Quick Story: It's a thursday evening and I had just worked overtime and I had to get an uber home. 00:45 on the clock and I get a datsun go uber driver. The guy is listening to Kanye West, I think the track I walked into was To The World ft. R.Kelly. I'm a serious die-hard Kanye fan, the guy just can't seem to do wrong in my eyes. On top of that he's a musician I've tried to mold a few of my musical endeavours after.
During my 15-20min uber ride home, the topic changed from idolizing Kanye to current affairs and in particular the president of the republic, J.Zuma. This inspired me to write four ways how these two controversial figures are similar.
1) They were behind the scenes before they came to the front
Not to give you a history lesson on both figures, but they both contributed a lot to their movements from behind the scenes.
Ye was putting in mad work as a producer for the likes of Foxy Brown, Nas and of course his big brother, Jay-Z. Impacting the commercial hiphop scene with a typically underground flavour of sampling. After about 6 years did he eventually hit acclaim behind the mic with Through The Wire. The rest is history.
Jacob Zuma was also involved with his movement from the age of about 20 joining the military wing of the current ruling party. Being exiled and imprisoned, he also had a hand in influencing the current situation in South Africa. Eventually, post-apartheid he was executive deputy president and then he became the president. The rest is history.
2) Both tend to say things they shouldn't say
Ye, often gets overwhelmed by emotions and one of the things that stick out are when he was on national live television after Hurricane Katrina. He basically accused the president at the time, George W. Bush of not caring about black people. Insane I tell you.
J.Zuma, also tends to be in hot water for saying the wrong things. His opinion on same-sex marriages in 2006 highlight this, "a disgrace to the nation and to God". Obviously this didn't go well with the LGBT community and considering he was going to be president, it was worrying. Anyway...
3) They have the ability to recreate themselves
Ye and JZ have recreated themselves multiple times through time. Kanye started off as the underdog, disliked by labels (rap-wise) with a sense of underground feel to him. He evolved his sound to a synth packed, distortion saturated, autotune riddled sound and then to a mix of everything in between, heck even to trap.
In terms of pleasing his audience, JZ knows what to say to his audience in order to ensure his longevity. Effectively recreating himself every time he speaks. Being multilingual does help with the adaptive nature he has.
4) Their die-hard fans will... die hard for them.
Kanye's music is known for being unpredictable and that's why his die-hards love him. Even when he made tracks like On Sight, we still believed (I like On Sight so that was probably a bad example). I won't lie, there have been some disappointing works but I still believe.
Just like Ye, JZ has die-hard supporters, some even saying they'd kill for him on public TV. Even after numerous scandals, his supporters support him.
This is what I was able to come up with in the 20min chat with an uber driver, let me know what you think or if you think I've completely lost the plot. If you're looking for beats or would like to talk about music, hit me up on whatsapp 0835709602.
Until next time,
Skill
Comments