From what I've read, Kanye is too much of an egomaniac to pull off something like this. From the stories in Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holloway. And also the "grabbing the mic" incident with Taylor Swift.
To be fair let’s point out that Kanye West probably has bipolar disorder, which is a serious medical condition that really does require medication, and, it’s not really clear if he is taking medication for it consistently.
To exacerbate that the music industry isn’t exactly known for being good for ones mental health - rather, the opposite. They’ll happily let someone suffer if it brings in dollars.
So while I don’t approve of a lot of his behavior (more so the trump stuff than the Taylor Swift stuff), I think Kanye gets a bad rap because people think “asshole”, instead of “someone who genuinely needs medical treatment / support and probably isn’t getting it.”
Kanye would probably prefer your response be "asshole", rather than this smug nonsense which amounts to: "Your opinion is invalid because you have a mental illness."
I wouldn't be surprised if all the amazing things he's done was during manic phases, in which case I'd understand it if he were wary of medicating his condition.
To be fair to Kanye, he was absolutely correct. Single Ladies is one of the greatest videos of all time. Does anyone even remember what Swift's winning video was? The only reason not to give it to Beyoncé was she had just won something else and "they" were trying to promote Taylor Swift. It's a case of being technically correct but at the wrong time and place.
I actually agree that if someone is going to do it, it's going to be him.
Plus the "grabbing the mic" incident was bound to happen sooner or later. Music awards keep being given to people who clearly didn't deserve them.
I've heard artists (mostly rappers) speaking about this on their songs.
Kanye simply did what many before him, I'm sure, thought about doing but didn't have the courage.
> Music awards keep being given to people who clearly didn't deserve them.
This is a new angle to the incident that I haven’t heard before. Are you saying Taylor Swift didn’t deserve the award, and Kanye was justified to speak out?
PG benefits from self-confidence as well (certainly to a less degree).
Being extremely self aware and re-questioning ones positions constantly doesn't seem to be a winning trait in business and promotion. At the very least, if it's being done internally you want to continue to broadcast consistent and confident messages.
Firstly, it's a pain in the ass to deal with in a very direct way. A long time ago I did some work for someone who is now very well known in the music business, and we used to have conversations during which he would talk at me. Mostly about himself.
While his persona was actually fairly mild compared to some in the business, it was still not fun to be around. I imagine - possibly unfairly, but perhaps not - that Kanye is the same *10/100/1000.
Secondly it's very hard to trust someone who is primarily interested in themselves. Trust is absolutely critical to any kind of successful business venture, and if you can't manage the real thing you should at least be able to create a convincing illusion of being trustworthy.
Would you trust Kanye with anything? Would you trust him to turn up to meetings, pay people on time, not suddenly flip the table over and run the rules and the game tokens through a blender?
YC has created a certain consistent branding for startups, and Kanye in his current state is going to have a hard time doing the equivalent in music.
Which is not to say he won't succeed, because narcissism is a huge driving force in the music business, and like calls to like. But there's always going to be extra drama over and above the usual startup dramas - and that's going to add up to a whole lot of drama for anyone to deal with.
To exacerbate that the music industry isn’t exactly known for being good for ones mental health - rather, the opposite. They’ll happily let someone suffer if it brings in dollars.
So while I don’t approve of a lot of his behavior (more so the trump stuff than the Taylor Swift stuff), I think Kanye gets a bad rap because people think “asshole”, instead of “someone who genuinely needs medical treatment / support and probably isn’t getting it.”
Not that the two can’t also overlap.
OK, I’ll stop ranting now :).