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“It’s a good thing that 50 Cent and me are coming out at the same time – I think we both up’d our games because of it,” declares Kanye West, half way through tonight’s gig.
West is currently involved in the world of hip-hop’s answer to the war of attrition – it’s a battle to the death, or rather, to the top of the American billboard top 100 chart. Both West and 50 Cent are to release their latest albums on the same date (September 11th) in America next month – West with the final piece to his college themed trilogy, ‘Graduation,’ and 50 Cent with, ‘Curtis.’
Continuing his mid-gig sermon tonight, the first of two, full on pieces of dialogue (the second being about his ‘brother’ and fellow rapper, Jay-Z), West preaches that hip-hop hasn’t been blessed with such a rivalry since NAS and ‘Biggy’ back in the 90’s. He’s right, it really hasn’t. The genre has been on the decline ever since it’s most commercially successful rapper of recent times Eminem became a self-parodying film star in the semi-autobiographical ‘8 Mile’ and other American hip-hop acts started to sound, well, like every other American hip-hop act. We won’t even start on the accusations that the genre is built on misogynist lyrics and its ‘alleged’ promotion of violence.
It’s here, on the border of political correctness, that Kanye West differs from his peers. While his compatriots talk about guns, West talks about hope; while his compatriots talk about women, West talks about dreams. In West’s world, self-confidence doesn’t come from a false, inflated ego – it comes from a deep rooted inner belief. West’s inner belief, however, which has come from years of trying to hurdle stereotypes, is no longer deep rooted, under the shadows of a pipe organ twice the size of a London double-decker bus tonight; it’s quite clearly blossomed into something extremely special.
The impress spectacle doesn’t end with the pipe organ either. While his fellow rap stars prefer to perform with a DJ spinning their songs, West now travels with a full all female orchestra who dress in florescent Tinkerbelle dresses that make them look part fairytale, part Klaxons plaything. In tonight’s ecclesiastical setting, the juxtaposition is riveting.
It’s all a bit of an anti-climax then when the audience – who are all here courtesy of Vodafone TBA and Sony Ericsson (surely a rivalry more bitter than any hip-hip battle?) – have to wait over an hour for West to take to the stage. Perhaps its so R&B star and recent chart sensation Rhianna can take her place in the balcony? Or perhaps it’s just because the event is so made-for-TV that the frantic channel 4 producers are practically part of the orchestra throughout the duration show? Whatever the reason, when he finally arrives it’s to a reception that doesn’t exactly match the enthusiasm that West himself shows when he bursts onto the stage. His answer? To go off and start the show all over again of course. Sure enough, second time around, the audience have got the message.
West maintains this level of control over the audience throughout the show – despite it frustratingly never feeling like it has actually started. It’s evident from his Jay-Z sermon, where he tells his orchestra to “just play music behind me because it makes me sound more powerful” (they duly oblige) to the way he stops second album smash, ‘Diamonds From Sierra Leone’ twice to make sure the crowd have grasped the correct hand signal for the song. If these weren’t commands uttered with his usual teeth white wide smile then we’d say West was just another egotistical rapper. Luckily, however, the teeth of whiter than white.
As West dispatches a set which rattles through the best from his back-catalogue, including, the harmonic ‘All Falls Down,’ and rapturous, ‘Touch The Sky,’ – which sees silver glitter barrage through the thin air - it’s ‘Stronger’ – the rappers ‘collaboration’ with Daft Punk and his current number one single - which is the most telling moment of the evening. West performs the track like no other on the set list. As lasers fire from the venues emphatic organ and spark a reminder of a Daft Punk live show, ‘Stronger’ is a soul crunching moment. It’s a credit simply to music that the song has united the pioneers of 90's French disco with the sole pioneer of American hip-hop in the twenty first century in such an unimaginable manner. It’s no surprise therefore, that West reprises the song on piano over a minute after it had seemingly climaxed.
While tonight was unquestionably a made-for-TV spectacle, as highlighted by West’s spontaneous decision towards the end to slip on his black overcoat a re-perform the opening song, it’s enough of a spectacle to understand that he’s a performer who is transcending an overly stagnant genre, and a performer who, at the same time, is demolishing the stereotype that has for so long been clamped to his style of music.
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