Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Def Jam

To understand why My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy earns its title, sounds both sensuously epic and a bit of a dick joke, and manages to combine deep melancholy and triumphant hubris into a stunningly intense experience, let’s backtrack to Kanye West’s debut, 2003’s The College Dropout. On “Never Let Me Down,” Kanye multi-tracked John Legend and Tracie Spencer’s backing vocals into a full-blown gospel chorus as he ruminated on how his parents participated in lunch counter sit-ins during the civil rights movement, and how that legacy made him different. “Niggas can’t make it to ballots to choose leadership/ But we can make it to Jacob’s and to the dealership/ That’s why I hear new music and I just don’t be feeling it,” he rapped. Matched against Kanye’s earnestness, Jay-Z’s Cristal-stained boasts were woefully out of place.

Seven years later, Kanye has become another errant choir boy. His religious upbringing and Black History Month studies help him make outrageous claims of being a pharaoh, a deity similar to Allah himself. “Malcolm West had the whole nation standing at attention,” he claims on “Power.” He speaks about light-skinned girls as if they were new Bentleys to be licked and humped. (Cue R. Kelly’s “You Remind of My Jeep.”) And suddenly, Jay Hova himself sounds right at home. He murders “Monster.” Even Rick Ross, who repeats his familiar shtick of personifying big-balling hustlers on “Devil in a New Dress,” is apropos to this tall tale of adult children lost in a world of designer clothes, luxury vehicles and scantily-clad women, with TMZ and Gawker keeping score. Brilliantly, Kanye couches these fantasies in a hip-hop context. By inviting the aforementioned plus the RZA, Pusha T, Swizz Beatz, Raekwon and Kid Cudi, he demonstrates that materialism and hubris are essential to understanding hip-hop culture as it is lived, if not necessarily how Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa first envisioned it. As Pusha T says on “Runaway,” “I’m just young, rich and tasteless.”

Nicki Minaj shows up on “Monster” as well, and for “Dark Fantasy,” she playfully impersonating a wide-eyed British schoolgirl spouting Hogwarts cadences. Still, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an Alpha male’s vision of social mores and sexuality. On “Blame Game,” Kanye retraces the loneliness and despair of his last album, 2008’s 808s and Heartbreak, but this time his sadness has turned to bitterness. “Been a long time since I spoke to you/ In the bathroom gripping you up, fucking and choking you,” he raps before transmuting his voice into an angry growl a la Prince’s “Bob George.” John Legend chimes in with the chorus, “I’ll call you bitch for short,” and Chris Rock ends it by impersonating the new boyfriend of Kanye’s ex, and delivers a minutes-long appreciation of Kanye’s “training” skills. Only the end of “Runaway” beats “Blame Game” in self-indulgence, thanks to Kanye collapsing his “toast for the douchebags” refrain into an Auto-Tuned crying jag. Our little “Monster” seemingly can’t handle real emotional pain. He’s much better at ogling the “American Apparel girl” in “Gorgeous.”

Kanye supports his sexist overtures with perhaps his finest rap performance to date. It’s thrilling to hear him rip through “Gorgeous” with scientific precision: “This pimp is at the top of Mount Olympus/ Ready for the world’s games, this is my Olympics/ We make ‘em say ‘ho’ because the game’s so pimpish.” But, as always, his conscience re-emerges, and he wavers. “What’s a black Beatle anyway, a fucking roach?” he asks, seemingly retreating from stadium rock greatness. Then, tellingly, he sloughs off his ambitions with another lament. “It’s been a while since I watched the tube/ ‘Cause like a Crip said, I got way too many blues for some more bad news.”

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy may be an angry and conflicted work, yet it pales next to 50 Cent at his most brutishly cutthroat, Jay-Z at his most cunningly precise, or Scarface at his most laconic and murderous. Kanye will always lose in the hardcore sweepstakes. He is doomed to play Hamlet, a prince too despondent to assume his place on the throne. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s coda is “Lost in the World,” and it’s eerily reminiscent of Stevie Wonder’s “Another Star.” “Let’s break out of this wack-ass party and turn it into a classic night/ If we die in each other’s arms, we’ll get laid in the afterlife.” It’s not the first time Kanye brings up the subject of death; on “Power,” he ends by saying, “This would be a beautiful death/ I’m jumping out the window/ And letting everything go.”

Near its end, “Lost in the World” drifts into a lengthy excerpt from Gil Scott-Heron’s 1960s spoken-word piece “Comment #1,” re-titled here as “Who Will Survive in America?” Scott-Heron rails in bravely didactic fashion against our country’s bloody history, and our hypocrisy towards personal freedom and democratic ideals. The piece’s inclusion leads to the question of why Kanye would eschew revolutionary suicide for a career of nouveau riche celebrity and petty rituals of conspicuous consumption. But don’t we all want to be young and rich? My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy may tally the high price of fame, but most of us would gladly pay it.

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This essay was posted November 22 on the Rhapsody SoundBoard blog.

“Love Lockdown” is the latest stylistic shift from Kanye West. It’s a predictable move similar to West’s prior co-opt of French electro-house (“Stronger,” ironically just months after his beef with Justice) and Portishead-style downtempo (“Diamonds from Sierra Leone”). This one builds on the craze for autotunin’ and the-Dream’s syllabic riffs. It follows West’s guest shot on Jeezy’s “Put On,” where he tries to replicate T-Pain’s vocoder magic with surprisingly powerful results.

Much like his mentor Jay-Z, West is widely misunderstood as an innovator when, in fact, he’s a stylist who builds other people’s innovations into his own style. The fact that people tend to copy his interpretations rather than the original is a testament to his power as an artist. And yeah, it’s a cliche that all great rap artists want to be singers, so of course West is singing on this one. But the most remarkable thing about “Love Lockdown” is that, for all its derivatives, it works. West has an uncanny ability to locate the emotional center of a song and enhance it. In that sense, he exemplifies the best of hip hop — making something new out of something borrowed — and its inherent pop crossover potential.

I’m not sure who the director is, but the video is incredibly evocative, turning West’s pain from the breakup with longtime girlfriend Alexis Rainey into a colorful modern-primitive drama.

“Love Lockdown” is the first single from 808′s and Heartbreak, which drops November 25 on Def Jam.

Dubbed the “Glow in the Dark Tour” and co-sponsored by Absolut Vodka, the North American jaunt will further West’s ambition of becoming the first hip-hop stadium artist. The list of stars who can successfully sell out stadiums is short and ever-shrinking, so his Quixote-like quest may be quixotic at best. Still, with four hit singles and a double-platinum album in Graduation, West is well positioned to draw tens of thousands of people to his concerts.

To help gather a profitable amount of teenyboppers, suburban thugs and backpackers, West has assembled a killer opening line-up: “Umbrella” girl Rihanna, N.E.R.D., and Lupe Fiasco. Wow! Aren’t you excited? Check below and see if your city made the itinerary. (May 31 update: The itinerary has been updated.)

• 4/16: Key Arena, Seattle, WA
• 4/18: ARCO Arena, Sacramento, CA
• 4/19: HP Pavilion, San Jose, CA
• 4/20: Sports Arena, San Diego, CA
• 4/21: Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
• 4/24: McKale Auditorium, Tucson, AZ
• 4/25: Red Rocks Casino, Las Vegas, NV
• 4/26: Journal Pavilion, Albuquerque, NM
• 4/27: Pepsi Center, Denver , CO
• 4/28: Ford Center, Oklahoma City, OK
• 4/30: Frank Irwin Center, Austin, TX
• 5/01: Superpages.com Center, Dallas, TX
• 5/02: Mitchell Pavilion, Houston, TX
• 5/04: Gwinnett Arena, Atlanta, GA
• 5/05: Ford Amphitheatre, Tampa, FL
• 5/06: Cruzan Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, FL
• 5/08: Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, Charlotte, NC
• 5/09: Walnut Creek, Raleigh, NC
• 5/10: Nissan Pavilion, Bristow, VA
• 5/11: Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, Virginia Beach, VA
• 5/13: Madison Square Garden, New York , NY
• 5/15: Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA
• 5/16: North East Dodge Music Center, Hartford, CT
• 5/17: Susquehana Bank Center, Philadelphia, PA
• 5/18: Toyota Pavilion, Scranton, PA
• 5/20: Bell Centre, Montreal, QC
• 5/21: Molson Centre, Toronto, ON
• 5/22: Palace of Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills, MI
• 5/23: United Center, Chicago, IL
• 5/24: Target Center, Minneapolis, MN
• 5/27: Credit Union Centre, Saskatoon, SK
• 5/29: Rexall Palace, Edmonton, AB
• 5/30: Saddledome, Calgary, AB
• 6/02: GM Place, Vancouver, BC
• 6/03: Rose Garden, Portland, OR
• 6/05: Reno Events Center, Reno, NV
• 6/06: HP Pavilion, San Jose, CA
• 6/07: Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA
• 6/08: Jobing.com Arena, Phoenix, AZ
• 6/09: E Center, Salt Lake City, UT
• 6/11: Target Center, Minneapolis, MN
• 6/12: I Wireless Center, Moline, IL
• 6/13: U.S. Bank Arena, Cincinnati, OH
• 6/14: Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN
• 8/01: Grant Park, Chicago, IL
• 8/09: Pimlico Race Course, Baltimore, MD

4/16-6/13: w/Rihanna, N.E.R.D., Lupe Fiasco
6/14: Bonnaroo
8/01: Lollapalooza
8/09: Virgin Mobile Festival

Plug One review: Kanye West, Graduation

www.kanyeuniversecity.com
www.myspace.com/kanyewest

Kanye West
Graduation
Roc-A-Fella

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

As the saying goes, you can graduate from school, but you can’t graduate from life. Famously, Kanye West never got beyond his first year in college. So Graduation ostensibly represents his matriculation of the industry, an evolution from talented prodigy into full-blown superstardom.

In keeping with current pop trends for all things electro/disco, West’s music has turned glossy and opaque. “Flashing Lights,” which its lovely Larry Gold string arrangements and staccato keyboard melody, could be an artifact from the Puff Daddy shiny-suit era. Thankfully, West has mostly dispensed with the florid gospel-like choirs that made Late Registration feel like an overlong sermon. He still uses them in key spots to give his personal drama a religious-like pomposity — on “The Glory,” he speeds them up so that they sound like angels singing his praises. For the most part, however, he sings his praises himself.

West’s bratty bourgeois aspirations are a matter of record. It was the tension between his hunger for fame and fortune and his socio-political awareness that made his debut The College Dropout wonderfully complex. His thoughts on the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe once made national news. Here, they’ve been reduced to a throway line, and to mere subtext: “I can’t study war,” rings the angelic chorus on “The Glory.” Meanwhile, he focuses on his manhood, and how he’s so attractive that he pulls “dykes.” “I’d do anything for a blond dyke/And she’ll do anything for the limelight,” he says on “Stronger,” noting how his manhood can magically convert lesbians into Kanye-loving hoes.

Always an uneven rapper — he’s never been able to twist verbs like T.I. and Lil Wayne or had a voice as memorable as Cam’ron — West used to get by with his passionate conviction and a commitment to deep lyricism that seemed refreshingly old-school. Even his soft-porn dreams and egomaniacal overtures would be more compelling if his lyrics on Graduation weren’t so lazily composed. It often sounds like he’s reading from a copy of Complex and recounting the contents of his shopping bags.

Two of the best tracks, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” and “Big Brother,” are produced by DJ Toomp, who lays down an eerie techno-orchestral background for West’s narratives. These are his best rhymes on the album. The latter is a stylishly earnest recounting of his relationship with “big brother” Jay-Z, and “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” equates monetary wealth with having God-like power: “If the devil wear Prada and Adam Eve wear nada I’m in between but way more fresher.” As noxious as those sentiments may be, they’re vividly rendered depictions of American money lust. If only the rest of his verses on the album were just as interesting. On “Everything I Am,” he attempts to return to the social consciousness of old, and offers a line — “I need to talk to somebody pastor/The church want tithes, so I can’t afford to pay” — that sounds ridiculous considering that he bragged of having earned the “I Got the Most Cheese Award” only a few seconds before.

Graduation isn’t a bad album. In addition to the aforementioned two tracks, there’s “Good Morning,” “Champion,” and a handful of other knockers that bang. But it’s crass and corporate, too. Like a newly-capped graduate facing a mountain of student loan bills, West has grown obsessed with his success and the haters who shadow him, trying to take it away from him. “Wait til’ I get my money right,” he says. “Then you can’t tell me nothing, right?”

West may be a superstar, but he also seems small-minded. Throughout Graduation, he hoards his possessions, his emotions, his ideas, his personality. He gives you a glimpse of his wallet and his clothes, and offers little sound-bites for the TV cameras, before disappearing behind the flashing lights. But if he really had his money right, he could afford to be a little more generous.

I wish that I cared more about the SoundScan charts. If I did, then Plug One would have been one of the hundreds of thousands of websites that gleefully announced Kanye West’s opening week numbers for Graduation on Wednesday morning, September 19. (In fact, Billboard announced the news on the Tuesday night beforehand; SoundScan numbers are usually announced on Wednesdays.) Unfortunately, I don’t. But it’s hard to escape the implications of West’s achievement.

Graduation moved 957,000 copies in its first week. It was the most CDs sold by an artist since 50 Cent’s The Massacre moved 1.1 million units in March 2005. Graduation‘s sales dropped 76 percent the following week, but still managed to move 226,000 copies.

To his credit, West executed Graduation‘s pre-release promotion strategy flawlessly. He issued a teaser single, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” that won him respect among hardcore adherents and mixtape DJs; and then cleaned up with “Stronger,” which sailed to the top of the singles chart. “Stronger” capitalized on the burgeoning popularity of Daft Punk, which may be this year’s version of the Pixies (a.k.a. a band that builds its comeback through buzzworthy shows.) Then he milked the attention with countless “leaked” versions of the album and conflicting tracklistings, as well as more acclaimed mixtape cuts (such as “Big Brother.”)

Graduation, however, won’t be a real triumph unless it can reach the sales figures of the likes of Nickelback, Fergie and the High School Musical soundtracks. Those albums might not garner much media or critical attention, but they have shelf lives longer than the bloggerati’s short attention span.

West’s first two albums both earned multiplatinum discs, but didn’t reach sales expectations for different reasons. The College Dropout had a bevy of hit singles, but Roc-A-Fella wasn’t sure how to promote it. In contrast, Late Registration only had one legitimate smash single, the “Gold Digger” collabo with Jamie Foxx, so despite a better promotion strategy it went triple platinum, barely surpassing The College Dropout’s tally (double platinum). Hate on 50 Cent all you want, but West will be hard-pressed to match the sales total of 50′s The Massacre (six times platinum), much less Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (five times platinum), unless he can better extend his brand beyond his loyal fanbase. And then there’s the problem of downloading…

Will Graduation tumble to the bottom of the charts, as so many other rap albums do after a hot start? Or will West finally have the bonanza sales to match his big-man talk? Stay tuned.

www.kanyewestuniversity.com
www.myspace.com/kanyewest

Yes, I know that I’m extremely late in posting the news about Kanye West’s third album (although, like everyone else, I’ve been writing about it all year.) At this point, a whirlwind of hype and buzz has already enveloped Graduation.

One of the tracks, “Stronger,” sits on the Billboard top ten singles chart. Another, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” gets constant airplay in urban markets. Two more, “Big Brother” and “Barry Bonds,” are mixshow favorites. Meanwhile, 50 Cent, perhaps in a bid to pump up his failing fortunes, has announced that his Curtis dud will compete for the number one slot when both discs arrive on September 11. Even lame country singer Kenny Chesney has joined in the fun.

All of this fake noise is to ensure that West’s Graduation actually goes platinum; alarmingly, it would only be the second hip-hop album released this year to do so. Place your bets, Soundscan nerds! The track listing is below.

• 1. “Good Morning”
• 2. “Champion”
• 3. “Stronger”
• 4. “I Wonder”
• 5. “Good Life” (feat. T-Pain)
• 6. “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”
• 7. “Barry Bonds” (feat. Lil Wayne)
• 8. “Drunk & Hot Girls” (feat. Mos Def)
• 9. “Flashing Lights” (feat. Dwele)
• 10. “Everything I Am” (feat. DJ Premier)
• 11. “The Glory”
• 12. “Homecoming” (feat. Chris Martin)
• 13. “Big Brother”
• 14. “Good Night” (feat. Mos Def & Al Be)
• 15. “Bittersweet Poetry” (feat. John Mayer)

www.kanyewest.com
www.myspace.com/kanyewest

Well, it’s not even the end of May yet and the hype machine is revving up for Kanye West’s much-anticipated third album.

According to Island Def Jam via an MTV.com report, West’s Graduation will drop in September of this year. A Billboard.com story reported that a teaser cut produced by DJ Toomp, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” has already leaked online in snippet form. Other anticipated cuts include “Homecoming” with Coldplay leader Chris Martin (who the New York Times’ Jon Pareles memorably called “the most insufferable band in rock”) and “The Glory.”

As if the prospect of dropping another mega album wasn’t enough, the most arrogant man in hip-hop is claiming major credit for two upcoming opuses, Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III and Common’s Finding Forever. (West’s work on Common’s first single, “Say Something,” has already found major favor with the bloggerati.) Apologies for my snarkiness…but when you’re confronted with someone as supremely talented and confident as West, you’re going to make sure he meets the bar. Regardless of how good it is (or isn’t), though, I have to admit that West gets a ghetto pass for life for dissing President George W. Bush on national TV.

“I’m graduating from a school called ‘Universe City,’ ” West told MTV.com while in full Jesus mode. “I think the sound is bigger this time. It’s bigger and simpler, where the notes really connect with you and I say lines … I know the power of my words, so when I rap, I know it’s gonna impact the world. I know I’m gonna be performing anywhere from the Summer Jam stage [at New Jersey's Giants Stadium] to [New York nightclub] Speed to the House of Blues in L.A., to London to Brazil to Ireland. … I’m making music for somebody sitting in a car on their way to work trying to get through traffic and my music is helping them zone out, to a 60,000-seater where I’m opening up for the Rolling Stones or U2. I’m not talking about you two — I’m talking about U2 the group. Like I say, ‘Why would I do a song with you two when I just got offstage with U2? I’m not even talking to you two.’ That’s how I feel.”

www.kanyewest.com
www.myspace.com/kanyewest

Kanye West photo by Sarah A. Friedman.

I don’t care that Kanye West is making a show with Seinfeld’s producers or is throwing some temper tantrum at a European awards show (although Justice’s comeback was pretty funny). I let the pop culture dorks document his flipping-out-brat antics. But Kanye West actually earning a living by making new music? That’s news to me.

Yep, Kanye is back in the studio working on what will eventually be called Graduation, the third chapter in his ongoing advanced education saga. According to a recent story on Billboard.com, the album is already slated to feature every mainstream rapper’s favorite rocker, Chris Martin of Coldplay, whom will star on the tentative first single “Homecoming.” (Past artists in the “mainstream rapper’s favorite rocker” position include John Mayer, Alanis Morissette, Limp Bizkit, etc.) Also featured is multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, who helped produce Kanye’s Late Registration. Hopefully Graduation won’t be as over-produced as that chestnut, which mistook The College Dropout‘s grace and elegance for histrionic pretension.

But hey, enough sarcasm. Though he sometimes overdoes it, Kanye West is a great artist, one of the best of the new millennium, making his third album a major event. Graduation is tentatively scheduled for later this year — probably late summer/fall.

Incidentally, Kanye recently announced that he’s remixing a track by Fall Out Boy. But I’m more interested in “I Still Love H.E.R.,” his new single with A Bathing Ape icon Nigo’s group Teriyaki Boyz. Of course, the minute the song hit the Web, some geeks took out the Boyz’ Japanese rapping and just left Kanye’s verse. Whenever something cool happens, the Internet finds a way to shit on it.

The original video, originally found via Spine Magazine, is below.

(January 28, 2009): Video re-posted!