While André 3000 popularized the duality of the rapper/singer hybrid, Kanye engaged with the art of singing with a fortitude that made up for his lack of technique. He wasn’t a rapper anymore but a cyborg possessed, taking on a more autonomous persona, and one way of evoking the void was to sing through it. Kanye’s awareness of '80s synthpop auteurs like Gary Numan and New Order, and their ability to convey the rhapsody of feeling through austere minimalism, drove much of the album. He eschewed bravado and a “lifestyles of the rich and famous” tenet altogether, his focus being the projection of real human emotions - flaws and all. He’d be somber, soulful, problematic, exasperating and, at times, melodramatic - sometimes all at once. On 808s & Heartbreak, Kanye consciously made the decision to present himself as an all-encompassing force.
KANYE 808S AND HEARTBREAK SUIT FREE
Wayne employed autotune in his vocal delivery, setting the precedent for an eventual untethering of hip-hop from its roots and for its new antecedent, Kanye, to free himself further from tradition, thriving instead as an unruly modernizer. Where Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III - the most commercially successful album of 2008 - was emblematic of the swagger and braggadocio that demarcated the genre, it was also a personal, unconventional and brazen listen. The emotional centerpiece of the record lies in a rendition of Tears for Fears’ “Memories Fade ” Kanye’s version, titled "Coldest Winter," served as fervent farewell to the two most important women in his life, the refrain “I will never love again” hitting the quixotic in us right in the chest, the sorrow heightened by swells of strings enrapturing the listener through a sci-fi opera.Ī projection of vulnerability in the pursuit of realness reflected the changing tides in mainstream hip-hop. The resulting record was essentially a very raw, public declaration of grief, elucidating Kanye’s inner monologue in ways few rappers had before him. To fans of Kanye’s earlier material, 808s & Heartbreak was too amorphous, shunning aspirational storytelling for a soundscape that luxuriated in a bleak and morose worldview. Some critics berated the album Rolling Stone described it as a "noble failure,” NME dubbed it "woe-is-me slush" and NPR’s critic called for “Emcees to know their limitations” in the wake of Kanye’s foray into singing. In an era that preceded the social media boom, the response to 808s & Heartbreak was vociferous, many listeners averse to the divergence in sound. A victim of his own ascent, the level of infamy that marred the 808s campaign - from pre-production to his vilification during the 2009 Video Music Awards – resembled a pandemonium. However, this signifier of commercial success in a recession-addled era belied the beginnings of his demise.
Many expected his winning streak to continue, banking on another instant classic, and when 808s & Heartbreak, released in the fall of 2008, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard 200 selling just under half a million records, his streak of consecutive hits was lauded. He ventured much further down the outré path he was signaling on Graduation, synthesizing his hip-hop DNA with the pulse of pop-punk and electro-infused pop.įrom his debut The College Dropout to 2007’s Graduation, West had released a triumvirate of uber-successful records that cemented his role as a progressive rap progenitor. He took the biggest gamble of his already eminent career with 808s, throwing caution to the wind and effectively redefining who Kanye was as an artist.
Kanye’s fourth LP was predicated around a philosophy of reinvention, risk, and rebirth - arguably no hip-hop artist had enacted a sharp pivot on this gargantuan level before.
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