Rap music has put forth some of the craziest characters in all of pop culture, from Flava Flav to the Beastie Boys, but few rap artists have been as enigmatic and purposefully difficult as Kanye West, who went from being something of a Jay Z clone to the natural heir to Hova’s throne. They’ve performed together and criticized each other, and it all came out in the wash. But with his new album Yeezus, West is seemingly doing all he can to pretend that he is above both Jay-Z, rap music and humanity at large, only with some dark electronic beats to back the boasts. It’s a common goal for rappers to achieve lyrical superiority, and West is epitomizing it. (Releasing a single on the < a href=http://www.cinemablend.com/pop/One-Track-Sunday-Kanye-West-Debuts-Creepy-Single-Slaves-55856.html>side of a building is a sign of either genius or insanity.)
It all makes the above promotional video look ridiculously amateurish and half-thought out. The ad overtly apes one of the most memorable scenes from Mary Harron’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho, where Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman waxes on about the cultural relevance of the band Huey Lewis and the News while “Hip to be Square” blares in the background. The scene ends in the axe murder of Jared Leto’s character Paul, and cements Bateman’s psychosis.
So in this video, the scene is played almost shot for shot, only with Kourtney Kardashian’s incredibly annoying boyfriend Scott Disick, no stranger to pretending to be Bateman, replaces a Huey Lewis obsession for one favoring West. Disick’s main acting talent appears to be saying things in the squeakiest voice imaginable, and while Bateman’s rants were over-the-top, Disick makes Kanye West’s career sound like a joke. Having a well-dressed white guy talk about Phil Collins makes a lot more sense than having one talk about one of the biggest rap artists in the world. I mean, how can you sap personality from an album that looks like this.
That said, the production value is pretty high, and the scene looks pretty spotless in comparison, from the set design to the props to the character poses. If only Disick could have been the one to take the axe to the body.
Yeezus, which contains a song called “I am a God” that has a guest performance by God, is available for purchase now. Check out his performance of “Black Skinhead” from last month’s SNL, and let us know how you like the album in the comments. But don’t touch the watch.
