The artist, producer and musician Kanye West has become a meme and an object of ridicule for his usual controversial statements and eccentricities. A ridicule that is partly deserved, but also unfair if we take into account that it is the author of an album considered revolutionary, My Blessed Dark Twisted Fantasy, creator of the multimillion-dollar Yeezy brand and organizer of those delirious gospel masses on his ranch in Wyoming, to give just a few examples. As the actor and musician Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) stated a few days ago when asked who in his opinion is the best rapper of all time: “Kanye. I know it's controversial, but I think that if it weren't for him we wouldn't have any of the rappers today.”
Vultures 1 is the title of their new album that, after much expectation and a chaotic launch that included its withdrawal from platforms due to distribution problems, immediately went to number one on Spotify, Apple Music and the Billboard list. “We are number one, you know? Everything they have done has done nothing but help us. I like it. Withdraw us. I like simplification. In any case, the platforms are shit for artists,” West declared on social networks the same week in which he broadcast a very cheesy selfie video during the SuperBowl intermission announcing the products on his website. An original advertising impact that brought him 19 million dollars in a single day, according to his own calculations. His last threat against the giants of the streaming is that when I publish Vultures 2 maybe it will be sold exclusively through Yeezy.com.
One of the most striking things about his long-awaited work with singer Ty Dolla Sign is the participation of ultras from Inter Milan shouting in two of his songs. The origin of this cameo of Italian fans is in a Genoa match against Milan—just, curiously, Inter's citizen rival—which Kanye attended with his son Saint and in which he was dazzled by the atmosphere and football chants of the hobby The same infatuation that we saw in other hip hop stars like Snoop Dogg, a declared Real Madrid fan and kit collector, or Drake, who is in love with Manchester United.
The thing is that the greatest reference of urban music in Spain, C. Tangana, is also a football lover and more specifically RC Celta de Vigo, the team from his father's hometown. In July 2023, several months before the sporting experience at the Luigi Ferraris stadium in Genoa that inspired West to put football bawls in his disco, the Madrid musician already included members of a Celtic peña doing choirs in Oliveira Two Cen Years, the anthem he composed for the Galician team on its centenary. The images of Curva Nord Milano fans screaming with headphones during the recording session of the introduction of Carnival are reminiscent of those of the siareiros of the Tropas de Breogán group doing the same at the Planta Sónica studios in Vigo.
Without reaching the dimension of Macarena danced even by Bill Clinton in the nineties (and Hillary a month ago in Seville), there is no doubt that Celta's new anthem has had international projection, being praised by media such as Guardian (“The most artistically ambitious football anthem of all time”) and The New York Times (one of the top 10 releases of the week). It would be strange if the song had not reached Kanye West's ears or that he was even as enthusiastic about it as that personal trainer from Arizona who uploaded the viral video of a fitness class to her Instagram account with a million followers. spinning pedaling to the beat of: “A shield no meu peito! Always Celtic!” The hypothesis of whether El Madrileño's work inspired even slightly and unconsciously the controversial Atlanta genius is nothing more than that, a hypothesis. And it's not even relevant.
And it is not because Pucho insistently points out his musical limitations, He speaks openly about impostor syndrome and highlights that what he is good at is “seeing the talent of others.” In fact, in Oliveira Two Cen Years Not only does it use ancestral rhythms and oral tradition, but it builds it with a dream-team of artists who had already mixed folklore and electronics with the Catoirense musician Baiuca.
The funny thing is that it wouldn't be unreasonable for Kanye West, impulsive and engrossed by his character, to reproach C. Tangana any day for saying that the echoes of muiñeira and women hitting farm bags in his Celtic song are a copy of the outburst epic of your song Power. Or that the flares that were deployed in the video next to the Vigo estuary are copied from the video clip shot by Romain Gavras for your theme Not Church In the Wild. On the other hand, Pucho, controlling and precise in his statements, seems more calm and closer to the theory of a collective consciousness in the form of a shared cloud that we use to get ideas.
Tangana probably downplays the remote resemblance between the shield of Vultures 1 with which Kanye has printed sweatshirts and his for the launch of the Celta anthem, which Iago Aspas has tattooed today. The infographic designer The Washington Post Artur Galocha, co-founder of the magazine Libero and designer of the book Celta 100 Years of Afouteza e Corazón, He sees similarities “in the choice of white on black and that both have that classic shield shape that comes from heraldry.” He clarifies that “Kanye's is more obvious, less worked, a stereotypical shield reminiscent of the German Bundesadler and is just what you would expect from a Yankee who likes football.” The Celtic emblem “is more elaborate, it is almost an illustration, with a worn effect and the olive branches symbol of the city,” explains Galocha, immersed precisely in creating the cover of The vertical tribe (KO Books), work by Borja Bauzá on hooligans and radical bands.
All that badass imagery of an angry crowd is, according to music popularizer specializing in rap Al Sobrino, “a very Kanye movement.” The responsible from the El Sonidero platform indicates that West “in the song Off the Grid already mentions Lionel Messi and the ultra phenomenon connects with the obsessions that it has demonstrated over the years.” In that bag would fall “fashion from a point of view of popular impact, the most street culture of London, its connection with Europe and its now extinct relationship with Adidas.” He adds that “his DNA is collaborative work bringing together disparate profiles under one roof and the integration of cultural moments in his work.” To illustrate this, he gives as an example the BRIT Awards in 2015, when the British Skepta took the stage along with dozens of hooded men dressed in black and a pair of flamethrowers. “It's the same kind of energy and spirit that he's chasing now.”
By typing “Kanye West” in the news section of the search engine, the following headlines appear: Donna Summer's children denounce Kanye West for using 'I Feel Love' in one of his songs, Bianca Censori, Kanye West's wife, could go to Imprisoned for outfit he wore at Paris Fashion Week, Kanye West criticizes Adidas for launching Yeezys false without his consent and Kim Kardashian fed up with Kanye West's accusations.
Hopefully soon we can read this headline: Kanye West attends a game in Balaídos incognito dressed as the Xacobeo mascot singing Oliveira Two Cen Years together with the fans of the Celtic club Tropas de Breogán.
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