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Music Monday : Kanye West - All of the Lights.
Kanye West’s highly anticipated new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy drops in a week. I have always been a Kanye fan, so I am excited to pick this up for myself. So far there has been universal critical acclaim for the album, saying that this is “the first album in which he’s truly lived up to his potential in every way - as a rapper, as a lyricist, as a songwriter” and “Listening to Fantasy is like watching Jordan in his prime. Comparing him to other rappers is pointless: there are other guys with much more technically-sound flows, but nobody else possesses the combination of hubris, imagination, neuroticism, and drive it takes to make a record like this.”The song highlighted today is probably my favorite on the album. I love it. The horns, the lyrics, the piano intro by Elton John, all of it. Although it features heavyweights such as John Legend, The Dream, Ryan Leslie, Tony Williams, Charlie Wilson, Elly Jackson, Alicia Keys, Fergie, Kid Cudi, Rihanna, and even Elton John, none of them really have their own verse, coming in on hooks and short lines only, and are not even listed as featured artists on the track. Most of the song is rapped and sung by Kanye himself and I think this truly embodies his persona in every way. This is about him. This is his song. This is his world, and we are all just living in it. You can’t even call what he does as ambitious, because he truly believes that he is capable of making the best song, and being the best musician alive. He’s not just a rapper, he is a Rock N Roll star. You can hate the fact that he thinks he’s the greatest, but you can’t hate the fact that he is accomplishing what he sets out to do. How many people can actually say they are the best, and actually are? He does what he wants and he loves doing it. Some say that art comes from struggle and pain, for Kanye it seems that it comes from the things he loves and enjoys. Even though “everybody knows he’s a motherfucking monster,” his Twitter shows that he is very humble and shameful of his mistakes, and that he loves his fans almost more than he loves himself.
