revisiting CD rn and thinking of the effect it had

Yeah but then he stopped hanging out with Kanye and became normal again

Kanye shifted things away from Aftermath at the perfect moment for me and right when my previous goats Outkast and Wu petered out

There is legit not a single post itt by me that's bait. They don't even read as bait.

Y'all just not used to premium content. We tryna chop it up idc about sales talk and the Drake-Kendrick beef.

no im sorry this is just weird kanye hater delusion. you know and i know and we all know that kanye was a commercially and culturally endorsed face of hip-hop when he was just rockstar crazy, but lost an immense amount of respect and influence within the genre when he became politically crazy. i mean i was literally there bruh. i remember when he started wylin and seeing the other kids in school talk abt “damn cant f*** w kanye anymore huh”.

he wasn’t a nazi when he was in position to shift the culture, and when he was a nazi he wasn’t in position to shift the culture anymore.

Grew those dreads and lost his aura, then forgot how to rap on beat. Needs to get back with Kanye

No opinion on the hair, but after Jay left Kanye he dropped his best album since 2003, had 2 more kids, fixed his marriage, and became a billionaire.

Kinda seems like an upgrade man. Art cred really ain't s***.

Drake is a lot more to blame for this than Ye

You a Jay Z fan but blaming ye not Jay Z for gentrification?

Signed a deal with nfl and belittled kapernick…

Thinking Kanye had this amount of influence is delusional. The guy has been irrelevant since TLOP

Bundles and streaming is what ultimately killed hip hop because you now had a method and tools to manipulate consumption. Rap went from a competition to be the best (critical and commercial acclaim) into a competition of who could make the most money.

Most "modern" rappers don't care about legacy or their "sound" all they care about is money and fame. NBA youngboy is an artist that comes to mind

Lol

Nobodys taking your post serious cause it's not serious. You're whole post was a bunch of assumptions you just made up

"Up until the late 90s, hip hop prided itself on being sonically rugged, provocative, and playing by its own rules."

This is false. Multiple people have already said this started sometime in the 1980s

"Ye is one of the foremost artists who promoted the idea that this type of hip hop production and ethos was primitive and obsolete."

Show me Kanye or anybody saying this

"Between not writing his own raps, emphasizing high-budget, maximalist productions in favor of hip hop's traditional DIY approach, and attempting to "civilize" hip hop by incorporating elements of white music and European high art into his catalog"

Show me Kanye saying his goal was to "civilize" hip-hop. You just made that up.

"has he always been playing the long-game of denaturing hip hop from its formative roots and softening it for white, middle class audiences?"

Softening what exactly? Give me an example of some formative hip-hop that was pushed out because of Kanye

I think Kanye is just an example of a kid who let his dreams get ahead of him.
I'm not the biggest ye fan, but from his debut project to graduation, you can kind've feel the legitimacy in his music. How he emphasized the soul samples, bars, and subject matter. It's hip hop.
Of course my perspective is an outsiders so idk what happened after that album but it did turn into something else.
I think gentrification is a negative term, and shouldn't be used here. I can see what OP is saying tho.

Bling bling era gentrified hip hop, wtf is this revisionist history going on?

My Beautiful Central Intelligence Agency Fantasy