Presidential candidate Kanye West has been known as the big-mouthed trouble child in the past few years as well as a fearless and innovative rapper and artist. How much clout does he really have, however, in knowing about music? Can he play the piano?
While we might not know if Kanye can sit down and play an entire concert piece like a classically trained musician would, the image of him sitting at a piano is both a famous pop culture visual and representative of the fact that he does play the piano to some extent.
Read on if you want to know more about Kanye’s piano-playing abilities and how he creates his iconic hits!
Kanye West Is An Award-Winning Producer
Kanye is a hip-hop artist as well as a producer and as such, knows music theory and how to sample and create different beats and instrumentals in a wide range of genres.
In addition to his rapping prowess, Kanye has been producing his own songs and albums from day one. In other words, he’s carefully involved in the music-making process from the ground up instead of just showing up to the studio and rhyming over some beats picked out for him by his manager.
In fact, before the release of his first album College Dropout, Kanye had been known in music circles primarily as a producer. He released a mixtape, in which rappers usually rap over other songs’ beats, titled Get Well Soon, in 2003. On Get Well Soon, Kanye rapped over a majority of self-produced instrumentals, showing off his wordplay for the first time for a large audience.
On the intro to the mixtape, he is identified as a producer, and on the opening track, legendary rapper Talib Kweli introduces him and tells the audience that Kanye raps, too, meaning he wasn’t established as a rapper back then.
Get Well Soon even previewed singles that would go on to be big hits for Kanye, such as Jesus Walks, all produced solely by Kanye West.
Kanye had been producing since age 15, learning the tricks of the trade under the legendary music producer No I.D. – and in 2002, Kanye even won an award for his work on Jay-Z’s album The Blueprint, now considered a classic of the rap scene.
Kanye Doesn’t Think Of Himself As A Skilled Piano Player
While the media reports on Kanye’s ego often – and his own lyrics are replete with swaggering cockiness – he’s the first to acknowledge his shortcomings as well, either in his lyrics or through his quickly-going-viral interviews where he engages in introspection on his career and the culture.
Kanye has said while making the distinction between being an artist and a musician, that he can’t play the piano.
On the other hand, some of Kanye’s biggest hits have featured the piano, sometimes sparking huge discussions from music reviewers over his innovative use of the instrument. An example is his song Homecoming (which he created with Coldplay’s Chris Martin) with the songwriting process chronicled and reported on in numerous places with special focus on how Kanye led Martin away from a ballad-like composition to more “new wave” piano, which gave the song its drive and staying power in the culture and certainly on the charts.
Kanye also plays the piano in live performances. Notably, his performance of Runaway at the 2010 VMAs starts with him hitting the now-iconic notes, and there are numerous live performances of songs such as I Wonder where Kanye sits down at a grand piano to accompany his live band on the song.