re: Is Kanye West a musical genius?

This has to be bait because it’s so laughable.

The definition of genius:

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a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, either generally or in some particular respect

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He is absolutely that.

i'd say he is a musical "savant" rather than a genius. he is very good at a particular thing. but I don't know if he could actually tell you much of anything having to do with musical theory, chords, playing an instrument well, or notes in a scale.

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I don't know if he could actually tell you much of anything having to do with musical theory, chords, playing an instrument well, or notes in a scale.

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I don’t really get this argument. Music theory is the human study of music. Ideas created by humans to categorize musical sounds. People don’t know anything about Music Theory unless they are taught it. Knowledge of musical theory and the capacity to create music are unrelated.

Kanye will be the first to admit that he doesn’t know music theory. I know that singers have complained that it’s tough to work with him because of it. Instead of telling someone to sing in A Major, he just has them sing higher or lower until he hears what he’s looking for.

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playing an instrument well

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He can play a few of his songs on piano. I think there are way too many people in here concerned about if he can play an instrument. It’s not like he’s tried and isn’t capable. He just chooses not to. There’s no reason for him to.

I also find it very interesting what y’all consider to be a real instrument. By definition, it’s any object a person uses to produce musical sound.

So why wouldn’t a Midi keyboard be considered an instrument? Most people will say “it uses technology to produce an external sound”. But isn’t that how electric guitar works? It’s all inputs and outputs.

Midis, MPCs, and Sampler Keyboards, aren’t nearly as tough to use as some other traditional instruments, but they are instruments by definition and Kanye has managed to win 24 Grammys with them. And yes he can play them live and has many times.

Yeah, does anyone deny that Brian Eno isn't a Savant?

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Kanye can play piano. I’ve seen it.

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Who gives a shite. If Kanye is a genius then what is Biebs. He plays guitar/bass/drums/piano all pretty damn proficiently. Is a well above average soccer and basketball player, and can solve a rubicks cube in under two minutes

So by comparison I gues Biebs is Stephen Hawking

Well given his obviously high musical aptitude I’ll go out on a limb and say Bieber could probably play a mean laptop as well if he chose to

I can admit the Kanye “genius” label has always irritated me. I think he is extremely ADD, and has capitalized on the music industry’s exclusive focus on black music for the last 25 or so years as well as anyone

I’ve heard him on Rogan as well as several other very lengthy interviews and he just comes across as a massive try-hard. Regurgitating ideas and concepts you can easily tell he’s gleaned from others in his social orbit like Elon, high end designers, etc . He literally bought his way into the design world and used his noteriety and knack for self promotion to build the yeezy brand into the behemoth it’s become

I know I sound like a hater but it just feels like the label genius should have a much loftier definition. That said, Kanye has 2 of my personal top 50 or so albums. But I’ve said it before, if he’s a genius then Jonny Greenwood is the Mozart of his generation

Bump

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i'd say he is a musical "savant" rather than a genius.

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He's actually a little comparable to Rick Rubin - basically zero technical ability in any domain, but a great ability to pull different elements together from other people to create great things.