17 Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: Theory of Ice

Yeah, y’know, I’m actually an indigenous person meself, know warra mean? Indigenous fackin’ Englishman, me, yeah? Oi oi! You avin’ that? Noice, mate, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooice!

Let’s stop all that for a start. The term ‘indigenous people’ isn’t just some uncomfortable dog whistle to be used to threateningly outline the idea that some kinds of people are the ones meant to occupy a certain land. Y’know, before all the bloody Muslims moved in… The term ‘indigenous’ when referring to people is actually intentionally loaded, and designed to make great portions of the globe always shift every so uncomfortably in their seats as it reminds them of past imperialism, past genocides, and current mealy mouthed pretences of absolutions and reparations. The Aborigines, The Maasai, The Kurds, The Maori… Indigenous people are among the original inhabitants of a place which was later colonised by a larger ethnic group, mostly leading to them being left as tiny minorities on the land they once considered their own. That’s right, by its very nature the term ‘indigenous people’ is all political, continuing the broad trens that everything that’s isn’t a straight cishet white man is political. If you’re an English person, your country was largely the reason most indigenous communities became indigenous. So there’s always that.

STEP OVER WATERY EDGES

Necessary Evil 2019 (72-65)

72 Kanye West: Yandhi

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You know what? I’ve got a funny feeling that this might not be my last chance to talk about him before this list is done, so I’m wary of squeezing out all my Kanye Juice before the real party starts. ‘Yandhi’ was the album that he was going to release as his follow up to last year’s ‘Ye‘ (I’m sorry, haterz/liberals, but ‘Ye’ was a pretty fine album, as were most of the eighty four records he released last year, let’s not let our reactions to his general behavior colour the history), but then it was delayed, then cancelled, then briefly revived with Ashton Kutcher playing the role of Kanye West, then delayed, then its name was changed to ‘Spunk Muffin and the Dudes With Attitude’, then it was cancelled again, then it was changed to ‘Jesus Is King’, then it was revealed that it wasn’t actually a name change but a completely separate record, then that record was delayed, then it was delayed again, until, finally, it was released, and Yandhi was cancelled, only briefly being released (seriously) as ringtones. Quite straightforward as Kanye West album launches go, really. I actually only sought out ‘Yandhi’ because I assumed it would contain intriguing scrappy demos of whatever tracks Kanye was working on for his next record (which at that point had been delayed so many times I assumed this would be the closest we’d get to a Kanye album this year), but it’s shocking to hear quite how complete a lot of songs on here are, and how realised many ideas are. New Body in particular sounds less than a tweak away from being a hit single, Nicki Minaj feature and all. Later, it was shocking how few of the songs and ideas on ‘Yandhi’ made it to ‘Jesus is King’. Like, pretty much none of it. Nicki Minaj? She’s gone. Hey, Kanye, maybe stay focused on one thing for more than three minutes? Might result in better albums? Perhaps I’ll get to debate this further later.

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Continue reading “Necessary Evil 2019 (72-65)”