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Kanye West says it himself, “No one man should have all that power.”
Too bad West has it all.
After two years away from producing an album, West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy takes his music to a place it has circled around, but has yet to dive into, in the past — the depths of West’s lyrical, mesmerizing, and artistic mind.
MBDTF transcends rap and hip hop as the world knows it with futuristic beats seen in “Blame Game,” “Dark Fantasy,” and “Power.” West throws down unseen rhymes on top of smooth, rock-album-sounding beats. He raps on top of trumpet melodies in “All of the Lights” and on top of piano riffs in “Blame Game.” In the ultimate culmination to his album, “Lost in the World,” West not only shows his expertise as a producer, but also spits beautiful, relatable lyrics concerning everyone’s dark, twisted temptations:
“Your my devil, your my angel / Your my heaven, your my hell / You’re my now, you’re my forever / You’re my freedom, your my jail / You’re my lies your my truth / You’re my war you’re my truce / You’re my questions your my proof / Your my stress and your my masseuse”
His work, especially his intricate, futuristic beats, is something new to the hip hop ear. West is the rap game standard — he doesn’t follow everyone else. MBDTF is something the industry will look to mimic in the future — only they won’t do it as well.
Only West can convince Chris Rock or Elton John to be in a hip hop album. Rock’s comedic stitch at the end of “Blame Game” provides a new platform for stand-up comedy. John’s vocals at the end of “All of the Lights” properly finishes an amazing rap song that may easily be considered the best song on the album.
But calling this album rap is just doing it a disservice. This is better than T–Pain crap. This is better than Lil Wayne talking about his Blood gang. This is better than Jay-Z talking about his life in Brooklyn. This is something new. This is a new genre.
Let’s just name it Kanye.
harry potter • Dec 16, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Great Album, still dont like him as a person but its a great listen
Ben Platt • Dec 16, 2010 at 9:08 am
Kanye shouldn’t have sampled Aphex. Richard D James deserves no samples. He is a sample. Funky. Maybe Nosdam should remix Aphex and do a gr8 job. Great job!
Sorry Ross, ima let you finish, but Mr. West’s comment was one of the best of all time, all time!
PS – great job
Welcome Back Mr. West • Nov 28, 2010 at 11:16 am
Great job, but I thought that this was a review! I’d love it if the author could have gone into a little more depth about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, considering the fact that it may be the best album of all time, if not the best hip-hop album of all time. Rolling Stone awarded it five out of five stars. Pitchfork gave it a ten out of ten. That does not happen very often! This album deserves more than a few paragraphs.
Elton John actually performs the two-minute piano interlude to \All of the Lights,”
a song which includes 14 other artists, ranging from Rihanna to Drake to Fergie to Kid Cudi to Alicia Keys (but most of them are indiscernible from the others).
In my opinion, the beats in this album are not entirely futuristic. In fact, the album takes us BACK to where we were five years ago. Fantasy is more like The College Dropout and Late Registration than anything else. I’d say the album contains more refined versions of classic Kanye beats, mixed with harder, more human emotions and an incredible work ethic.
While I agree that it will be difficult to top this particular album, I don’t agree with the fact that it isn’t rap. The problem that we face today is that a lot of people are embarrassed to say that they listen to rap. This may be because of T-Pain and other vocoder-ed artists that rely on computers to perform for them.
We mustn’t skirt around the fact that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is, at its core, a rap album.
Kanye’s not inventing a new genre. He’s not trying to do so either. Earlier this year, he tweeted the fact that he’d vowed to become the greatest rapper of all time.
This album brings rap back to “rap.”
I think that the reason the author may not see this as rap is because he may be focusing on the songs that are less “rap-y,” like “Lost In The World” and “All Of The Lights.”
What about “So Appalled”? Pusha-T’s verse is off the chain! “Success is what you make it, take it how it comes / A half a mil in twenties is like a billion where I’m from” and “Tony doing time for what he did to nostrils” are two incredibly creative ways to say things.
And what about “Monster”? Have you heard Nicki Minaj’s verse? She changes her tone and personality MID-LINE! It’s incredible to hear a rapper go from angry to playful in mere milliseconds.
How about Kanye’s three-minute auto-tuned conclusion to “Runaway”? Should it work? NO! Does it? YES, YES, a resounding YES.
Anything about “Devil In A New Dress”? Kanye’s lines are insane! “I hit the Jamaican spot, at the bar, took a seat / I ordered the jerk, she said ‘you are what you eat!’” Can an album get more creative? Can an album get more human while at the same time be more surreal to listen to?
And the sampling! There’s more sampling in this album than there is at a wine tasting. Kanye samples everyone from Aphex Twin to Black Sabbath, and it all works perfectly.
Anything about poet Gil Scott Heron’s finale to the album? Ending with the poem “Comment #1” was a brave thing to do, and its success is evident. How about the fact that the last seconds of Fantasy consists of an audience clapping… if that doesn’t say something about Kanye, then I don’t know what does!
There are so many more things that this review could have touched upon. Kanye’s self-imposed exile to Milan… his hilarious and eye-opening Twitter account… the short film “Runaway”… Kanye’s “G.O.O.D. Fridays”… the Today Show interview… the secret concerts… the process of creating the album (Kanye set up shop in Hawaii, opened “Rap Camp” and practically shipped in whoever he wanted – from Bon Iver to RZA)… the banned album cover… selling over 600,000 copies in a week… the reviews: Universal Acclaim!
This review is totally sufficient! However, as some constructive criticism, I think that it could have gone into a bit more depth on this incredible album.
I recently listened to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in its entirety on a long car ride, and came away thinking one thing: This album is impeccable.
Mr. West is back, he’s here to stay, and he’s brought a masterpiece with him.