Kanye West

I happened to watch the edited highlights of the 2008 Grammy awards on UK TV last night, and notice that as well as wearing some fantastic clothing, Kanye West seemed to have Daft Punk on stage with him for his performance of Stronger. Reports of this are all over the blogosphere at the moment, as a quick Google search with keywords ‘kanye west daft punk’ demonstrates. Reading through some of the blog entries, I was particularly interested to find this post, in which some of the comments discuss whether or not Daft Punk were miming, and indeed whether or not it was Daft Punk on stage at all.

The performance and subsequent discussions remind me of the recent AHRC ICT Methods Network seminar on Interactivity in the Performance of Electroacoustic Music, where various questions about what constitutes performance in live electronic music were raised.

What is important for me is not whether the Lemur interfaces were actually being played, or whether it was ‘really’ Daft Punk on stage (incidentally I think it was). What I am interested in is the impression of performance that was created, and the role that the Lemur interfaces and the gestures of the performers played in creating and sustaining this impression. What is important for the Grammys (and a lot of large-scale concerts) isn’t the authenticity of the performance but the overall impact. Who cares if Rhianna is miming or Alicia Keys isn’t really playing the piano - what is important is the overall sense of performance and ‘show’. This contrasts with traditional acoustic forms of music performance (Classical, Folk), where often the performer is giving an interpretation of a work and so authenticity and a certain degree of intimacy are essential and assumed.

So in music like that of Kanye West or Daft Punk, where there is a tradition of using sequenced material (drum machines) along with live manipulations of pre-recorded sound (DJ’ing and record scratching), what role does ‘instrumental’ performance play? What is the audience expecting to see, and what are they interested in seeing?

In the Grammy performance of Stronger, up until 2:45 seemingly the only ‘live’ element in the track is Kanye himself rapping. This is the essence of the performance, accompanied by a melee of analogue synth lines, drum loops and processed samples which form a musical ‘backing track’ that could acceptably be pre-recorded. However, there is a sense that there may be something more: a dark pyramid looms ominously on the stage, creating the expectation of performance…

It is on the line ‘I need you right now’ that the pyramid lights up to reveal the performers inside as if some trick or slight of hand has taken place. A deception reversing the traditional ‘con’ where what appears to be live is actually being mimed - here what appears to be pre-recorded now has the suggestion of ‘liveness’.

The performers representing Daft Punk occupy a visual interlude of nearly 60 seconds - 1/4 of the entire stage time and like all Grammy performances, the show is carefully choreographed. Of particular interest is the attention that is given to the performance interfaces themselves. Here, the Jazzmutant Lemur interfaces take on a significance in their own right, providing a visual spectacle that holds interest, and compliments the performers’ outlandish costumes. This approach where the ‘instrument’ and ‘performer’ are central to the overall perception of the event is interesting given that Electronica artists have often tended to favour laptops and ‘knob twiddling’, with video back-projection to hold visual interest (cf. Coldcut, Chemical Brothers etc).

To conclude, the key question here is not whether the performance was ‘real’, but whether it was effective. In my opinion, timing, colour, choreography, stage set, instruments and performers all worked in a homogeneous and integrated way to give maximum visual and aural impact. In the context of the Grammy awards, the question of whether or not the performers’ gestures were creating the actual sounds ‘live’ is a moot point.