If you wanted a song that depicted Kanye at his most vulnerable- if you can ever describe him as that – it’s probably this one. For the background, he had split up with his girlfriend – who then went out with Wiz Khalifa – and was feeling all these emotions that he could only put into song.
Firstly, he raps about ‘gripping’ the girl in question up, ‘fucking’ and ‘choking’ her and then the next minute he’s broken down singing ‘I can’t love you this much’. I put that in a rather simple way but I can’t go through it all with you. That would take too much time. You’ve got rapgenius for that.
The song also features a skit about five minutes into the song, spoken by the one and only Chris Rock. The things he says are very funny, but in context with the song it’s quite tragic.
Surely you can spend seven and a half minutes of your time for this? Surely?
That’s probably one of the funniest verses I’ve heard in a long time. Kanye West, at the moment, feels like he cannot be touched. He’s got a hot wife, he’s a father. Things are looking up for him.
What better way to show his good life off to everyone then, by writing about that (amongst other topics that interest him) in his new album, “Yeezus“?
I like Kanye West’s music. Seems like forever ago when he first came out with “Through the Wire” and seemed like a modest man who, after surviving a life threatening car crash, wanted to show the world that he wasn’t just a great producer but could handle his own material. With an album title such as “Yeezus”, we now see how far this ‘modest man’ has come.
“Yeezus” came as a real surprise to me. Let me tell you why. I knew it was his next album title, and then found reports about his new song “New Slaves” being shown on the sides of buildings around the world. That was around Springtime/early Summer. So I thought, “Well, it must be next year that the album will come.” That was until my friend told me that it would be released in only a few days time. Oh…. SHHHIIIIIII-
No way! The new Kanye album’s coming! Ah man. I couldn’t wait. That was until the album leaked, and the same friend sent me the link through Facebook. I was all over that shit. I couldn’t handle it!
That’s where “Black Skinhead” comes in. After being impressed by “On Sight”, “Black Skinhead came in with those thumping tom-toms and I knew that some hard stuff was about to go down. One thing that struck me about the album was how loud it was, but it came to good effect on this song. This song has to be played loud. It’s Kanye’s theme song.
After listening to it multiple times now, it doesn’t feel the same as it did on that first listen. It’s definitely a highlight though.
WARNING: This video has been identified by Epilepsy Action to potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.
Please take heed of that warning, seriously.
‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’, the fifth album by Kanye West. The one which received positive reviews from every music magazine and website you could imagine. The one with the controversial artwork. The one which had a film released along with it. The one that gave rise to memes such as ‘Yeezy taught me’, ‘No one man should have all that flour’ and ‘Let’s have a toast to the douchebags’. What made it so good?
Well, it was his first album after 808s & Heartbreak, for a start.
But real talk, it was the return of a Kanye (the rapper) that the world had never witnessed before. Remember what he did to Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs? Yeah, well no one liked him after that. Beyoncé was shocked, Pink was outraged, even the President had a few words to say about him.
So what did Kanye do? He only went into some sort of exile to Hawaii and recorded his, arguably, best work of ALL TIME. ALL TIME.
‘All of the Lights’ is preceded by its short interlude, a cello/violin and a piano play the melody of the intro. Then the main song starts, “ALL OF THE LIGHTS”, triumphant horns set up the scene, a crescendo of strings build up the mood, Rihanna sings the post-chorus, “Turn up the lights in here baby etc etc.” Then the beat kicks in, and it’s just awesome from then on.
The song kicks arse. It’s a highlight for me from the album. It’s just the rapid drums and bass, the horns, Kanye’s rhymes and delivery. It’s such an adrenaline rush, I don’t think anyone could sit calmly in a chair and bob their heads. No! You’re headbanging, you do a forward roll and you flail about when there’s no one else in the room with the lights flickering on and off. That’s what you do!
Another thing that’s great about the song is also the number of guests he gets on it. No, this song doesn’t just feature Rihanna. You’ve got Kid Cudi in the first bridge, “Getting myyyyyyyyyyyyy eh, you should go and get your oowwwwwwwwwwwwn,” Fergie-Ferg from the Black Eyed Peas in the second bridge, Alicia Keys AND Elton John at the end, and even La Roux. La Roux! How? Why? When?
The song just gives off a sense of glory. “Lights, Cop lights, flash lights, spot lights, strobe lights, street lights, ALL OF THE LIGHTS ALL OF THE LIGHTS, fast life, drug life, thug life, Roc life, every night, ALL OF THE LIGHTS.” If you don’t have ‘MBDTF’, I suggest you get it. It is probably one of the best hip hop albums released in the last five years. Who even likes Taylor Swift now anyway? Until next time. Jamie.
You may not have thought that this would happen due to the types of songs that I have blogged about already…. and because of the fact that he can be quite the douchebag.
But you have to admit, that douchebag can make some good hits. Mhm mhm.
‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ may be the people’s favourite of his work; for me ‘Late Registration’ and ‘The College Dropout’ remind me of those good times when he wasn’t that egotistical, and when I liked music that played on the radio and Top of the Pops.
That was only 5 or 6 years ago, so what the fuck happened?! I barely like anything that’s in the charts now.
My sister got Late Registration around the time that it had been recently released. She really liked ‘Gold Digger’, so she went to Woolworths and got it one day.
I didn’t like hip hop so much when I was ten. All of my albums that I actually owned were mostly indie stuff, and Green Day was the band that I was really into then. American Idiot was the shit, man. Especially when I was ten.
‘We Major‘ and ‘Drive Slow‘ aren‘t on my iPod, but my sister would blast those songs out of the computer speakers endlessly. The singles, ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone‘, ‘Gold Digger’, ‘Touch the Sky‘ and ‘Heard ‘em Say’, I had obviouslyalready seen or heard.
It was when I started my YouTube channelthat I reallypaid to all of the songs on Late Registration. Hardly any of the songs by Kanye West were on the site, (this was back in 2008), so I took it upon myself to upload the album onto the site.
‘Addiction’ is about well…….. what do you think?
“Why everything that’s s’pose to be bad, make me feel so gooood? Everything they told me not to is exactly what I woooould. I tried to stop, man, I tried the best I could but yoooooou (make me smiiiiiiiiiiile)”
That‘s another thing too. It‘s got a great sample. Kanye is known for a lot of sampling. A lot.And this is one out of a million that works really well. And sampling can go baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
Until next time.
Jamie.
P.S. Don’t be afraid to share with friends on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network. I will love you if you do. Need more recognition for no money whatsoever.
The Music in My Ears 
