Is Kanye West a Dilettante? According to Todd Rundgren, He Is

Is it bold to call Kanye West a dilettante? Yes, it likely is. However, it certainly isn’t if you’re Todd Rundgren. Rundgren’s Something/Anything (1972) ranks the 12th greatest album of all-time on our top albums list. A vast discography and production discography with a range of multi-instrumentalism, Rundgren is a prototype for the music industry artist.

Rundgren sat down for an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock and revealed he worked with Kanye for Donda. Rundgren went on to say, “He’s just a dilettante at this point. Nobody would regularly make records like that unless they had stupid money to throw around.” Kanye has a talent for sampling, sequencing, mixing, a talent for rapping, and for crossing Hip-Hop genre norms. Donda however received mixed reviews. Despite there being a wealth of quality, there were wide complaints regarding the album’s length, and whether some songs could have been cut.

According to Rundgren, the album’s conception was rushed due to Kanye’s commercial feud with Drake. Whether the rush to release caused Kanye to spend less time conceptualizing remains to be seen. We’re also not willing to call Kanye a dilettante. However, Todd Rundgren is totally qualified to make that assertion.