Student Life Kanye continued... Jordan Tucker Guest Contributor 15. 30 Hours Featuring lo-fi punk-folk bass riffs, this is the closest thing to a mellow R&B/rock mashup track on the album. Kanye outlines his domestic activities, and then reveals that he drove thirty hours to see a girlfriend. Also Kanye seems to be bad at open relationships. 16. No More Parties in LA OHHHHHHHHHHHHH KENDRICK. The entire album could have been just this one song and I would have been totally fine with it. Kanye’s verses sound like he’s in his twenties again, and the beat and mixing are super old school and whole-sounding in a way that amplifies the angular quickness of Kendrick’s rapping. “Erykah Badu me” is going to be my newest Tinder pick up line, I think, and Kendrick’s talent forces Kanye to step up his game. He uses quicker flows he hasn’t used in years here. Shout out again to the silent collaborator, Kanye’s cousin: “And as far as real friends, tell all my cousins I love ‘em/Even the one that stole the laptop, you dirty motherfucker”. That guy must be terrified. 17. Fade Oh my god it’s finally over. This took forever. In this track, Kanye’s vocals are mixed in such a way that they’re not at the forefront: the result is a cohesive banger that puts one in mind of the massive cave-bang rave in the third Matrix movie. It’s got an echo-y pulse over a dense beat and multiple gospel voices organically contrasting the more techno notes that become sparser and sparser as the track, well, fades to a close. It’s a great closer that weans you off of the whole experience. Of course, I loved this album. Kanye’s problematic, he’s complex, and he’s a genius. More importantly, he’s not going anywhere. If | want a nuanced and informed opinion about rape culture, misogynoir, and the intersection of celebrity and gender politics and perceptions, I’d read bell hooks, or Roxane Gay. Kanye West doesn’t have a phD in Gender Studies. That’s not what his function is in our society. That’s why we have, you know, a multiplicity of public intellectuals who DO comment on his activities. I don’t know where we got the assumption that our cultural provocateurs have to be everything to everyone. At some point in our cultural legacy we went from pantheons of gods to pantheons of celebrities, where their personalities are more invented than real. This fills a vacuum—when we discuss the ways Miley Cyrus has failed or succeeded recently, we’re creating a communication shorthand for the ways we expect young women to behave. When we discuss Kanye West’s most recent antics, we’re having a coded conversation about what black masculinity means in this decade. I can listen to this album ten thousand times and get something new from it every time—I don’t necessarily like what I’ll hear, but we have to be able to entertain multiple perspectives to actually have dialogue that is meaningful. The Life Of Pablo is complicated, and yes, at times, misogynistic. But I will take that any day over something inauthentic and easy to digest. Happy studying and happy listening! Book Review: The Circle David Powe Guest Contributor just read a fascinating book over the Christmas break that had me thinking quite a bit about the direction social media is headed. The Circle is a book written by Dave Egger. It follows Mae’s introduction into the Circle; an innovative business that has a certain attitude toward their employees. Everything is going fantastic for Mae as she begins this venture into this utopia, this world that is personalized for her and has seemed to have thought about her every need. Ergonomic desks and chairs, personalized glass walled offices that displays weather, news and family photos, a medical plan that implants a chip and records everything from her blood pressure, to glucose levels, and it even has free yoga. You name it and this place has thought of it. It lives by the motto that community comes first and the work follows later. The computers work within 3 different circles; community (within work), work, and personal (at home). You personalize each of these by adding people who matter, like your mom or brother and even those who don’t, like Donald Trump. You also need to comment and post things on all three networks in order to be truly recognized by your employers, it shows your commitment to work. The biggest point they wanted to make to Mae’s work efforts was that if she didn’t participate in her work community than she might as well be working at some other mundane business that doesn’t look after her “needs”. It gets to a point where as she continues to try her best by participating in the three circles, she becomes helplessly consumed by it. While she begins to focus on rallying up her “points” the business is revolutionizing how politics and capital punishment is conducted and it all has to do with, monitoring. Monitoring politicians, to ensure they’re doing clean business and monitoring the streets to keep the safety of the civilians from rapists and murderers. While Mae, a hard worker that she is, has been a big part of her work community, they ask her to be a part of the pilot project for the monitoring plan and asks Mae to suit up with a camera around her neck that will make her even more convenient to the world. This is where things begin to get good. Without giving up too much about what happens next, I wanted to express the parallels between what is happening with Google and Facebook and our own society because it’s paramount. We have developed so much need to be on such networks because of their convenient nature to make what has made us successful as a species too easy to do. You've all heard this before, that we may be losing what being social and connected actually means. I have noticed that Iam becoming so needy to what is expected out of everyone and everything that if I can’t get what I want in a split of a second or if it is not perfect. I think... how can technology fix this? I have begun to live this fast paced lifestyle that doesn’t slow down to climb a tree anymore or go call on a friend to play outside. The personality of a phone call or an unannounced knock on the door is going out of style. I miss these components of my former childhood and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back again, it’s just too damn convenient to message you now! I even prefer to get an update through a wall post to see how they’re doing and what they’re up to. The Circle consumed Mae and had distracted her to a point where all she wanted to do was use the gift of being social and waste it all on pleasing someone else. The Circle then used their distraction and control to try and monitor the world. Google Earth is already showing us how this could be a possibility and we already have surveillance on many of our streets. Are we getting distracted with convenience that we’re losing what makes us wild or adventurous? This book sparked my imagination of what a world would be like if we could keep such inventions under control, understanding its purpose and limiting it, so it doesn’t limit us. I hope you give it chance to spark yours too, or thank you for letting me do it for you.