Is Kanye West the new Maya Angelou?
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Will Kanye’s new album have a riff about I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings? Well, West made reference to Caged Bird author Maya Angelou today on his blog while announcing his return to the studio:
IT’S FUNNY HOW SO MANY RAPPERS GET WORSE AS THEIR CAREERS STRETCH OUT BUT TRUE POETS GET BETTER. WE WILL FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MAYA ANGELOU, GILL SCOTT HERRON AND NINA SIMONE. THEIR WORK IMPROVED WITH TIME. THEY DOCUMENTED WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN CULTURE. THAT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS THE MODERN DAY ARTISTS AND POETS, TO ACCURATELY REPRESENT WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW, SO WHEN THE POWERS THAT BE TRY TO REWRITE HISTORY YOU CAN ALWAYS LOOK AT OUR WORKS AND FIND TRUTH AND SINCERITY IN A WORLD OF PROCESSED INFORMATION.
Perhaps West didn’t quite live up to his post-South Park ego check. But if high schoolers in the future are assigned The College Dropout alongside Caged Bird, consider me speechless. (Though I’d be happy to hear an integration of hip-hop into the high school curriculum.)
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Kanye says: THAT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS THE MODERN DAY ARTISTS AND POETS, TO ACCURATELY REPRESENT WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW…
Would be nice if he could accurately represent and spell Gil Scott-Heron’s name correctly.
btw, GSH is supposed to release his first album in 13 years in early 2010, titled “I’m New Here.”
I wonder if perhaps GSH’s new album may have an appearance by one Kanye West?
In response to another comment. See in context »Kanye West is not the new anything. He is a gifted PR man though. These kids just “get” branding. Maya’s got more name recognition with generation retardation, so he was very clever not to mention Langston.
In order to “actually represent what’s happening now,” you have to understand what that is to some degree.
All West understands is sales and marketing. That’s why he’s perfect for the times. He’s like the AIG of crap-hop.
And Gil’s done. Let it go people. The revolution was most definitely televised and somehow we all missed it.