As I’m sure you saw on Twitter earlier, there was a big rumour going around that Kanye West was going to be performing in Shoreditch, East London today at 5PM. The rumour was started by the above image, which was circulated by Kanye’s PR people. Presumably to start a rumour on Twitter that Kanye was going to be in Shoreditch at 5PM (and who knows, maybe even Jay-Z would be with him?!?!?).
As always happens with tittle-tattle, the big rumour soon gave birth to several, little baby rumours. One of the biggest was started by The Quietus, who floated the idea that they were going to be in Chariots. Which is a gay sauna (for those of you who don’t get the joke, this is funny because it implies that Kanye and Jay-Z are gay).
Videos by VICE
Obviously Kanye West fans are beneath contempt, and deserve to be mocked. So I thought it would be funny to create a rumour that Jay and Kanye were going to be at Child of the Jago, which is a shitty shop for Victorian circus clowns on Great Eastern Street.
These are the posters a couple of friends and I stuck up around the area. If you’re unable to decipher the complex code I used on the sign, here it is broken down: The “KW” stands for Kanye West, the “JZ” for Jay-Z, “ogaj eht fo dlihc” is “child of the jago” written backwards, “:4:45:” is a time, and the random illuminati bullshit is just something I stuck on there to lend it some corporate hip-hop legitimacy.
Pretty soon, Twitter was #abuzz with the rumour that Kanye was going to be at Child of the Jago.
One girl even tweeted a celebratory picture of herself holding one of my clues.
Here’s the scene when I arrived at about 4.40PM. I see 16 people, including at least one person who is definitely a paparazzi. Thinking about the paparazzi missing out on a shot of Kanye (and therefore some money) didn’t make me feel too great, and I began to question the morality of what I had set in motion.
After a few minutes of anxious pacing, I decided to speak to these guys. They were so nice. I’m not even gonna bother transcribing what they said, just looking at their innocent little Kanye-loving faces is giving me an anxiety attack. The gist of it is that they saw on Twitter that Kanye was going to be at Child of the Jago, so decided to hang around in case he showed up. I knew, of course, that he wouldn’t be. The arctic winds weren’t doing anything to ease the guilt complex building up in my stomach and on the inside of my skull.
What actually happened was that this video was projected on the side of Shoreditch High Street station, just around the corner. I was there, and I have to say that it was the most exciting almost-unseeable-daylight-projection-of-a-video-that’s-already-on-YouTube that I have EVER seen.
After the video had finished, my guilty conscience made me head back to Child of the Jago to see if anyone was still there. This is what it looked like. I spoke to a couple of people and found out that they’d missed the projection of the video, because they wanted to hang out and wait for Kanye instead :(
I hung around for a few more minutes, but had to leave because I felt like too much of a shit. This is what it looked like when I left. Eueghughhghghgh I feel really, really bad. I’m sorry guys. At least Kanye never actually showed up. So I guess the worst you missed out on was seeing the new video? You can see it right here anyways. We cool?
UPDATE: My friend texted to tell me that he just walked by Chid of the Jago again, and there’s still someone waiting there. He told him “I figured the time might be written backwards too” :(
