About a month before he unveiled his eighth album Ye in June, Kanye West re-entered architectural conversation with the unexpected and mostly unexplained announcement that he intends to hire architects and industrial designers to staff an architecture practice connected to his Yeezy brand. An outspoken fan and admirer of contemporary architecture, Kanye’s fashion and design projects have been a major focus for him since shortly after the prodigious producer started making his own rap albums. Kanye’s architectural ambitions have been an interesting factor in the relationship between architecture and rap culture, which seems to be just coming into focus through programs like the Hip Hop Architecture Camps organized by Michael Ford’s Urban Arts Collective, and the research of Sekou Cooke. Architecture and rap music have influenced each other in ways we’re just starting to notice—with the connection between the two even revealed as consciously and conspicuously as rappers including references to notable architects in their lyrics.
Hip-hop heads may not recognize their names as easily as Gucci or Prada, but the fact that rappers are name-dropping architects reflects an interesting development in the relationship between architecture and pop culture. Within the rapid-fire context of rap lyrics, individual references and name drops are often simplified and abstracted to represent a single idea; when rappers mention an architect, the reference is usually intended to symbolize either the status of a famous and well-respected creative genius or a specific designer’s work as an exclusive, virtually-unobtainable luxury item on par with uber-costly fashion and car brands.
