I am God's vessel too, Kanye!!

     I've never really been a fan of Kanye West personally because I feel like he’s a jerk and self-centered and obnoxious because of the whole Kanye 2020, "I'll let you finish but.." and the recent Famous music video. So I always had just assumed his music would be jerky and self-centered and obnoxious. And let’s be real here: I’ll always love Taylor more than anyone she screws over. So Kanye was never really my forte and I’ve never taken him seriously. To be completely honest, I’ve actually never given any rap or hip hop album a chance because I always write them off as inappropriate to women or unintelligent.



     So this week I’ve been putting myself through the task of listening to Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I decided to review this album of West’s because everyone’s always like “I miss the old Kanye!” and this was pre-"Yeezy" phase. 

      Here's some background on Kanye's life when My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. This was after he was a total jerk to TSwift at the VMAs in 2009 but also pre Kim and their beautiful children. He was actually dating Amber Rose at the time, an ex who he now attacks like on the daily. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was Kanye's 5th album so at that point he already had some fame and knew the consequences and benefits of it.

     One of the first things I noticed as a beginner in Kanye’s world was his number of featured artists. Literally none of his songs on this album are just Kanye. And they aren’t just rappers, either. Sure, he picked up Nicki Minaj and Kid Cudi and Jay-Z, but also featured are Beyoncé, Bon Iver and John Legend. It seems from the beginning that Kanye isn’t just putting out an album, he’s making his own little production. Of course, he’s playing the lead, but he knows he has to have some people in the chorus to back him up so he goes even higher. Most of the featured artists Kanye brought in on this album spent a lot of time in the studio chillin with Kanye while he wrote and produced the songs so a lot of their influence went into the tracks too. Bon Iver was actually in the studio the entire time Kanye wrote this album, and he and Kanye apparently wore tuxes every day. Although Kanye calls himself a great artist, it seems that at least on this album he relies on other artists to express himself in a better way by not just being featured in the song but also helping create them.


       Kanye's album can be broken down into three main concepts. Or at least I think it can because I went to a public school and all I've done since elementary school was make thesis statements to summarize things!!! Anywho, the three concepts are power and race.

       Kanye actually does something kind of fantastic on the majority of the album. He takes what could only be called "sick beats" and just layers the voices of the featured artists he brings in underneath his voice which flows on the top. This happens especially well in his tracks like "POWER" and "All of the Lights". He brings in powerful brass instruments to compliment his whole idea of being strong and cool. "Monster", my favorite track on the album, also does this. Jay-Z, one of the featured rappers on this track, apparently once said that a monster refers to a really great song so Kanye probably took this little tidbit from his BFF and created a song out of it. "Everybody knows I'm a motherf*ckin Monster!" Nicki Minaj is also featured on "Monster" and her verse has been given great reviews for her use of different accents and way of rapping.  Nicki kind of became huge after this feature so without Kanye we might not have been graced by the "Roman Queen" herself. So I'm pretty sure when Kanye wrote and recorded this album he looked up the definition of power online and was like okay that's what I'm doing and it turned out to be really amazing.
        Another amazing thing about this album is the way Kanye tackled the topic of race. The last two tracks on the album, "Lost In The Woods" and "Who Will Survive in America" are the two songs that do this best.  "Who Will Survive In America" is actually a spoken poem from Gil Scott-Heron's album Comment #1 from 1970. Kanye added the background music to make it more interesting and relevant to some of his listeners probably. I think it's really cool how he actually used Gil Scott-Heron's voice instead of his own because that just added more history to it. Kanye was trying to say here that issues that faced the black community in the 1970s still face the black community today so this speech is still relevant. One of the best lines from the speech was "Democracy, liberty and justice were just revolutionary code names".


        Kanye West is definitely not someone I thought I would say this about, but he created an intelligent, interesting and truly great album with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I was talking with some Kanye fanatics actually, and I found out that the Kanye we know and I hate of today with Yeezus and Famous happened after this album was created. It seems that he either took his break up with Amber Rose super hard or he just saw a way to make more money and took the opportunity. Either way I'm just super glad he put out like five albums before his "Godlike" alter ego emerged because this album is fantastic and now I can say I'm a fan of Kanye West. Can you believe that???