You might think you’ve peeped the scene – you haven’t
The real one’s far too mean
The watered down one
The one you know
Was made up centuries ago
It made it sound all whack and corny
Yes, it’s awful, blasted, boring
Twisted fiction
Sick addiction
Well gather round children
Zip it, listen.
The words of Nicki Minaj (sporting a terrible fake-British accent) serve both as the opener to Kanye West’s latest offering My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and suggestion to the listener: drop what you know about Kanye West, both as just another unstable celebrity in the public eye, and as an artist. Drop the label of ‘Hip Hop’ and everything you associate with it, whether it is positive or negative. Take every single judgement you could possibly associate with Kanye West and destroy it – time for the real music.
Following Minaj’s suggestion, we are immediately confronted with Kanye’s ‘dark fantasy’, a juxtaposition of light and dark. We are bounced between an uplifting choir melody and a bitter Mr West as he broods over an ambitious hip-hop track with witticisms to remind us why we should take him seriously as both a rapper and a producer.
To prove that point even further, he draws on many themes and styles throughout this album, bringing them all together in perfect harmony to make every track an epic adventure into the frantic mind of Kanye West.
‘Ye alternates between “tripping off the power” and “tripping off the powder” in his ode to superhero theme-music “Power”. He creates a serene atmosphere with a beautiful prelude to the epic “All Of The Lights”, before taking us into one of his most ambitious songs to date. He recruits some of Hip Hop’s heavy hitters for ‘Monster’ and ‘So Appalled’, and pours his soul into “Devil In A New Dress”. Kanye also indulges in self-deprecating stadium hip hop with the humorous “Runaway”, which stretches out into a nine minute extravaganza, ending with him messing around with his beloved auto-tune.
Wait – let us catch our breath…
Continuing on, the synth-heavy “Hell Of A Life” tells the story of a bi-polar Mr West living the bohemian lifestyle – one of his most vivid tracks to date. The John Legend-assisted “Blame Game” sees Kanye’s sentimental side detailing the push-pull relationships we go through over a beautifully interpolated Aphex Twin sample, complete with the most schizophrenic verse I have ever heard from a rapper. And finally, he turns Bon Iver’s haunting “Woods” into an uplifting celebration about being “Lost In The World”.
Another aspect which makes this album so great is that Kanye cleverly mastered all the tracks so that any previously heard song would still sound brand new – and they do: every time you listen to them you find something new to like. He has also stretched every song out to introduce the theme of excess into his fantasy.
Kanye has succeeded in creating a masterpiece which surpasses the classic College Dropout and transcends the genre of Hip Hop: ‘Ye wanted us to open our minds, that didn’t happen, so he did it for us by shoving his dark, twisted fantasy in our faces – and we are glad he did.
Review Score: 9.5/10
