Culture

This police report on a Kanye listening party is the greatest piece of music journalism ever written

“[She] sped away on a utility cart and I did not see her again for the duration of the event.”

Culture

This police report on a Kanye listening party is the greatest piece of music journalism ever written

“[She] sped away on a utility cart and I did not see her again for the duration of the event.”
Culture

This police report on a Kanye listening party is the greatest piece of music journalism ever written

“[She] sped away on a utility cart and I did not see her again for the duration of the event.”

On May 31, Kanye West threw a party in Wyoming to celebrate the release of ye, an album that was not very good. I did not personally attend the party, but from what information I have about it, I can confidently say that it, too, was not very good. One week later, Kanye West threw some more parties, one of which was held on a farm in Maple Park, a town about 60 miles outside of Chicago. I didn’t attend this party either, and I don’t know anyone who did. But, thanks to the intrepid public records-seekers at MuckRock, we all know someone who attended, and that someone was a actually a group of someones called “the cops.”

According to a case report written by Lieutenant Christopher Collins of the Kane County Sheriff’s Office, local police learned that Kanye’s team was throwing the party a few hours in advance when the venue requested a pair of deputies to supervise the event. Collins writes that he could only find one deputy to volunteer to go to a free Kanye party, “so I filled up the second slot.”

“Touch the Sky” doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of this article; it’s just a really good Kanye song.

When Collins arrived at the venue, he discovered that the crowd was much larger than he’d anticipated, and proceeded to ask the party’s promoter how many people were supposed to show up. She told him 350; later, he found out the number was closer to 600. He then asked if Kanye himself was going to attend, which, under the circumstances, seems like pretty a reasonable thing to ask. The promoter, he writes, “advised me that she was under a binding non-disclosure contract and could not provide me that information.” (For the record, it appears that Kanye did not attend.) Collins continues:

I reiterated to [the promoter] this was for manpower allocation and planning purposes by the Sheriff’s Office but she still refused to provide the information. I pointed out to [the promoter] that she and her organization had already provided false and misleading information about the [party’s size] and that alone was reason enough to shut down the event, and [the promoter] replied, “Your threats don’t mean anything to me; I’ll provide you with an update in an hour.” [She] sped away on a utility cart and I did not see her again for the duration of the event.

The fact that after this, Lieutenant Christopher Collins did not shut down the event is, to me, evidence that he might be a pretty chill cop. This possibility is furthered by the fact that in his report, he notes that “during the event, marijuana use was open and evident, with the smell of burnt cannabis pervasive throughout the venue... but because of the large number of patrons and small number of law enforcement it was decided that no action would be taken.” I guess that if there are more people smoking weed at a place than there are cops, the cops just give up.

While Collins notes that “the crowd appeared to be well behaved,” the same can’t be said for the neighbors. According to the released records, one person complained “there are profanities that he can hear perfectly through the walls,” while another claimed “the music is so loud his walls are rattling,” which seems a tad dramatic. Anyways, you can read the full report, as well as the complaints, here. As a whole, the documents are perhaps the best commentary on latter-day Kanye West that I have ever read, and I’m only sort of kidding about that.