The Bite Magazine - issue 16

“I am the greatest”? In early 2009,West collaborated with luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton and designed a high-top sneaker. While promoting the product, the rapper announced he was going to change his name to Martin Louis the King Jr. He never quite explained what exactly the inspirational civil-rights leader had to do with a line of brightly coloured foot- wear but in the end the nickname didn’t stick. As we know by now, KanyeWest doesn’t handle criticism well and even when it isn’t a critical remark, he still seems to have a problem. Entertainment Weekly writer Chris Wilson made the unex- pected mistake of giving the rapper’s Glow in the Dark tour a respectable B+. West responded on his blog with, “What’s a B+ mean? I’m an extremist; it’s either pass or fail! A+ or F-! You know what, f*** you and the whole f***ing staff!” Wilson must have hit a raw nerve as West is famously known to have left school before producing his debut album The College Dropout and may have felt that he was deprived of a higher education for his grade-negotiation tactics. West went on to say that only a “very miser- able person” could have written such a misguided review. The romance between Kanye West and Kim Kardashian was big page news and could not be avoided – it was every- where. Apparently it took nine years for the rapper to convince Kim to go from being friends to becoming his fiancée. West first met the socialite in 2004 when she was married to Damon Thomas and said when he saw a photo of her showing off her toned legs next to then best friend Paris Hilton during a visit to Australia in 2006, his heart started to go ‘pitter-patter’ but nothing happened. It was when Kim’s infamous 72 day marriage to Kris Humphries broke down in 2011, that West made his move on the Armenian beauty and in early 2012, they started dating. From news of her pregnancy with their first child North, to reports of Kim feeling lonely during her pregnancy while West was away concentrating on his music, to his elaborate marriage proposal and their lavish wedding in Italy, the story of West and Kardashian’s love for each other does not show any signs of slowing down despite rumours flying around. Let’s hope that they will remain together forever. Despite his erratic behaviour, we can’t argue that Kanye West has not given us good music. From his first single ‘Through theWire’ taken from the album The College Dropout which he wrote and recorded with his jaw wired shut after a car accident in 2002 to his latest offering The Life of Pablo , KanyeWest has kept us well entertained. When asked how the accident changed his music, West said, “Well, the only thing this accident’s saying is, ‘I am about to hand you the world, just know at any given time I can take it away from you.’ To nearly lose your life, to nearly lose your mouth, your whole face, as a rapper… and I had to be on TV! My face looks crazy to me now… But I have to just thank God for the situation that I am in… ‘Through the Wire’ is the worst thing that could’ve possibly hap- pened to me, and now it’s obviously the best thing. Look how it exploded!” West’s seventh studio album The Life of Pablo which he described as the ‘greatest album of all time’ (and then later changed it to ‘one of the greatest albums’ out of respect for fellow rappers) took more than 18 months to come out. It had gone through a few name changes such as ‘So Help Me God’, ‘Swish’ and ‘Waves’ until he finally settled on the present name. Since its release in February this year, the album has received mainly positive reviews with The Rolling Stones ’ Rob Sheffield dubbing it both a mess and mas- terpiece:“this is a messy album that feels like it was made that way on purpose, after the laser-sharp intensity of Yeezus. ” However, Ray Rahman of Entertainment Weekly took a different view and said The Life of Pablo is “an ambitious album that finds the rapper struggling to compact his many identities into one weird, uncom- fortable, glorious whole… Like the man himself, the album is emotional, explosive, unpredictable and undeniably thrilling.” Through traditional album sales The Life of Pablo has not done remarkably well but streaming has pushed up the sales. Kanye West is set to start the North American leg of The Life of Pablo tour in August 2016. www.kanyewest.com bite music celeb blo