G-Shock Celebrates New Line of Watches with a Performance by Kanye West

Marjana Jaidi / August 10, 2009

Last Wednesday at Cipriani Wall Street, Casio unveiled their new line of G-Shock watches with the help of Kanye West and DJ Enuff as part of their 12-city “Shock the World” 2009 global tour.

World-famous tattoo artist, car customizer and illustrator Mr. Cartoon was on hand to introduce his limited edition collaborative piece (above, left). The artwork on the watch is inspired by various aspects of his life – he noted that the wristband design draws from car pinstriping techniques, originally invented to cover paint chips. “The artwork comes from my heart,” he said during the press conference, “it’s my passion”.

Numerous celebrities, including Russell Simmons, Mobb Deep, Estelle, Fabulous, Colin Munroe and Mick Boogie, turned up for the big event and rocked their G-Shocks on the red carpet. Kanye West’s long-time friend and collaborator DJ A-Trak came by with his brother, Chromeo’s Dave 1.

Kanye West took the stage at around 10:20 PM and performed his first song in a mask and hood. He played several old favorites early in the set, including “Flashing Lights”, “Homecoming”, and “Hit ‘em High”. The backdrop started out as one big LED screen, that was later broken down and moved around by dancers clad in black. Their presence on stage and black masks were reminiscent of the Greek choruses that originated in early forms of theater.

In a surprising twist, Kanye performed songs from 808s and Heartbreak without the help of the controversial vocoder, perhaps in a nod to Jay-Z’s “Death of Auto-Tune”, which he co-produced. His live renditions of ”Amazing”, “Robocop”, “Tell Everybody That You Know”, “Heartless”, “Love Lockdown”, and his favorite song from the album, ”Say You Will” all sounded great, some even better than the original auto-tune versions.

Kanye took a moment to bring up a recent conversation with A-Trak about how the speed and accessibility of internet has made artists overly eager to release their new music. “You can’t beat W-W-W-dot. You can’t make songs as fast as W-W-W-dot. So stop trying to run so fast and be so hot,” he said, adding that his own creative process has slowed down considerably.

The set, which lasted just over an hour, also included a parred-down version of “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”, which Kanye deemed “my favorite song of my career”. He capped off the evening with his first single from Graduation, ”Stronger”.

Click here for more photos of the event, and check out Zack Galifanakis’ video for “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” below: