfixation on the demographic of an artist and moreso the promotion/perception of said artist 😊

The funny thing is I'm totally with you. I don't make my thumbnails and he is actually the only artist on there who is not mentioned once in the video I let it slide though. I see why my guy put him there. but I'm with you

Just hurts Rap more tho overall

Him separating himself just "proved" them right that you can't just be a Rapper to be considered an artist

I get it from his own frustration of the time but it did do damage to Rap being seen as less than in some instances/spaces and led to the whole uzi/yacthy/lil xan etc. ish of popularizing the "im not a Rapper I'm an artist" type of thing

Some of them did tho use it as a retort against people bashing them for not being "real Rap/Rappers" - f***ed both ways that popularized it

Do you agree: Kanye was genre less because everyone else was bad
Imagine we had 5 Kanye’s
That’d just be a new sub genre of rap

its only 2 artist running writing sweatshop, and it ain't Kanye lol.

I mean he went on a tweet spree saying how much he hates rap and that he’s not a rapper recently lol in Yeezus era he was saying he’s “not a rapper, compare me to MJ”

I actually don't think Kanye was at all "genreless" - most of his music was still very much Rap focused and like the only one literal outlier being 808s that still has a lot of foundations in other forms of black music and radio n then Yeezus that is also still mostly straight raps just with a more "out there" inspo the average person.

Although I personally believe Yeezus' "out there" claims is over exaggerated due to the On Sight intro. 4 to 5 songs of the album could fit on his other albums beforehand damn near perfectly.

• I also think tho, the more apt term would be how much more "grand" Kanye's music is, not "genreless". Kanye's music wasnt just loops (CD has some "simple/regular beats but that's about it like Breathe in Breathe Out), had live plays, and brought in many collaborators plus he fought for really high budgets that was also afforded to him being a producer, and also, he is coming at music from a producers mind. Since CD.

• Calling any Rap "genreless" is dumb because Rap in its essence IS "genreless" outside of vocal style. Everything else is pretty much fair game and a hodpodged, and even then we had niggas singing like LL/Andre/Ja Rule etc.

The "grandness" Kanye took Rap too that most other artists didn't have outside of like a 2Pac or OutKast is partly due to how Rap used to be very "just you/your group" centric, which funnily enough ppl like OutKast n 2Pac has many ppl involved in on their works.

Kanye's music is just the end point of when you have access, money and a reaching picture altogether that Rap as a genre only started getting "consistently" since the early to midish 2010s with people like Kendrick, Rocky, Travis etc.

And Rap itself just got naturally bigger to other demographics when it was finally allowed little by little to enter other demographic spaces since the late 80s / early 90s.

I’ve forgotten so much of this s***

I also dunno why some ppl look at Kanye as the evil gateway to "whitedom" when ppl like Clipse, OutKast, Snoop, Wu Tang and of course the few already white artists and groups that existed had massive white audiences before Kanye and so on

"Whites" coming more and more into Rap is just a simple byproduct of Rap becoming bigger and more "accept" in more spaces as time naturally goes on

Similar thing literally happened to Jazz and Disco - it's not a Rap phenomenon, people like niggas and their creativity when it isn't taboo'd or literally shunned from them

it's just a hypothesis for me here but it feels like something that separates rap from jazz and blues is that black people were able to retain a lot more influence and maybe even SOME ownership/capital of the genre than they were in the past

but i wasnt able to research that further enough into the video. s*** woullda been like 17 hours

S*** is straight hatred for their own blackness, there’s no nuance to it. The one genre ASSOCIATED with black culture so happens to be the ONLY genre where this s*** is said

And then look at the mfs who say it, there’s a pattern. You got Nazis, wannabe rockers and country artists. I don’t need to say more

I for sure agree like it would've been best if Kanye proved them wrong in that sense. But he also did prove them wrong regardless. A black man in the position he was in is incredible.

But beyond (I'm not the best at articulating this) that, minorities over the world are called racial things, but then they stop calling them these things (society changes/whatever), but they replace them with words where they can still belittle them you know ? Even if calling someone a rapper isnt racist, it will be used in a racist undertone which is how Kanye viewed it as well. That added onto it

If there was a family feud board I think racism is the #1 reason

I’m now tempted to say that only someone who genuinely loves being black and holds black culture to a high esteem could become an S tier rapper in the first place

Yeah, that's another whole kind of worms

But what I meant there is that Jazz and Disco specifically were once seen as lowbrow and "dumb negro music" that was actively shunned from the airways and literally taboo'd - but the more those doors broke down and the more people ignored those shunnings the naturally those genres gained popularity with other demos and races - same with Rap

It is a fact that others have added to the genre as well and the way it's wind blow (both seemingly negative and positive), but overall the idea is that these other people would have liked these things from the get-go if it wasn't being held from them and taken from them by old outdated (and racist) "oligarchs"

For sure. Part of it is just a natural acceptance of something we can all admit is a lot of fun to enjoy

People do take a while to warm to new things though even with race taken out of the equation. Idk if it would be immediate. But I do agree it would be faster. Talking normies here not big music listeners who would be on forums and s***