<i>Graduation</i> party - Kanye invites many onto his new record
Kanye shines at the end of a dark year for hip hop
Kanye West
Graduation
Released on Nov 30, -0001
With an opening track that greets listeners with lyrics like: "Good morning, / Look at all the valedictorians / Scared of the future, while I hop in the DeLorean," Graduation marks the moment in Kanye West's career at which he is decidedly unafraid of his own potential, realized or not. Mr. West's style continues to evolve with his parodically self-proclaimed "Comeback Album," the recent outburst at his Video Music Awards performance a testament to his tendency to "spaz out at his shows".
The Chi-town native's signature sound prevails throughout; synthesizers and laid-back beats played over sped up 70's samples, a hallmark of his earlier days as only a producer. Years of blending braggadocio with self-scrutiny seems to have unleashed the inner critic in Kanye, at once over-the-top and surprisingly sincere.
But with artists as disparate as Steely Dan, Elton John and Daft Punk featured throughout the album, Mr. West seems reliant on his heavy sampling moreso than ever. Perhaps for this reason, cameos on the album often end up getting the better of Kanye.
Lil' Wayne easily upstages Mr. West on "Barry Bonds," a hook-driven shot into space over a sparse, streetsweeper beat. By blending a killer cadence with his freewheeling Louisiana acent, Wheezy makes a point of mispronunciation, hitting hard vowels when soft sounds are called for, addressing his lapses and adding mid-sentence corrections, spouting a stream-of-consciousness verse that makes little to no sense at all, yet proves ridiculously fresh.
"Flashing Lights" sounds awfully like the JT slash Timbaland smash "LoveStoned," without the crucial crescendo and transformative transition from hip hop to futuresex lovesounds, and "Good Life" suffers from T-Pain's recycled, envelope followed hook.
However, the album is full of the unexpected. A first look at the tracklisted "Drunk and Hot Girls" almost inevitably invokes a party-starting anthem along the lines of "The New Workout Plan" or "Golddigger". Instead, industrial effects and distorted vocals echo over an eerily lulling lullaby sample as he pleads with intoxicated bedfellows in drawls to stay awake, in turns tragic and satirical.
On the piano tune and turntable scratched-up "Everything I Am," arguably the best track on the album, Mr. West lays down for the first time in the career of an artist so audibly emphatic about his own talent, real and raw lyrics which exhibit the kind of subtlety absent from hip-hop: "You see how I creeped up / You see how I played a big role in Chicago like Queen Latifah."
Mr. West brings it back to his Dropout days with "Big Brother," an homage to mentor and idol, Jay-Z. The dynastic synth and champagne cymbals are reminiscent of "Last Call," the outro track on the dropout's debut, on which Jay gave an impromptu toast to the rising star.
While Graduation has neither the inventive ambition nor the conceptual connectivity of The College Dropout, and lacks the visionary orchestration and political awareness of Late Registration, Mr. West's latest recording offers a glimpse into one of the most promising minds of postmodern musical composition, like it or not. Welcome back to the future of hip-hop.
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Posted by Diego Baez on Sep 13, 2007 @ 12:00 am