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The Egos of Prince and Kanye

Fame is a wondrous thing. Just to watch any clip on TMZ or EOnline will lead you to believe that almost all people in the music industry are ego-maniacs. John Mayer is a good example of someone who’s head is so full of himself that it would take a pretty bad fall from grace to get his head screwed on right again.

Since this is Funkatopia, I think it should be noted that even Funkatopians have their share of ego. A prime example would be Prince. Most of the time you don’t know what to think because he avoids the press so eloquently. But then he opens his mouth in interviews like the one a couple years back in Rolling Stone where he kept bragging and bragging on and on about how talented he was and how superior of a musician he was to these new artists on the scene. I went from being excited to read a new interview about him to wishing he never opened his mouth. Then it just kept coming in, wave after wave of ego maniacal actions like suing fans for posting pictures of him on the web. Pulling the plug on the NPG Music Club because he didn’t like the fact that there was actually negative commentary about him on it every now and then. God forbid that people have an opinion.

The newest addition to the ego club is Kanye West. I actually like some of his work, but I guess I must be old because he’s not that great to me. I’m not sure I get Kanye. He’s not that great of a rapper. He has a good business head, but he’s really not that good at anything else. His rapping borders on amateur and it almost grates on me. There are hundreds of new artists that run rings around Kanye like Van Hunt for instance. And if we’re speaking specifically about rap or hip-hop, then take a good listen to The Roots “Game Theory” album and listen to the rapping of Black Thought. Now that’s rapping. That’s skill. Kanye is not that good. I’m sure there are tons of people out there who disagree, but I’m sorry. I don’t get it. Even Common is pretty good, but when he has Kanye rapping on every song, it goes from a 4 star album to a 3 star album fairly quick.

At the Grammy’s, Kanye got irritated that they were playing music over his inordinately long acceptance speech and he acted as if he they were being disrespectful. The reality is that he was being disrespectful. It costs millions and millions of dollars to put on that show, organizing the music, commercials and on and on and if they say it’s time to go…it’s time to go. It’s not “Kanye’s Night at the Grammy’s”. There are hundreds of musicians just in that building that have more talent in their kneecaps than Kanye has. Besides the fact that the award was only an apology letter for last year when he was snubbed. It wasn’t because he was of higher caliber than the other artists.  I was disappointed that they actually stopped the music to let him finish. I actually thought to myself, “Who does this kid think he is?”

The point of this diatribe being that amazing huge egos have begun to run rampant in the music industry to the most undeserved of individuals and it’s getting annoying. Prince is a little different because he is a musical mastermind, but it doesn’t do him justice to act like he’s “holier than thou”. Then to also snub fans in the process.

For someone who is not even on a major label and needs all of the publicity he can muster, he’s going about it completely wrong and will continue to struggle in the shadows regardless of how incredible his albums are. He needs to figure out how to embrace his fans and let loose of his super high proprietary nature if he ever expects to see the charts again. Slapping them on the hands when they’re helping to promote him is probably not the wisest thing to do. As for Kanye? I could be wrong, but I don’t think that anyone will utter his name 10 years from now.

Egos are the biggest destructive force in the careers of many artists. Its extremely ugly to us fans and if you’re not careful it will overshadow your music no matter how great it might be. If I had never heard of Kanye before seeing the Grammy’s, I could guarantee that I wouldn’t buy anything with his name on it simply because of his righteous attitude. He’s got a lot of growing up to do.  If I hadn’t had over 25 years invested in Prince, I’d probably feel the same way about him.  He’s lucky, because at times, he’s even worse.  And that’s a crying shame.

What’s Up Funkatopians!

Oh yeah. We’re going to have some fun. Welcome to Funkatopia. Funkatopia is designed to be a place of fellowship among funk fans from all over the world. We’re here to celebrate funkers past and present from Parliament to Van Hunt to Prince to The Time to Lakeside to Slave and the list goes on and on. If it’s funky, this is the place we will come to talk about it.

I’ve been actively blogging for about a year and sometimes get frustrated that I hit creative blocks here and there. So I decided to begin a site that I could talk about for hours. And what better topic than funk music? I want everyone to be a part of the fun in some capacity. If you can write and blog about funk music, send me an email and maybe I’ll give you access to help me administrate here on the blog. if you feel passionate about something related to funk, let me know. If you can write reviews of funk albums both old and new, help me build up the database of album reviews. There are hundreds and hundreds of classic funk albums that we need fresh reviews on. I want to create a database of funk album reviews that people can rely on. If they find a funk album on Ebay, they should be able to come here and read about it first.

I need help people! I can’t and won’t do it alone. But I also know that we Funkatopians haven’t had a place to gather and that’s what I’m out to change. So join in and get active. We finally have a reason to be excited. Welcome to Funkatopia!