Good Day Everyone,My Name Is Jameka Mortimer, and I Live in Freeport,Grand Bahama,"The Bahamas".(which is located in the Carribean). I am 16 years of age and this is my last year in High School. After graduating i will be attending a Cosmetology College in Atlanta. I just would like to say that Kanye West is my Role Model and I love him so very Much. Although he was in a terrible car accident, he still boucned back in full effect. Some people that I know always say things like "Well meka u will enver amount to anything" " u will enver make it through life, niether will you achieve your goals. But when I think of what Kanye West said about that girl who didnt believe that he was going to rap, I tell myself, someday I will prove these people Wrong. In Addition there have been many serious Hurricanes in The Bahamas that left a numerous amount of people homeless. My mother travelled to Haiti because she has 3 orphanges there, and she wants to help the children, and when she called me to tell me how things is , she just told me that she is soo depressed and I said Momma....jus "Turn Tragedy Into Triumph". Words of My Role Model. And someday I will let the World know how much Kanye West Means to me and what a Tremendous Job he plays in My Life. I Pray To God that one day I will have a chance to meet him in person.

Love Always ..."Your True Fan,Jameka

He got the grammy for the best rap cd with College Dropout!! He is my favorite rapper for right now and he would be a great role model!! Jesus Walks, one of the songs on his cd, is such a great song!! I would really recommend the cd!!

u must be joking...jesus walks is a terrible song along with that album.In recent history i dont remember an artist being so overhyped as he is.he is probabbly one of the most condescending rappers out there.He talks about things that you shouldnt partake in such as drugs,women...and then he talks about doing it.

Anyways...his performance on the grammys was a cherry on top.He has balls to pull that off...with the wings an all.His "fame" has clearly gotten to his head...and he is just completely annoying whenever i hear an interview or anything related to him.

The guy really gets under my skin, and I don't care for his rapping or production. My dislike of his egomaniacal hypocrisy drove me away from anything he was involved in. Finally, last week I decided to borrow the disc from a friend and give it a listen. Pile of crap! Song 9 with Talib and Common was decent, but that was it. At points I was sickened by his and his guests lyrics. Constant personal glorification, greed, lust, anger, envy, all can be found spewing from Kanye West, and yet he has the audacity to attempt to convince naive people of his apparantl near-sainthood! God chose him to write trash like Workout Plan?!? Unique one-of-a-kind role model indeed!

For some reason he presents himself as indie compared to the 50 Cent crew so people feel better liking him, as if they have more eclectic taste as opposed to the MTV taste they really have. I believe this is responsable for his popularity. Really, he is somewhat better for the listener than the pointless violence of the 50 Cent people so I turn a blind eye West, I still have hope for his fans to wake up someday.

"I don't like rap, and I want to be the only person who gets to like the stuff that I do like."

You could have been done talking a long time ago. How your reviews get posted to metacritic is absolutely beyond me.

quote:

Originally posted by Joseph Strickland:
"I don't like rap, and I want to be the only person who gets to like the stuff that I do like."

You could have been done talking a long time ago. How your reviews get posted to metacritic is absolutely beyond me.

I'm not exactly sure if I understand your agenda, Joseph Strickland, but you seem to come here both with an axe to grind against TinyMixTapes and those associated with it, and also some sort of grudge against those of us who frequent the "circle jerks" here on the Forums. Your self-quoting signature line (who quotes THEMSELF as a signature, really?) seems to imply that people here are trying to play underground hipster king. Most of the folks here just want to chat about the music they like, and not to try to "up" their indie cred. I assume you're here for the same reason, as some of your posts seem to imply, but a few seem to have an ulterior motive...

quote:

Originally posted by Joseph Strickland:
"I don't like rap, and I want to be the only person who gets to like the stuff that I do like."

You could have been done talking a long time ago. How your reviews get posted to metacritic is absolutely beyond me.

What's your deal, dude? I'm a fan first and a critic second. I love hip-hop. It just pains me to see what people pass off as hip-hop when it's really hip-pop. But ultimately, I don't understand why you're taking a personal attack at me because I have a different forum opinion as you. That's cold. It would be more productive to try to debate me on the subjects at hand and not reduce yourself to petty digs at my writing skills.

(I would like to add that faced with the choice between having to listen to West or absolutely anyone on Aftermath I'd pick West every time. I didn't mind listening to hsi album but I didn't really like it either. Mos Def and Rawkus is about as mainstream of hip-hop as I go)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Filmore Mescalito Holmes,

I'm speaking only for myself here:

I don't listen to a great deal of hip hop as a proportion of my music listening. I cherrypick when it comes to rap music. In that sense, you could call me an outsider, a window shopper, a fairweather friend.

But when a rap album does impress me, like Aesop Rock's Bazooka Tooth for example, it speaks to me. It says "Hey, god damn it! It's not you that's not getting it. It's everybody else who isn't trying hard enough."

Shit yeah, I'll back Aesop Rock, especially Bazooka Tooth. I also back Clouddead, Busdriver, Dalek, and whoever else has the guts to cut through all the bullshit from the people who say that I don't like shitty hip hop because I don't get it. I not only get it, but I know how much greater it can be if the people making it tried to make something that will last longer than a few weeks.

I take it completely for granted that almost no rapper or producer, with some exceptions, are trying. Like, at all. There are some rappers that are good, and the Neptunes and Timbaland and Andre 3000 do all actually have something to offer. As for the rest: START PUTTING SOME ACTUAL EFFORT INTO THIS SHIT OR GET A REAL FUCKING JOB! You are not helping our society by wasting perfectly good plastic discs with your tired rhymes and cheesy beats. Now make my cheeseburger! Without pickles, douchebag!

EDIT: This is a general response to some of the things that have been said in multiple threads. Kanye better remember not to put on those pickles, and 50 better make sure those fries are hot.

The College Dropout was great, but Late Registration is awful. Kanye West has become an attention-hungry, outrageously egotistical annoyance.

And I will agree that Jesus Walks is highly overrated. The best song from College Dropout, IMHO, is Spaceship.

I still like College Dropout and think that Gold digger is genius. I don't like his editorial comments all the time, but when he's rapping, it's good.

I'm really too tired/drunk/whatever to post fully-formed thoughts of my own, so I'll just piece a response together based on yours.

quote:

The College Dropout was great, but Late Registration is awful. Kanye West has become an attention-hungry, outrageously egotistical annoyance.

He became one long ago. I'm friends with his publicist... let's just say her job isn't easy.

quote:

Your self-quoting signature line... seems to imply that people here are trying to play underground hipster king... to "up" their indie cred.

Dude, the truth is, that's exactly what this place looks like most of the time. I may be wrong, but to me, this place reeks of it.

quote:

For some reason (Kanye) presents himself as indie compared to the 50 Cent crew so people feel better liking him, as if they have more eclectic taste as opposed to the MTV taste they really have. I believe this is responsable for his popularity.

Not so much "indie" as "positive/progressive/enlightened," which is a total load of crap. Reeks of Nas-like pretension.

Summary: Overrated as all hell. Especially this album.

Hmm..I'm going to be honest, at first I was rather lukewarm on Kanye West.

But then I realized that part of that was because I thought his attitude was too obnoxious. When I let that go, my opinion of 'Late Registration' went up a lot. Now, I don't understand why people put him as the #1 hip hop artist at all; he's no Outkast. But 'Late Registration' is an enjoyable album.

The lyrics strike me as a bit too self referential and combative though. He's got that 'black versus white' mentality.

Gold Digger gets my vote for worst song of the year. Jamie Foxx should be ashamed of himself. Ray would have kicked his ass for that crap. Diamonds had the Sierra Leone part added on after someone told Kanye where diamonds come from! What a disgrace. Poor publicist!

I was going to edit this into my previous post but metacritic went down right after I posted..

Really, I don't see how anybody who uses a hurricane relief benefit as an excuse to air his political views on national television can be seen as a remotely good role model.

--

(I'll have to respectfully disagree about Gold Digger. Yeah, the lryics are as obnoxious as all his other lyrics, but I forgive that.)

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
Really, I don't see how anybody who uses a hurricane relief benefit as an excuse to air his political views on national television can be seen as a remotely good role model.

Actually, I thought that was his one shining moment. He dropped the bullshit arrogance for a minute and actually let his emotions show. After the foul shit he'd seen and heard, he was outraged (as were many of us).

So, no... To me, that telethon moment was incredible. The people I believe should be burning right now are the ones who called in after his appearance to take their donations back.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: merqury,

I am tired of hearing how Kanye West is such a wunderkid producer.He is a hack and very lazy at his sampling.I am sure alot of people already know this, but for those who dont go back and listen to these 'original' songs compared to kanyes "hits".

Chaka Khan-Through The Fire
Kanye-Through The Wire

Shirley Bassey-Diamonds are Forever
Kanye-Diamonds from Sierra leone

Ray Charles-I got a Woman
Kanye-Gold Digger

This last one completely disgusts me, word for word stealing from ray charles, and having jamie foxx do an extremly lame impersonation???I think jamie is hilarious, but please stop trying to sing, at first "slow jamz" was catchy but it didn't warrant this.

If he is such a great producer, why does he rely so much on the original version?I understand the ethics of sampling, and i am sure he cleared the samples, but c'mon saying this guy is the most important guy in hip-hop??If this is true than I am glad that hip-hop is going down the shitter.

The only song that i can really say i like from kanye is "guess whos back" with scarface and jay-z and memph bleek.That song creatively utilizes a lesser known track by the originals.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
Really, I don't see how anybody who uses a hurricane relief benefit as an excuse to air his political views on national television can be seen as a remotely good role model.

Because at least he said something AND IT'S TRUE. Bush doesn't care about anyone. 50 Cent is too much of a pussy to ever say anything like that at a major function (he lives and dies by his wallet). West showed here that he has conviction, even if it was the wrong place to voice it for some people. The US doesn't have many people willing to risk their reputation for their views any more.

quote:

Because at least he said something AND IT'S TRUE.

True?

"We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way. And now they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us. George Bush doesn't care about black people."

The National Guard was given "shoot-to-kill" orders for anyone wielding a firearm — black, white, pink, or green. No one went down there just to shoot black people. For fuck's sake. He's an idiot.

I hate Bush as much as the rest of the very vocal, and unfortunately overly apathetic, majority in this country, but I'm getting really tired of people from other countries making generalizations about the United States based on whatever crap media they have in their own country. Do you honestly think you're getting an unbiased look into America, be it politics or sociology? Please. I'm sure it rivals how awful our own media is — except you can't turn on the TV here without another celebrity getting face time for the cause-of-the-month. It's how you MAKE your reputation here. Unless you're a popular Bush supporter, you're not risking anything.

I don't care about Kanye West one way or the other. I'm blithely ignorant to most things regarding the man, his music and his message. I'm also not agreeing or disagreeing with anybody here. I think his point about Bush and black people relates to the fact that over 67% of the population of New Orleans is black. At least that's what I'd think if I thought.