Kanye opens up with brilliant Fantasy
Simply put, Kanye West
– the superstar rapper/ producer whose head is as large as his
pocketbook – is an enigma. On one hand he creates some of the most
memorable hip-hop the world has ever seen. On the other, he is a
caricature of everything that is wrong with the celebrity-loving
world we live in today.
West is in a world of his own
– and with his fifth and greatest album My Beautiful Dark
Twisted Fantasy it couldn’t be more apparent.
Kanye opens up with brilliant Fantasy
Simply put, Kanye West – the superstar rapper/ producer whose head is as large as his pocketbook – is an enigma. On one hand he creates some of the most memorable hip-hop the world has ever seen. On the other, he is a caricature of everything that is wrong with the celebrity-loving world we live in today.
West is in a world of his own – and with his fifth and greatest album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy it couldn’t be more apparent.
Fantasy is West at his most eccentric, most wild and simply his absolute best.
The album is a 13-song greatest hits collaboration that takes the best of everything he as done – yes, even 808s & Heartbreak’s autotune – and blends it into a perfect mess of beauty, anger and everything personal.
At times, the 70-minute album is a letter of sorts, deliberately and openly describing in painful detail why people hate the man behind it all. He knows he is a jerk but he doesn’t care. As he would say, it is who he is.
In the second single, “Runaway,” West calls himself every bad name in the book. He apologizes for treating his “love” bad in all the wrong ways, but as always with West there is a catch.
West still blames the girl.
“See, I could have me a good girl/ And still be addicted to them hoodrats/ And I just blame everything on you / At least you know that’s what I’m good at,” West sings openly.
The brilliant, 9-minute opus is buoyed by a simple piano chord and West’s autotuned-supported snarl. It’s a love letter to someone, without West ever saying those simple three words.
“Never much of a romantic/ I could never take the intimacy/ But I know it did damage/ Cause the look in your eyes, it’s killing me,” he sings.
And bouncing throughout the song, and the album as a whole, are samples – the rarest form of hip-hip integration in today’s times of T-Pain, Eminem and Black Eyed Peas. The album is a throwback of sorts for the idea of hip-hop.
It looks back at the ’80s and the Beastie Boys’ “Paul Boutique” as a tipping point for the wild use and wide array of samples.
Samples include King Crimson on the first single, and suicide-thinking “Power.”
Poet Gil Scott-Heron finds his way onto two tracks. And folk-indie artist Bon Iver pops up in a couple songs. Rick James, Smokey Robinson and Black Sabbath find solace within Kanye’s magnum opus.
And of course there are the brilliant guest stars such as Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, Raekwon and newcomer Nicki Minaj.
With one verse in the third single, and album best “Monster,” it’s Minaj that possibly steals the entire the album. The verse, which isn’t suitable for print, is a fluctuating monster. Minaj changes her voice from high to low, ending with an angry yell “I’m a monster.”
Other standout tracks include the Elton John and Rihanna supported “All of the Lights” and “Lost in the World,” which turns Bon Iver’s autotuned croon into a blissful beat.
“All of the Lights” is a charging song, where West sings of losing his girl and his kids. West pleads for forgiveness but he never gets it – almost blinded by the lights fame brings with it.
“Restraining order/ can’t see my daughter/her mother, brother, grandmother hate me in that order/ public visitation/ we met at Borders/ told her she take me back/ I’ll be more supportive/ I made mistakes/ I bump my head /courts suck me dry/I spent that bread/ she need a daddy/ baby please, can’t let her grow up in that ghetto university,” West sings.
It’s an all-star song, with a wonderful chorus by pop star Rihanna, and the centerpiece of Fantasy.
Many hate the man because of everything he does away from the studio. He calls out George Bush, he interrupts a pop superstar as she accepts an award, and he’s brash, angry and just plain crazy. But throughout all of that, he constantly records and puts his name on some of the best music in the world.
With Fantasy West pushes himself to the brink. And it’s a brilliant album because of that.
In the opening track, “Dark Fantasy,” a woman asks “can we get much higher?” After listening to the album’s 13 tracks, I’m not sure if that’s possible, but I can’t wait to hear him try.
