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Band/Musician: Kanye West Album: 808s & Heartbreak Label: Roc-A-Fella Records/Island Def Jam Music Group By Adrian Lee Right now, it's really easy to hate Kanye West. It's also incredibly hard. Here's why: Kanye West is the hottest emcee in the game right now, for better or for worse. He doesn't come as strong lyrically as a Lupe Fiasco or a Lil Wayne, and it's hard to deny that the Louis Vuitton Don isn't more style than substance. Still, he's the biggest selling ticket in hip-hop, which you may have noticed when he put on the Glow on the Dark Tour, which although was reportedly transcendent in many ways, amounts to this reviewer as Yeezy's self-indulgent fluorescent masturbatory aid. But there's no denying that he's right on a lot of fronts. Like it or not, his beat-making tends to define the industry, from his trademark sampling of old jazz tunes to the electro synth boasted on his hit single, "Stronger." He's made swagger a key part of any up-and-coming rapper's arsenal. He even called out Justin Timberlake for sitting on his laurels. Now, Kanye gets ready to put out 808s & Heartbreak, just a little over a year after his previous album, Graduation. And if it feels like it was just yesterday that Graduation hit the shelves, it's probably because DJs and radio stations aren't even remotely done playing its tracks. So if there's one thing Kanye isn't afraid to do, it's to push the envelope of what's acceptable in hip-hop, which has its fill of spiritual leaders, but has desperately needed a hands-on revolutionary one. But 808s & Heartbreak isn't a direction I want to hear hip-hop going in. Ever since "Love Lockdown" (the new album’s lead single) was leaked and played in full force at the 2008 Grammys, music bloggers have been hinting the fall of Kanye West. Hinting because – for all the reasons above – people gave him the benefit of the doubt. “Maybe it's just this one track,” we said, until another one was leaked. And then another. And then another. Repeat, then rinse. The earthy tribal drums of "Love Lockdown" permeate the entire album, making their appearance on five of the eleven songs. Many of those songs feature minimalist dribblings of piano keys, if not the high yet somehow muted crashes of synth. It's a catchy blend, but it's boring. Not even boring in the sparkling plasticky way of a MIMS or a Soulja Boy, but the sort of boring you can play in a velvet-wrapped study while reading War and Peace. "Heartless" is perhaps the album's most exciting song, and it still plods along. And while the duet between Kanye and Lil' Wayne comes with high expectations, I can't listen to "I'll See You In My Knightmares" and think it's anything less than a plodding, repetitive circle jerk between the two kings of the Auto-Tune rap game. Staid. Non-threatening. And ultimately unimpressive. And yes, I know Kanye's hurting (and you can tell it from all of these tracks), and I definitely won't begrudge him that – his mother passed away in November, 2007, and in 2008, he ended his year-long engagement with designer Alexis Phifer. The emotion on the album is a stunning and positive change of pace for an artist that over his previous three albums, seemed intent to give the impression of absolute and impenetrable cool. “This is the other side of Kanye West,” he says, doing it without any of the two-disc pretension of a Nelly (Suit/Sweat) or a Beyonce ("I Am/Sasha Fierce). The problem is that when you sit in the pole position, molding a genre in your own image, you cannot afford to be so subjective with what you produce. Except for perhaps an increase of Auto-Tune singers, the tribal-electric sound of 808s & Heartbreak is not a sound that hip-hop can imitate and grow from. It's an exposition of deep emotions that are self-indulgent, and because of that, we can't indulge in it with him. Quite simply, Kanye West has put out a Fallout Boy album of his own individual heartbreaks, slapped on some Auto-Tune, and called it the future of hip-hop. It's not that there aren't high points – Lil Wayne almost salvages their collaboration with his verse, and “Welcome to Heartbreak" features some complex instrumentation. Unfortunately, chances are we're going to listen to these songs a lot in the next little while, and they're going to grow on us, in spite of ourselves. But like the late Bernie Mac said on Kanye's second album: Wake up, Mr. West. |