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Love him or hate him: theatre makers could be learning from Kayne West

By Marcus Roche

On a cold rainy day, a women in a rain jacket is trudging through the mud in her slippers - or sliders - letting the little pom-poms that adorn the top-side of these indoor shoes get completely sodden and covered in mud. Forget trends; this is the true manifestation of a single person’s sway over society.

If you’ve noticed people wearing their furry sandals out and about, then you’ve noticed the influence of ‘Ye’ aka Kanye ‘Yeezy’ West. Ye has become the most influential musician of our time, someone who saved hip-hop genre from bubble-gum rap by importing composing techniques from classical music whilst revolutionising rock and pop music. ‘Ye’ is a smasher of things, ‘breaking the internet’ with several choice controversies highlighting (in his own mind) the plight of black America. Last year saw the release of his 8th studio album - a 7 track meteor totalling only 27 minutes titled ‘Ye’ - which catapulted his polarising to the top of all the streaming and download charts. The album was re-written and re-recorded in the two weeks after his infamous interview with TMZ, and was a departure from years of the perfectionism that characterised his previous releases. The hook for ‘Ghosts’ sung by young up and coming rapper - 070 Shake - was recorded on the morning of release. The album’s artwork was shot on Ye’s iPhone on the way to the day’s listening party. Suddenly it seemed, West wanted to capture the essence of the reactionary, the live, the immediate.

Ye Album cover - shot on West's iPhone

Theatre makers know that they are working in a malleable and reactionary medium. And yet it's Ye who furiously dragging his art into the present moment, using the tools afforded him. During the aforementioned interview West infamously stated that “slavery was a choice”. As shocking as it was, it wasn’t a new idea from West. With this Ye broke the internet again, and the comment sparked a public feud between him and his wife. Two weeks later West was inspired to record the moment on the track ‘Wouldn’t Leave’ citing “my wife calling, screaming we about to loose it all”. Ye in essence appealed to the thing that makes theatre exciting for the audience: that it is alive and living and before our eyes and specially for us. Capturing the rawness brought by improvisation and invention through necessity (like in nature of the album art), West gives us a useful model philosophy for theatre. If a production becomes fixed in time, or worse, oblivious to changeable nature of life, it stops being theatre exactly. The initial delights of rehearsal dissipate when actors stop reacting to each other on stage with the same rawness, with the 'as-if for the first time', and the audience begins to focus on their ice-creams.

Suddenly it seemed, West wanted to capture the essence of the reactionary, the live, the immediate

This wasn’t the first time that West had tried to employ reactionary conventions to his work. In 2016, Ye vowed to indefinitely update his album ‘The Life of Pablo’ calling it a “a living breathing changing creative expression.” There was at least one major update to the album a month after its launch and several minor changes. West’s was trying to transcend from a fixed medium to a live one, and has even updated both Ye and Yeezus (2013). In a world where people talk about ‘franchises’ instead of movies and ‘opportunities’ rather than art it is easy to forget the duty of an artist: to encapsulate an experience and then share it with an audience. Theatre is an art that continues to breathe as it lives: each night is new album launch party, each performance is that day’s recording. So why don’t we reflect that every opportunity we can, while Yeezy struggles to do the same?

There’s a dangerous convention to see theatre as a product: that once the show has been reviewed, it should somehow guard its form and enter a stasis despite the fact that today every performer on stage is older than yesterday. Imagine a show with a long run. Over time the actors grow in confidence and ability: why shouldn’t the production evolve to reflect their new talents assimilating them into the scope of the storytelling? What if the theatre maker, when afforded a moment of reflection, confronted by the memories of the moments where the cowardice of ‘quality’ overtook bolder artistic confidence, wishes to change those decisions and get to share those insights with the audience? Renowned Polish director Tadeuz Kantor would have changed it right in front of the audience. Kanye updates the very stream of the album you are listening to.

Ye (centre) samples Vincent Desiderio's painting 'Sleep' in the music video for 'Famous'

Kanye is trying to use available technology to bring a live feeling to a fixed medium: by doing so he’s reminding us that artists have a responsibility to be counter cultural. As our culture converges towards the instant, google-able and predictive, Ye has been reflecting it in his music making practices. Not to say that he doesn’t sometimes go back to the roots and traditions to innovate. He copies and samples, steals and replicates. When was the last time a theatre show knowingly ‘sampled’ another show or honoured our collective cultural history by transposing it? If directing Macbeth why not consider sampling Kurisawa’s moving forest for Birnam wood, knowing that there is no way that an actor and a twig can compete against this compelling image of nature moving against the King? Shakespeare borrowed from Holinshed and re-wrote; he reacted to the themes of the day with his torn-down whore-houses; he released several albums that got several re-releases: the Life of Hamlet got at least one major update. Theatres have been slow to adapt to the social media world, precisely because it’s mimicking the best element of what we do. Now we must adapt and play to our strengths and potentials.

So why don’t we reflect that every opportunity we can, while Yeezy struggles to do the same?

The reviews for ‘Ye’ were almost as reactionary as the album itself. Critics were quick to judge it’s raw, unpolished and haphazard nature: live interpreted as lazy. ’Ye’ topped the charts yet critically it has been labelled a flop despite his trademark lyrical prowess and innovative musical form. As an example Kanye raps on the track ‘Yikes’ that “they don’t know they’re dealing with a Zombie” which has a triple meaning. Kanye portrays himself as an un-killable force but also someone drugged up on anti-depressants. West himself suffers with depression. Finally he laughs at himself labelling his own creative output as ‘zombie’ - just like how with the ‘zombie’ Simpsons, the word has become a common phrase in popular culture for something that it an imitation of itself. But to call ‘Ye’ a lazy record misses the point of the album entirely. By inserting the fresh elements on the day of release, and the days leading up to it, he’s incorporating the genius moments discovered in technical rehearsals, the overnight re-writes and sudden slashes that can be suffered by a production. West flies in the face of the worn out theatrical paradigms of “all it needs is an audience” or anyone who thinks a piece performed by living, breathing, changing actors can be finished. West lays down a challenge to take our art seriously: if the artistry is potent then when we make it reactionary we give the audience a taste of danger.

West’s seminal ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ required him to block-book a recording studio indefinitely where he couldn’t decide whether he would put Nicki Minaj’s verse on the track ‘Monster’. He was considering its omission because he recognised it would be received as the best thing on the album. When the album dropped, hype about Minaj's verse initially eclipsed the rest of the work as Ye had feared, yet his foresight and humility to include it launched a career and cemented Fantasy's place as one of the most influential records of all time. He repeated the feat with 070 Shake on ‘Ye’ with Ghosts deciding on the morning of the release. Theatre inherently isn’t fixed, it’s inherently fragile in the face of time: we should celebrate our advantage over West, and use our ‘live’ to the best of our ability.

Thanks to Alban Dickson, Deanne Jones for their support and be sure to check out Season 2 of Dissect Podcast if you want to find out more about the musical genius of Ye.