Jackson’s hands-on approach extends to all his artists – he fondly recounts 5:30 a.m. calls on Saturday mornings trying to secure Mariah Carey’s Winter Olympics performance slot – but inadvertently or not, the campaign for BULLY has centered Jackson as much as the artist he’s promoting. West’s recent public statements have occurred almost exclusively through emailed statements to publications, denying reporters the chance to assess his condition for themselves.
Jackson has never been media shy per se, but a handful of interviews with GQ and others this spring about signing Ye suggest a desire to prove his artist’s contrition to others, if not an outright defensiveness. For some, the chip on Jackson’s shoulder could be off-putting, but it seems the natural result of consistently proving your taste knows better than the naysayers. As the cancellation of Wireless Fest in the U.K. this month shows, there’s quite a bit of room for improvement when it comes to Kanye West. But that challenge – and of course, the tantalizing specter of a lucrative upside – is likely what’s drawn Jackson back to working with West at this particular moment.
“The job is entirely predicated upon finding things that aren’t yet in their fully realized form and bringing them into existence,” Jackson said in a 2019 interview. “The creative geniuses I work with show me the power of believing. They visualize and then they make it so.”