Arrogant- maybe, full of himself- completely, a self-proclaimed asshole- definitely, but hey- at least he’s honest, and there is no denying that Kanye West is a modern-day musical genius. His latest masterpiece is entitled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. How rare is it to be able to buy an album where every single song is even more amazingly well made than the next and you don’t have to fast forward when you stumble upon a less than enjoyable track?
West was always first and foremost a producer, and while he remains heavily criticized by musicians and music lovers alike for using samples for his music rather than organically creating his own, I have a romantic retrospective theory that all the great music and songs have already been made, so it’s really not his fault. It’s also worth keeping in mind that it’s often times more difficult to write an essay using different sources and putting it in your own words than to write a book- if you get my metaphor.
His songs generally seem to revolve around 3 main themes, the struggle with faith (in God), the struggle of the sexes, and the struggle of the races. He has an uncanny ability to sing about pornography one minute and effortlessly connect it to the politics of porn in the very next line, then round it off with a comment on African slavery in America, which is what he does in ‘Hell of a Life’. A master of thematic album making, a common thread can be identified in the eclectic songs of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, this might sound like an oxymoron but then Kanye West manages to constantly contradict himself. A mix of classical background notes such as the piano at the start of ‘Runaway’ and the electric guitar which provides a ‘soulful’ rocky edge, paired with the mandatory hip-hop beats, often incorporating African drums that are reminiscent of those heard on his last hit ‘Love Lockdown’ on 808 and Heartbreak make his songs unpredictable and unique in the context of hip hop.
West views himself as a creative, a storyteller and a ‘soldier of culture’ and he expresses this in his 35 minute film Runaway, named after one of the albums songs, a kind of extended video clip. He enjoys enlightening his fans by exposing them to new cultures “just the opportunity I have to show the world, like ballerina meets hip-hop... these are just things you don’t really see together” he says in an interview with Access Hollywood. In an another interview with Ellen Degenres, West discusses Runaway, “It has like 9 other songs from the album, I’ve always had a dream of having a full length that shows visuals for all these songs that deserve videos, but instead of the regular construct of video they have this full length thing...it’s very important for me to bring the highest form of art to the culture because of the fact that I have so much exposure.”
After taking a year off traveling the world due to the tumultuous reverberations of his verbal hit at Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMA’s it’s safe to say he’s back with a bang. But this man still has something to say about everything, and ultimately he will be heard, even through the gag and muffle imposed on him by the American media. On the day My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was released, less than a week ago on November 22nd, it dominated iTunes album sales, with the explicit, clean and deluxe versions of the album in the top three of the chart. I could keep on writing about this, but I think everyone should check it out for themselves, it won’t disappoint.
To watch the full length feature Runaway film: http://kanyewest.com/
