Beats and Books: Sustaining the creator within

We cannot fully outline the trajectory of Whitman and Kanye’s iconization without recognizing their roles as producers. They did not consider themselves poets or lyricists as much as they considered themselves holistic creators. Whitman himself said, “I sometimes find myself more interested in book making than in book writing.” This statement calls our attention to the visual experience of his books, which intends to include poetry only as a component to our Leaves of Grass viewership. As a well-established producer whose foremost obsession is the audible experience, Kanye has echoed Whitman’s sentiments, “I just dove into rapping because I had a lot that I wanted to express.” Of course, both artists were considered hot commodities as contributors in the production process of their peers’ artworks. However, their own artistic voices were initially dismissed, as Whitman had to self-publish his first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 and Kanye was repeatedly denied by record labels before he was signed to Roc-A-Fella Records. This struggle arose from the common misconceptions publishers and record labels tied to “practical printers” (as was Whitman’s case) and “producer-rappers” (as was Kanye’s case).

The timeless critical perception seems to be that someone who succeeds in one area of artistry should not be able to succeed in other areas, or that one artist should not be able to wield complete creative control over their work. Whitman and Kanye succeeded in breaking these barriers, however, and have catered to their production backgrounds in ways that shape their reputations as creators.

Kanye was able to get his foot in the door of his rapping career by contributing production to fellow rapper Talib Kweli’s Quality and Beautiful Struggle albums. Kweli then invited Kanye to go on tour, where Kanye would establish his presence as a rapper to live audiences. From here, Kanye would sustain a rap career in which pushing the creative boundaries of music production would be his primary objective. We hear the resurgence of the soul sound in his 2004 debut album The College Dropout, as several tracks are backed by sped up, high pitched samples of soul hits. Four albums later, Kanye again created waves through his 2008 album 808’s and Heartbreak, in which his controversial use of Auto-Tune vocals was complemented by manipulated drum beats. Although the album was initially criticized for West’s distorted, “fake” Auto-Tune voice, its overall sound incorporates musical influences unseen anywhere else in hip-hop, including 80’s electro and synth pop. The album would go on to influence R&B, pop, and hip-hop artists like Drake, Frank Ocean and The Weeknd. In 2013, Kanye’s sixth album Yeezus would push the genre even further. Again, despite a hailstorm of negative feedback, Yeezus’ dissonant array of house, grunge, and punk influences offered a reinvention of hip-hop. In his interview with Zane Lowe (below), Kanye said of the album, “This is what frustration sounds like” and it served as a way to say “hey radio, come to us,” referring to the lack of creative representation in popular music. Thus, despite the widespread demand for Kanye to conform to popular styles of production, he has been able to maintain his production’s relevance by fighting norms and pushing the genre in new directions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2T0fMkZoMo

Whitman took a similar path from book production to book authorship early in his career. He had been published in several periodicals leading up to his first edition of Leaves of Grass, and was finally able to insert himself into a book in 1850 when James J. Brenton included Whitman’s poem “Tomb Blossoms” in Voices from the Press. Similar to Kanye’s relationship with Talib Kweli, Whitman had worked as a printer and writer for Brenton, who published this book as a way to acknowledge the artistry of text producers who otherwise go unnoticed. Whitman would not be afforded the same partnership opportunities as Kanye, though, considering the 1855 Leaves of Grass would be self-published. This factor did not diminish the importance of the book, however.

According to Ed Folsom’s commentary Whitman Making Books/Books Making Whitman, this edition served as Whitman’s statement that “American poetry would have to be different from any poetry ever written” and would call for a product which reflected this sentiment. What resulted was a large book whose cover consisted of dark green ribbed cloth and did not include the author’s name on either the cover or title page. These features were deliberations by Whitman to present the book as an organic piece of American literature, one that spoke to the democratic values he considered embedded in our nation. We see a similar approach in the 1860 edition, as well. Here, Folsom makes note of the spermatic designs flaring off the title page’s letters and includes Whitman’s description of this edition as “the New Bible.” With 456 pages, this book certainly carried the monumental weight akin to the Christian Bible. Again, this design works to reflect the general message of the text as a whole; it merges the connoted importance of biblical narrative with the call for national rebirth or revitalization.

Whitman deviated from originality into the later portion of his career, becoming increasingly more privy to his poems and their order of presentation. This change was due in large part to the rise of mass printing and the economic advantages afforded to “straightforward” designs. Folsom goes as far to draw a distinction between the “craft-oriented” production advocated by Whitman’s colleague Horace Traubal and the new “business-oriented” printing entertained by Whitman. This movement by Whitman elevated the importance of his poems in comparison to the overall production, leading to their extractability and subsequent compilations later produced by publishers. In Folsom’s works, these post-mortem texts were already making “New Whitmans.” This observation draws an interesting connection to Kanye West and his new track “I Love Kanye,” in which he Kanye reflects on his influence saying “And now I look and look around and there’s so many Kanyes.” These “Kanye” varieties are not retooled extractions of his own work, but are instead the producer-rappers who have been influenced by Kanye to push the genre in their own ways. Rapper, producer, pianist, fashion designer, furniture designer, carnival enthusiast, and filmmaker Tyler The Creator, for example, has repeatedly expressed his admiration and inspiration from Kanye’s work, often calling him a “dad” figure in the artistic realm. Thus, while Whitman’s conformity to business-minded production has predisposed him to a post-mortem existence bound to his poetry, Kanye’s influence persists and brachiates into other artists who share his yearning to push the boundaries of sound and progress the genre.