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May 15, 2008
NYT: Kanye West's ego, "approximately equal" to the size of the universe
An attempt to introduce this with something clever would be foolish.
"There is a new yardstick for the size of the universe. It is approximately equal to the size of Kanye West’s ego."
Jon Pareles is not exactly mincing words with that opening sentence. More from his review of Tuesday's Kanye West show at MSG (link):
Mr. West’s set was the most daring arena spectacle hip-hop has yet produced, and in some ways the best, even as it jettisoned standard hip-hop expectations. The rhymes, the beats and the narcissism were there; the block-party spirit and sense of community were not. Until the encore Mr. West had no human company on the arena stage.The spectacle is framed as a sci-fi space odyssey, with Mr. West as a lone explorer whose starship crashes on an unknown planet. He’s stranded in a landscape of colored lights, billowing smoke — probably enough dry ice to cool Death Valley — and gorgeous, panoramic video images of clouds, galaxies, fireworks and cosmic eruptions. He converses with his computerized ship, named Jane, and with shooting stars. He raps with barely a respite, and bounds around the stage: striding, hunching, pumping his fist, falling to his knees, grinding against the stage, flailing, shouting his rhymes. It is a show of stamina and lonely self-determination that takes on its own obsessive momentum, like a Samuel Beckett scene staged by Robert Wilson and George Lucas.
Posted by Merry Swankster at May 15, 2008 12:14 AM
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