Who is the Shakespeare of the modern day?

Unironically, it's Kanye - at least within music, anyway.

Anyone who understands the nature of paradigms and zeitgeists will agree.

Care to expand on that?

Wreak havoc, beep beep it's mad traffic
Sleek and lavish people speaking leaking to the maverick
He see as just another felony drug arrest
Any day could be the one he pick the wrong thug to test
Slug through the vest, shot in the street
For pulling heat on a father whose baby's gotta eat
And when they get hungry, it ain't shit funny
Paid to interfere with how a brother get his money
Now, who's the real thugs, killers and gangsters?
Set the revolution, let the things bust and thank us
When the smoke clear, you can see the sky again
There will be the chopped off heads of Leviathan

With every new album, Kanye inspires a generation of rappers with the sound he's created. 808's and Heartbreak, for example, is responsible for artisits like Drake, The Weeknd, Future, and Travis Scott – some of the most commercially (and in some instances, critically) acclaimed figures of post-2010 music.

Kanye's greatest talent, however, has always been his ability to assemble a dozen different artists - each with different strengths, weaknesses, influences, and aesthetics - and produce an album that will simultaneously define it's own generation and influence the generation to come.

RZA (of Wu-Tang Clan fame) said this about the creative process behind 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy':

>With everyone assembled and enjoying their leisurely breakfast, music is the only thing discussed at the kitchen table—or anywhere else. Despite the heavyweights assembled, the egos rarely clash; talks are sprawling, enlightening, and productive. Topics range from the future to the present to the past. But mostly we talk about Kanye’s album: what it has to mean, and what it has to accomplish.

RZA isn't the only music legend to comment on Kanye's creative process - Paul McCartney, even, said that collaborating with Kanye is like working with John Lennon again.

This next bit is from Wikipedia:

>According to Noah Callahan-Bever, who visited West during the recording sessions, "when he hits a creative wall... he heads to another studio room to make progress on another song". He often worked through the night and napped in the studio, and recording engineers were present behind the mixing board 24 hours a day. Before recording in the afternoon, West and most of his crew played games of 21 against locals at the Honolulu YMCA for leisure. Kid Cudi smoked marijuana in preparation and worked out on a treadmill, while RZA worked out in the weight room

Q-Tip (from A Tribe Called Quest, a legendary rap group) said this:

>”He'll go, ‘Check this out, tell me what you think.’ Which speaks volumes about who he is and how he sees and views people. Every person has a voice and an idea, so he's sincerely looking to hear what you have to say—good, bad, or whatever ... When he has his beats or his rhymes, he offers them to the committee and we're all invited to dissect, strip, or add on to what he's already started. By the end of the sessions, you see how he integrates and transforms everyone's contributions, so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. He's a real wizard at it. What he does is alchemy, really.”

1/2

Pete Rock (producer):
>"He's definitely hip-hop, his roots, I was testing him on joints...He takes it to another level which is dope. He had these musicians and this song, they played around my little raggedy beat and made it real. I love the way he works — he goes from one room, writing rhymes then goes to another beat and goes to another room and does something else — I love what he's done". Rapper Pusha T characterized the album as "a collage of sounds" and found West's methods unorthodox when recording, saying that "We could easily be working on one song, thinking we're in a mode, and he'll hear a sound from someone like [producer] Jeff Bhasker and immediately turn his whole attention to that sound and go through his mental Rolodex to where that sound belongs on his album, and then it goes straight to that song, immediately"

I'll end with a quote from a professional critic, because they explain this kind of thing for a living:

>"[West is] the pop star for our morally implicated times; an instinctive consumer with a mouthful of diamonds and furtive bad conscience, a performer who lives the American Dream to its fullest with a creeping sense of the spiritual void at its heart. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy captures that essence in full. It's an utterly dazzling portrait of a 21st-century schizoid man that is by turns sickeningly egocentric, contrite, wise, stupid and self-mocking."

This video, which focuses on just one of his albums, demonstrates the sheer breadth of Kanye's taste in music, which begins to explain how his releases are always so diverse and game-changing.

youtube.com/watch?v=KBOwQQNYnXk

please be bait please be bait please be bait please be bait

I bet you hate anything written after the 20th century, and pretend to have read Moby Dick :^)

This.

DOOM saved my fucking life.

I've told this story many times before.

When I had a suicidal, schizophrenic episode in Chicago in October of 2010, I was given some clothes and a busted set of Lugz without shoelaces when I was borderline naked.

One of the shoes had "MF DOOM" and a pirate-captain winking on it.

Shit's too legendary. DOOM is a God.

I would have more respect for Kanye if he could prove that he doesn't take credit for others' works. I heard of a British cat named "Consequence" had ghostwritten for Kanye, and Ye didn't help back or give due credit to the guy. Also, he no longer produces his own music, solely (which I cannot blame him for either).

I am not saying Kanye doesn't work hard. But, he's an Edison over a Tesla.

Like Edison, Kanye has used others for his sole credit.

DOOM is a Tesla. He keeps doing it on his own.

I enjoy both artists' music. However, props forever for DOOM: a villainous hero.

Kanye is an arrogant asshole.

>collage of sounds
>mental rolodex to see where it belongs
>morally implicated times

BOW TO THE KING, PLEBS.

please kill yourself

This was true through MBDTF, but since Yeezus Kanye has been playing catch up. He's no longer the king innovator.

TLOP was his only catch up album

Ghostface.

Honestly.

Shakespeare
t. Shakespeare

My vote is Charles Portis or Paul Verhoeven.

>tfw you started to listen to rap ironically then you started actually liking it and now you listen it exclusively

Try not to think too hard about it, big fella.

Shakespeare was aweful in my honest opinion, in his prime and now, puns that were out of place even when they were common, he is basically the inventor of the romantic comedy and there is little to no effort into making the story of a romantic comedy have any humor, its the separate jokes and tweaks of a romcom that can make it almost funny. and thatś all the Shakespeare did. anybody can write a story of a broken household and fill it up with puns

The thing about rap is that influence/acclaim is cumulative. College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation, 808's and Heartbreak, MBDTF, Yeezus and TLOP (considering their consistent critical and commercial acclaim, plus their context, like Kanye's several media crucifixions) form perhaps the greatest catalogs in the genre's history. Kendrick's probably the closest to surpassing Kanye, especially after GKMC and TPAB where released as a sequence, but after DAMN. turned out to be a disappointment (although it'd be hard to top TPAB) I think he's slowed the process. Despite this, I don't think Kendrick's going to end up influencing music like Kanye - there's no doubt that he's the most socially important rapper of all time, though.

Kendrick's using music to promote a cause, while Kanye's making music for the sake of music. In the end, I enjoy Kanye's music more, but I recognise that Kendrick's existence actually benefits the world.

hip hop is art in the purest form, it actually goes to the roots of art and at the same time it is modern. The music is usually a collage which is assembled from samples from whole history of music, but at the same time it goes back to the times where the most important thing in music was the rhythm, it is hypnotic and danceable. When it comes to lyrics, it is an answer to the saying of surrealists, that everyone should write poetry, and also rhymes and rhythm that is associated with it reminds me of origin of poetry, that is using rhythm, repetition and rhymes not only to make it more aesthetic and pleasant, but mostly to make it easier to remember.

It truly is the art of our times, which really captures the current zeitgeist, while taking lots from the past at the same time.

hat just came to my mind after writing that is that poetry has became more and more difficult and experimental and isn't read by majority of people, especially comparing to the past, when poetry was read not only by poets and people who are interested in literature. So, I think that nowadays, hip hop is what poetry and folk poetry used to be in the past, because it is easier to understand, and it talks about things that people are familiar with, and modern and contemporary poetry can sometimes be hard to understand for normal people (that is people who don't study literature).

The first 10 times I listened to 'Black Skinhead' by Kanye it was completely wholeheartedly ironic because I thought the line "I keep it 300 like the Romans" was hilariously dumb as fuck. Kind of like the line "real G's move in silence like lasagna". Anyways I kept listening to that song ironically and then all of a sudden the true genius clicked and now I'm a Yeezy fan for life.

Michel Tremblay, not even kidding. He wrote about 60 plays and his pieces are constantly featured at any theatre in the french world. He's basically copying greek playwright and it works. Too bad you fags are stuck up in anglo/american shit world.

Isn't that the name of the guy that Zach Galifianakis plays in Due Date?

No idea what that is senpai

Kendrick is a 100% manufactured "star", as are most best-selling musicians of the 21st century. But Kendrick is much more so.

Not a dumb line. He's saying he's cool calm and collected, ie CCC, 300 in Roman numerals.

He has a better than decent vocabulary, and he raps about way more than how cool he is, you philistine. He raps as several distinct characters with different traits about different subjects. 'Figaro' is about the hollowness of materialism. 'Strange Ways' is about us foreign policy. 'Fancy Clown' is about getting cheated on.

'Any who profess will be remanded. Yes sir, permission to be candid? Granted. I don't think we can handle a style so rancid.'

The line you posted is basically him using a thesaurus to say how cool he is, plus his flow is pretty much non-existent. He's a novelty act with a cool-sounding voice.

Pynchon, seriously.
They're both tricksters with there double entendres and jokes, they got those good poetic words, and they know how to present characters, and ain't afraid to get a little silly my man.

>Wild accusation
>Zero reasons to back it up
That's not even good shit posting.

Your honest opinion sucks ass.

>wild accusation
Literally anyone with an average or above-average IQ can see that lol

Humor me then oh wise and wonderous user.

A terrible, corrupting hack?

Humor you with what? Mainstream music fans are victims of a meticulous market analysis/modelling project. You're being played like fiddles and I'm laughing in your philistine faces.

since i am the world and yall are my property i could say just as easily
>Kanye's existence actually benefits the world.

EDGY
D
G
Y

>Kendrick's using music to promote a cause
It's a disgusting cause, thereby it does nothing.

Furthermore, 'muh beenfits' is not a metric of quality.
Pretense and delusion.

Again, you have to be really daft to consider than an edgy or a controversial statement.

Your stance is that anything that gains popularity must be trash by virtue that it is popular. This is the height of angsty, edgy, high school opinion of music.

Fame isn't quality, you dope.
High schoolers love hip hop, though. You are the angsty teen here.

But anything that gains popularity literally must appeal to the lowest common denominator, therefore it must be of lower quality. Nice buzzwords, though.

I didn't say fame was quality. The two are mutually exclusive. You two are the only ones tying virtuosity to popularity, except you prefer it in the inverse fashion. You dismiss work purely on the the grounds that it is popular without providing an analysis of the work itself. Your taste in music is as shallow as the listener who prefers top 40 simply because it is top 40.

You're one of those post-ironic music fans who forces himself to listen to a healthy dose of top 40 and k-pop to counter his perceived pretentiousness, aren't you? Hey, whatever works for you, but claiming popularity and quality of art are not inversely correlated is wrong on every level. They're just not 100% correlated.

Stop projecting, presuming who I am, or putting words in my mouth.

Hip hop is bad because it's unmusical, novel primitivism, with forced lyricism. Not a line of hip hop doesn't sound like a thesaurus wasn't smashed together with a high school dropout.

The 'themes' you have pointed out are the themes seen in sophomoric poetry, and have been so for centuries. What is a rapper? A sophomoric poet with more access to technology, and a nonmusical musician.

It's alright dude you'll grow up one day.

I didn't put any words in your mouth. And hip hop is no more sophomoric than any other music.

I'm probably older than you and I've added at least 3 more layers of irony to my musical enjoyment. I'm currently in my post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-ironic phase and that's the honest phase. That means I can be honest with you: hip-hop is shallow, embarrassing nigger trite.

>Trying this hard to impress me on a Tuskegee airmen piloting course board.

Yes you did, you are presuming I am somebody else in the thread and by doing so you are putting words in my mouth.
>You dismiss work purely on the the grounds that it is popular without providing an analysis of the work itself
Words in my mouth.
>And hip hop is no more sophomoric than any other music.
Absolutely false, it is the most sophomoric of popular music. Trash like Dreamtheater look humble in comparison.
Like I said, hip hop is a high school dropout smashed with a thesaurus, over nonmusic.

>But anything that gains popularity literally must appeal to the lowest common denominator, therefore it must be of lower quality. Nice buzzwords, though
Did I misinterpret somehow that you judge music based on popularity?

>there are only two le people in le thread! me and the person i dislike!

I mean I tagged the correct post didn't I? This is some weak ass lost argument evasion tactics.

Look at the IP list
31
You began ranting at one person because they disagreed with your high schooler nonsense.
Then I replied, and you started triggering all over me.

That was me

Yeah well then the rest of the post was for
This guy.
Why did you assume the whole post was directed at you?

Too bad hip hop is inherently shit and incapable of high-culture.
Kanye and Kendrick are pop cultural fads. They don't hold the depth and skill that makes Shakespeare canonical, and likely won't last the centuries memory.

>Implying GKMC isn't an epic play on was
Anyways nobody in our era will actually BE as good as shakespeare. Nobody possesses the breadth of his various talents. Maybe Lin Manuel Miranda, if Hamilton wasn't a one off.

The best trolls are the ones that can make me laugh. 10/10.

...

>Implying if it is any rapper, it isn't Aesop

Labor Days is one of the most Lyrically dense albums ever written.

>Implying Shakespeare was lyrically dense for lyrics sake
Shakespeare put the medicine in the candy, it only seems like opaque language now because it is so dated. At the time he was a hit with the masses because he used common language and made dirty jokes while he was telling epic stories that also contained parables as instructive as the Bible. This why I just lmao when people try to say that pop acts cannot be Shakespearean, when in fact to lack an ability to relate to the common man disqualifies you as much as the ability to craft a deep story.

But that's the thing about Aesop, if you go line by line it becomes frustrating to understand, but if you just listen to the whole thing the meaning is very clear. I say he's more of a modern day shakespeare than other rappers because of his ability to create these sprawling metaphors stacked upon metaphors stacked upon metaphors, while still communicating his Ideas clearly.
This is also a minor thing, but he's also able to use his extremely large vocabulary without sounding pretentious, which is another plus for relating to the common man.

Don't get me wrong I like aesop, I just don't think he's an easy listen for most people whereas everybody could pick up what Shakespeare was putting down in his time.

Most of my friends who are "acerage" at deciphering meaning get his point only after 1-3 listens, but I get your point.

Which rapper would you compare to shakespeare, if I might ask?

this thread is cancer

Their poetry is very similar

I miss the old Kanye, straight from the Go Kanye
Chop up the soul Kanye, set on his goals Kanye
I hate the new Kanye, the bad mood Kanye
The always rude Kanye, spaz in the news Kanye
I miss the sweet Kanye, chop up the beats Kanye
I gotta say, at that time I'd like to meet Kanye
See, I invented Kanye, it wasn't any Kanyes
And now I look and look around and there's so many Kanyes
I used to love Kanye, I used to love Kanye
I even had the pink polo, I thought I was Kanye
What if Kanye made a song about Kanye
Called "I Miss The Old Kanye"? Man, that'd be so Kanye
That's all it was Kanye, we still love Kanye
And I love you like Kanye loves Kanye

>who is the shakespeare of our time
>thread is filled with nigger music
lmao

>Rapper
Probably Kendrick or Nas. And it's not to say that their stand alone songs or bars are the absolute hottest or hardest. It's a combination of two things
>Their mastery of the concept album and using songs to tell a complete, whole story with nuance that carries over multiple tracks
>That they accomplish this while having it be relevant, approachable, and with valuable lessons contained.
In all honesty tho rappers in general don't make a great comparison to Shakespeare as plays are even that much deeper than a concept album. Here's a hot take for all to hate. Steven Sondheim is probably more influential to a more diverse range of artistic pursuits than any other single lyricist in the 20th century.

Shakespeare isn't very good, but the trash you adore is even worse. Get over yourself.
dude he had a thesaurus so he is le smart xdd

Oh boy Satan thanks for saying Shakespeare isn't very good. I'm going to go tell everyone in the English speaking world user on Veeky Forums said Shakespeare is trash.

>how dare you criticize this person

Kanye you are not welcome on this board

>Figaro
I love DOOM but that song is 90% about how cool DOOM is

>Fame isn't quality, you dope.
Shakespeare is more fame than quality, just like Kanye.

I feel that this is a bad question. What do you mean by "Shakespeare of the modern day"? Someone equally talented, by whatever measure? Someone as influential or culturally significant?

Aren't you putting modern writers at a disadvantage by trying to put them into the constraints of what you constitute "Shakespeare" to you, instead of letting them be creative actors in their own right, within their own sociopolitical and cultural contexts?

>Le ooga booga rhymes
>Yea Shakespeare isn't even good

this thread

people are naming rappers, jesus

this

Yeah this bait thread is shit and there is no true modern comparison to Shakespeare. John Adams and Alice Goodman have written the best plays in the modern era though.

Yet he's still eons ahead of Kanye in quality.

rap music is terrible

youtube.com/watch?v=iq_d8VSM0nw
oh this guy's the modern Shakespeare!
anyone who disagrees with me needs to look at how many views this motherfucker has. THAT'S talent. has Shakespeare got 50 million views on any of his videos? fuck no.

All the people who are comparing rappers to Shakespeare should leave this board because you seem to think poetry should be judged by wordplay rather than content.

Yes the Bard could craft clever phrases but that is not what he is primarily remembered for, instead his legacy is based on the memorable characters he invented and the profound themes his work explored. For example, the fact that the same mind could produce both Falstaff and Rosalind is testament to Shakespeare's genius. His characters have even transcended the stage and become archetypes in and of themselves with Romeo and Juliet being perhaps the most famous examples but other names such as Hamlet or Shylock are now essentially shorthand for specific personality types.

By contrast there are really only three characters found in all of Rap music; the thug/gangsta, the baller/player and the lyricist/conscious type. All rap songs are essentially written from one of these three perspectives and for those who aren't content simply to be hypnotized by a well produced beat the genre's narrow subject matter becomes tedious rather quickly.

So for heaven's sake please stop comparing one of the English language's greatest minds with these American celebrities.

ha, look at this phony nigga thinkin he can type a wall of text and anyone gonna read that shit.

face it yo, we wuz kangs, and now we kangz yet again. Kanye utterly demolishes any attempts by shakespeare to become a legend.

Here is your (you).

>he likes the lesser hitchens and feigns exasperation
oh, my dear summer child. Christopher Hitchens may have died earlier, but he will live far, far longer.

I agree with most of what you have said, but I really think that the greatest thing by far in the plays of Shakespeare is his poetry. It is the most inventive, exuberant and beautiful I have ever read. If it were not for his language Shakespeare would not be even near as celebrated. As for the characters, he was certainly greatly gifted and could create many diferent people with his capacity to nest himself inside the brains and hearts of others, but still: many critiques exaggerate this feature of his work. An advise to you: dont waste your time with Harold Bloom - is poison.