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'808s & Heartbreak' delivers emotion, innovation to hip-hop with album about love
By Edward Paik
Posted: 12/2/08, 3:15 AM EST Section: Decibel
The decline of hip-hop has been affected by the genre's fading generation. As iconic rappers from the '90s disappear in influence, hip-hop needs change.
Kanye West's new album, "808s & Heartbreak," is at the forefront - a lead to a new generation of hip-hop albums and artists.
"808s & Heartbreak" is all about love. And West's successful first single, "Love Lockdown," proves hip-hop fans are listening.
But West's new album also takes something from the past.
Not since LL Cool J rapped "I Need Love" off his 1987 double-platinum record, "Bigger and Deffer," has a top-charted rapper fused hip-hop and relationships.
No influential East Coast rapper from the last decade has chosen to sing rather than rap as West does here, albeit with the aid of an auto-tune that can distort his voice and realign its pitches.
Those two things - auto-tune and a "love" album - could give a rapper a bad rap. But hip-hop needs this.
When West released his debut album, "The College Dropout," in 2004, critics called his style more spoken word than rap. West picked up the college-kid concept, carrying the backpack for three albums, until his third album, "Graduation," in 2007. In every album, fans could expect something old and something different.
His latest album will, like his others, create a sense of nostalgia. You can remember when or where you first heard a Kanye album. You feel his rap if you can relate, and love is a common thing. But his tendencies to exert an ego, to rhyme words with the same words, to make you laugh and say, "That's true" about the money, clothes and schoolwork he raps about are all gone.
"808s & Heartbreak" is both something different and something old. His avant-garde production of beats remains, revisiting orchestration found in his sophomore release "Late Registration" and the hard-hitting bass of "Graduation." But this time, the backpack is gone.
The songs on "808s" seem retrospective to his previous works. In "Welcome to Heartbreak," he sings: "Chased the good life, all my life long/Look back on my life, all my life gone/Where did I go wrong?"
Kanye West's new album, "808s & Heartbreak," is at the forefront - a lead to a new generation of hip-hop albums and artists.
"808s & Heartbreak" is all about love. And West's successful first single, "Love Lockdown," proves hip-hop fans are listening.
But West's new album also takes something from the past.
Not since LL Cool J rapped "I Need Love" off his 1987 double-platinum record, "Bigger and Deffer," has a top-charted rapper fused hip-hop and relationships.
No influential East Coast rapper from the last decade has chosen to sing rather than rap as West does here, albeit with the aid of an auto-tune that can distort his voice and realign its pitches.
Those two things - auto-tune and a "love" album - could give a rapper a bad rap. But hip-hop needs this.
When West released his debut album, "The College Dropout," in 2004, critics called his style more spoken word than rap. West picked up the college-kid concept, carrying the backpack for three albums, until his third album, "Graduation," in 2007. In every album, fans could expect something old and something different.
His latest album will, like his others, create a sense of nostalgia. You can remember when or where you first heard a Kanye album. You feel his rap if you can relate, and love is a common thing. But his tendencies to exert an ego, to rhyme words with the same words, to make you laugh and say, "That's true" about the money, clothes and schoolwork he raps about are all gone.
"808s & Heartbreak" is both something different and something old. His avant-garde production of beats remains, revisiting orchestration found in his sophomore release "Late Registration" and the hard-hitting bass of "Graduation." But this time, the backpack is gone.
The songs on "808s" seem retrospective to his previous works. In "Welcome to Heartbreak," he sings: "Chased the good life, all my life long/Look back on my life, all my life gone/Where did I go wrong?"
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kanyelover
posted 12/17/08 @ 3:57 AM EST
The design of the article was freaking sweet.
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