Kanye West was a “pompous asshole” that David Crosby couldn’t stand listening to
If there’s one thing that David Crosby was great at throughout his career, it was speaking his mind.
No one necessarily had to like everything he had to say whenever he gave his opinion on a certain kind of music, but he was going to stay true to himself even if it meant marginalising a lot of his fans and fellow bandmates in the process. But even if he survived the harshest parts of his life, he was still looking to dish out the right amount of vitriol up until the day he died whenever he saw someone who was getting their head inflated a little too much.
Because while Crosby was the first person to call out the legends in his field, he didn’t want to be elitist by any stretch. He felt that there were a lot of avenues for people to go down if they had the right idea, but even though Joni Mitchell managed to take risks and still be the greatest songwriter in his mind, many classic rockers do have a bit of a problem transitioning to appreciating hip-hop.
The entire phenomenon of rap was already a reaction to what rock and roll had become over the past few years, but that didn’t mean that they were all terrible, either. Being a great hip-hop producer meant having great ears, and while Rick Rubin was the one helping put everyone in the right place when working with Beastie Boys and Public Enemy, even A Tribe Called Quest had love for records like Aja by Steely Dan when making their classics like The Low End Theory.
But it takes a special kind of musician to have the kind of ego that Kanye West had at the start of his career. While he has sunk himself farther than any other famous musician has ever done these days, the fact that he came out of the gate being a contrarian was at least novel at the time. He didn’t claim to be the kind of rapper that needed a lot of gold chains to be cool, but some of the charm started to fade a little too much after he started calling out other musicians for not being as good as he was.
Every musician is guilty of being a little too high on themselves, but Crosby drew the line when West decided to call himself one of the greatest rock stars of all time, saying, “[He] can’t sing his way out of a paper bag. He comes out and says, ‘I’m the greatest living rockstar in the world.’ So I wrote, ‘Would somebody please drive him over to Stevie Wonder’s house.’ ‘Cause man, I’m sorry buddy, you’re not. And then I said, ‘Would somebody please buy him a collection of Ray Charles’ records, so he can learn how to sing.’ Because Ray’s my favorite singer. You know, he’s just an easy target. I wouldn’t have gone off on him if he hadn’t been such a pompous asshole about saying how fucking cool he was. Because he’s not.”
And it’s not like West was ever going to be giving the titans of rock a run for their money in their wheelhouse. He was never going to start playing epic guitar solos whenever he took the stage, and given the fact that he sounded like he was barely hanging on when trying to sing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen live, it’s safe to say that he wasn’t quite equipped to take on Freddie Mercury’s voice.
But when looking through his latest escapades, it’s probably for the best that Crosby didn’t have to see how far West has fallen. The massive crashouts that he did throughout the mid-2020s are one of the most pathetic wastes of a hip-hop legacy that anyone has ever done, and even if he tries to atone for it for the rest of his life, it’s hard to really come back from championing anti-semetic rhetoric even if you blame it on a medical disorder.
The public might love an underdog story, but considering how much West was riding high back in the day, it’s safe to say that a lot of people are seeing him now the same way that Crosby sees him. He is good at what he does, and he might even have some halfway decent songs, but no one’s going to be able to forget the absolutely disgusting behaviour he has subjected his fans to over the past few years.
