THE PRODUCER AND THE
PRODUCT: KANYE WEST’S YEEZUS
ZOË LANCE
CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY, POMONA
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CONFERENCES FOR UNDERGRADUATE
RESEARCH AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON
NOVEMBER 22, 2014
Chris Hyde / Getty Images
KANYE WEST
RAPPER, ARTIST, DESIGNER AND ENTREPRENEUR
WHAT’S
GOING ON IN
YEEZUS?
Looking at the
relationship between the
producer and the
product tells us more
about our perception of
postmodern art.
via Wikimedia Commons
ELEMENTS OF PRODUCTION
•
via Wikimedia Commons
via Wikimedia Commons
via Wikimedia Commons
Terry Eagleton’s
Criticism and
Ideology.
•
Producer.
•
Means of
Production.
•
Product.
WEST’S OVERARCHING GOAL:
UNDERSTANDING HIS LYRICS
•
Curation of the content.
•
Control from an
ontological standpoint.
•
Results.
via The New York Times
THE ISSUE OF MULTIPLE
DISCOURSES: MICHEL FOUCAULT
•
Social constructs of rules and conventions make up
societal structure.
•
The Archaeology of Knowledge.
•
The Order of Things.
THE EFFECT OF MULTIPLE
DISCOURSES
•
Composite personality.
“I think that’s a responsibility that I have, to push
possibilities, to show people: ‘This is the level that
things could be at.’
I will be the leader of a company that ends up being
worth billions of dollars, because I got the answers. I
understand culture. I am the nucleus.”
New York Times, “Behind Kanye’s Mask”
via Taylor Hill / Getty Images
THE EFFECT OF MULTIPLE
DISCOURSES CONT.
via YouTube
via Kanye to The
•
Convergence of producer and product roles.
•
Accountability for and ownership of Yeezus.
•
Uncertainty of the divide between artist and art.
THE EFFECT OF MULTIPLE
DISCOURSES CONT.
“Being a work of Kanye West, Yeezus is also a brilliant, obsessive-
compulsive career auto-correct. Kanye is 36 years old, a fashion-world
comer and a tabloid fixture about to have a kid with one of the dozen or so people on Earth who are more famous than he is. This isn’t just a
way to stay ahead of the competition; it’s a way to stay ahead of
himself.”
Rolling Stone, “Kanye West Yeezus Review”
“At my concerts, I make sure everybody has as good a time as possible.
So all this demonizing me, it ain’t goin’ to work after a while. Pick a new
target. Pick a new target. Because I’m not one of these dumbass artists that you’re used to. You come at me, I’m going to take my platform and
break this shit down for real, intelligent people every night. And then,
we’ll get back to the music.” Kanye West, 12 September 2014
CONCLUSION
via Wikimedia Commons
•
The connections between the producer and the
product derived from Yeezus have implications
beyond the album and West himself.
•
Yeezus forces West, his audience and the world to
think beyond the surface levels of understanding
postmodern concepts.
WORKS CITED
Caramanica, Jon. "Behind Kanye’s Mask." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 June 2013. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
Dolan, Jon. "Kanye West Yeezus Album Review." Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone, 14 June 2013. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
Eagleton, Terry. “Categories for a Materialist Criticism.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H.
Richter. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007. 1309-1310. Print.
Foucault, Michel, and Alan Sheridan. The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972. Print.
Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon Books, 1971. Print.
Franco, James, and Seth Rogen. "James Franco & Seth Rogen - Bound 3 (Vague)." YouTube. YouTube, 25 Nov. 2013. Web. 21
Nov. 2014.
Kanye West. Yeezus. Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records, 2013. MP3.
Stern, Marlow. "Read Kanye West’s Epic Rant Blasting the Media For ‘Wheelchair-Gate’." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast,
15 Sept. 2014. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.