Chicago Magazine: Behind-the-Scenes with Virgil Abloh (Kanye West’s Style Adviser)

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because according to the new york times, he is feeling a little down now-a-days:

For most of the 45 or so minutes that he was onstage, Mr. West was moody, dour, even irritated at points, a star who enthralled even at low wattage.

After a roaring take on “Runaway,” during which he pounded away at his MPC, he began addressing, well, everyone. “Thank you for loving me when they told you not to love me,” he half-sang, through an Auto-Tune-like effect, rendering him an emotional cyborg. “I’m sorry about anybody out there that had to fight for me,” he sang. “Do you know what it feels like to be hated, do you know what it feels like to be degraded?”

When he arrived on stage, Mr. West was almost certainly the most underdressed person in the room, in a gray hooded sweatshirt, white T-shirt, light blue jeans and black sneakers. And he began the night defiantly, with a harsh cover of Stevie Wonder’s “They Won’t Go When I Go.” Sung awkwardly but purposefully, it set the tone for the rest of the night. Freed from the emotional restrictions of a major arena show, where joy has to abound, or at least appear with some frequency, he took the opportunity to stew here, emphasizing the more abrasive and gruffer sides of his catalog: “Hell of a Life,” “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” the melancholy “Flashing Lights.” (In this context, the grotesque “Monster” qualified as exultant.)

Even “Good Life,” the rare unambiguously joyous song in Mr. West’s catalog, was extended past its joyous core, dragged into an extended version where timpani-like rumblings gave it an air of impending tragedy. He did something similar on the paranoiac “Run This Town,” where he altered the melodic structure of the verses, turning them even colder and more percussive.

A couple of times, Mr. West pulled his hood down low, fully obscuring his face; it wasn’t always clear he was enjoying himself, even if everyone else was enjoying him. His closing rant felt true to the night’s mood, a characteristically tortured and self-aggrandizing spiel.

I hope he can find a place of peace. Hugs for Kanye!

The NY Times