West still controversial, trite, hilarious and deft
Kanye puts out his most defensive and reactionary album yet.
Sept. 11, 2007
On "Can't Tell Me Nothing," the first single from his third album, Graduation, Kanye West finally gets to the heart of his anomalous appeal. "I'm on the TV talking like it's just you and me," he says.
Whether or not he's referring to that infamous remark about our president goes unsaid, but the tunnel vision is clear: no pop star in the world puts as much of himself out there as West does.
He's forever pushed his imperfections as far to the forefront as his perfections, relied on self-depreciation nearly as much as self-promotion, but he's reconciled it all with an innate likeability.
Spazzing out at awards shows and drunkenly accosting European dance superpowers are "mistakes," but they're endearing ones.
That doesn't make for great music, though, which is why West is not only one of the most intriguing people of this decade but also one of its most intriguing artists.
The party line on Graduation — on which West has switched his style up, again — is pretty on the money.
Gone are Late Registration's sometimes poignant, but often gloppy, orchestral arrangements, which shoved West's trademark soul-indebted beats from first album The College Dropout out the door.
What we've got on Graduation are (mostly) schmaltzy bright pink and blue synth streaks, fitting both for West's new future-is-the-new-black aesthetic and his outsized "stadium status" ego.
But as anyone who has followed his career knows, the fact that everything's changed means that nothing's changed.
If the arrangements on Graduation are a new hat (or a new pair of sunglasses with dumb horizontal bars across the lenses), the rapping is definitely not.
Surprise, West is still controversial ("[I'm] feeling like Katrina with no FEMA"), trite ("Just last year Chicago had over 600 caskets/ Man, killing is some wack shit), hilarious ("Whipped it out, she said 'I ain't ever seen snakes on a plane'") and deft ("While y'all was in limbo, I raised the bar up").
If College Dropout was the album where a voracious West played the underdog card to get to the top and Late Registration was the album where he got family business, all personal history and political/social beliefs off his chest, Graduation is the album where he finally addresses himself as he stands in present time.
That means this is West's most defensive and reactionary album. He indulges his fascination with his haters (his words, not mine). The pointed jabs pop up all over like rappers facing gun charges in New York City: "People talk so much shit about me in barbershops/ They forget to get their haircut" on "Everything I Am"; "Take six, and take this/ Haters," on "Stronger"; "These haters be killing they self" on "The Glory"; and so on.
The most telling moment over the course of Graduation's 55 minutes doesn't happen during any song. It's when the effervescent, T-Pain-assisted "Good Life" — easily Kanye's most outwardly jubilant song to date — transitions into "Can't Tell Me Nothing," a song that shoots first and asks questions later.
You get the feeling that he's always interrupting his good time to squabble with naysayers. This is also the first West album with nearly distinct halves.
The first half features the best songs — "Champion" and "Good Life" among them — and the knockout single ("Stronger"), but it's the second half — where the instrumentation devolves into spare synth and piano arpeggios — that sees West turning the dartboard solely on himself.
"Everything I Am" is a near point-by-point critique, "Homecoming" addresses his place in his hometown of Chicago and "Big Brother" airs out his relationship with mentor Jay-Z.
Graduation cements West's status as the defining artist of our generation, one who's best understood in his own words.
So I could tell you that Graduation is another near-classic from a lovable megalomaniac, but West says it better anyway: "Can I talk my shit again/ Even if I don't hit again?/ Dawg, are you fucking kidding?"
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