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Originally Posted by Severian
I'm absolutely loving how much you're referencing Kanye today brother. Loving the shit out of it.
Here's the fucking deal: Kanye's got issues, nobody can argue with that. But his knowledge of and ability to embrace his issues and flaunt both his extreme positives and negatives are what make him TRULY relatable to the people who give him a chance, and those who love Kanye love Kanye ferociously. J. Cole, like most people, wants to present himself as "woke" and evolved, but it's Kanye's understanding of the fact that neither he nor anyone else will ever be fully "woke" or perfect that make him so relevant.
Well, that and his ability to chop the fuck out of genres and make music with a life force all its own, separate from Black Lives Matter or any fixed point in time.
He makes daring and ugly and terrifying and beautiful and glorious and fucked up music, period. J. Cole can't compete. He, like Drake, is trying to be cool AF, and is giving up his edge by playing the cucumber.
Chance gets that vulnerability and humanity are what make artists truly relatable. If you're gonna try to be a lyrical mtherfucker you'd better have chops like Kendrick, who's the only person pulling off full blown lyrical rap-rap in a wholly successful way (love to Common, but he doesn't seem to have the people's attention anymore).
So yeah, you can master the Everyman angle and become a Dylan or a Kendrick, or you master the meta-picture and become a Kanye or a Beatles, or you can zero in on the emotional volatility of a moment and be a Nirvana, or you can throw it all out the window and be a Bowie or a Prince. All these roads can, if done right, lead to memorable, potent, lasting populace music. But you can't succeed if you're mediocre, and I'm afraid Cole is pretty goddamn mediocre.
I liked 2014 Forest, but man... he's been on this or that dude's coattails for his entire career. I think it's too late for him to truly blow up now. Fuck him anyway.
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