Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) [G.O.O.D.] // Grade: A+

The most interesting aspect of Kanye West as a rapper, is his continually evolving narrative. We were introduced to him as the uniquely “other” — a preppy producer turned rapper with a penchant for sped up soul samples and french fashion. Somehow though, through an incredible ear for pop melody, charisma and a nominal amount of skill he was able to endear himself to the masses. He made pop rap that felt genuine while appealing to black nationalist and suburban soccer moms at the same time. Yet, over the last six years Ye has morphed from that prepster rapper into something much more singular and complex. He’s become an improbable proponent of the arts and “emotion.” He’s become both a media villain of the highest order and arguably the most popular rapper of the last five years. All while rocking a giant gold chain featuring a foot tall bust of an Egyptian deity — a rather fitting symbol of the avant-garde meet classicalism he represents.

Musically, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a cumulative product of Kanye’s entire output. A song like “Devil In a New Dress” (produced by Bink) could easily be off of College Dropout – except it’s better than anything on that album. On this song he utilizes the first trick that he was known for – the pitched up soul sample. Where previously he would’ve just let the sample ride over the drums ala “Through the Wire” here he chops it up into unintelligible phonemes. You don’t hear the spoken words of pain in the Smokey Robinson sample, you just hear the crying pain of his tone. He also adds a fair amount of instrumentation and orchestration to the vocal sample to turn it into a remorseful and haunting affair. The orchestration makes the song play out as a more complete composition instead of a looped beat, there’s movement and forward movement throughout the seven minute run time.

In concert, he’s been fattening his older songs with such orchestration since Late Registration, but this album is the first time we’re seeing such full on embellishment on the studio versions. Similarly, “Dark Fantasy” finds Ye rapping over a simple boom bap and twinkling piano loop, yet when you get to the chorus of the song you’re hit in the face with a full on choir exclaiming “can we get much higher?” Which is a funny, because you’re left wondering if the choir is speaking about the theme of the song (realizing your dreams) or if it’s a bit of meta congratulation from Ye to Ye for the fully realized grandiose boom bap.

As an artist, Kanye is really attracted to the idea of class dichotomy. In his early albums it was doing things like having poet Saul Williams and Jay-Z on the same track (I still say Saul murdered Jay on this track). It was the kind of mixing and matching that very superficially shows discerning taste (“son, I got that Black Star album and the new Freeway joint…have you heard of this Jon Brion cat?”). On MBDTF though his class mixing idea plays out in a couple different ways. It’s partially presented in having songs that sample King Crimson (“Power”) or interpolate Black Sabbath (“Hell of a Life”), but that’s a kind of obviously clever route that he’s traveled before (i.e. the Daft Punk and Can samples on Graduation). More interesting thematically, is the orchestrated soul songs. It’s an idea that’s both forward looking and yet reaches back to the days of funk bands having full horn sections. In a way he’s trying to merge high culture signifiers (symphonies) with hip hop. More pervasively though (and new to this album), he’s merging an almost Broadway like theatricality into his music.

“All of the Lights” features a brief overture before launching into the full song. This wouldn’t be anything ground breaking save for the fact that the combined introduction and song play out with all of the soft/loud dynamics and melodic theatrics of a Rodgers and Hammerstein show stopper – and that’s before Elton John shows up with ten of his friends. I want to say the song is overblown, but that denotes a negative connotation… that would say its too much in a bad way. In reality, it’s a lot, it’s beyond “black superhero” music, it’s wide eyes and jazz hands, large sweeping motions…selling each note to the cats way far back in the cheap seats. There’s overactive drum programming, French horns, brooding synth basslines, Liberace flair pianos and delicate synthesized dulcimers. All to make you feel like you opened the floor to ceiling windows of your castle to a countrywide celebration of your birth, replete with fireworks over Versailles.

It’s a level of grandiosity and Vegas style showiness that hip hop hasn’t seen since dudes rocked shiny suits and had wind tunnels with explosions. Unlike Puffy and Ma$e who went Vegas through performance, this song achieves that by forcing an unlikely marriage between burlesque levels of showmanship and hip hop’s implied understated cool. Kanye manages to craft a new entry in his ongoing narrative of hood and haute culture rubbing up against each other. Remember, this song’s lyrics deal with the very pedestrian issues of spousal abuse, baby mama drama and infidelity. It’s the kind of thing that a Tyler Perry from the bizarro universe might produce — assuming that  in the bizarro universe bad things are good, and Perry actually makes good shit.

Lyrically, this album finds Kanye at his strongest and meanest. It’s impossible to divorce art from the context it was made in. Here that context is the Taylor Swift debacle (and more importantly the world’s reaction to it) and the dissolving of the Amber Rose/Kanye relationship.  Both seem to have left dude feeling slighted, but whereas 808s and Heartbreak languished in sorrow, MBDTF finds Kanye striking back at everyone he feels wronged him from the public (“Power”) to Amber Rose herself. The thing to note here, is that while hip hop as a whole is often noted for being misogynistic for its casual use of derogatory terms for women, this album finds Kanye hitting way more hurtful nerves than simply calling his ex lover a “bitch.” He takes aim with the kind of lingering insults that are usually reserved for in home screaming matches during nasty breakups. “Blame Game” is filled with the kind of petty insults (“you should be grateful a nigga like me even noticed you”) and specific details that are only born out of real hurt. It’s both a narrative of a breakup and a snapshot of the moment you decide to bring up the one thing you know will emotionally cripple a former lover. The ugliness of the lyrical content is contrasted by the dancing melody of the piano sample and backed by the sparse drums. That’s what makes the entire thing really gripping – it sounds really pretty, but it’s the height of fucked up human emotions.

There’s much more to discuss on this album: Nicki Minaj’s amazing verse on “Monster,” Pusha T serving as Ma$e to Ye’s Puffy and the four on the floor drive of “Lost In the World” just to name a few of the more immediate ones. But, with an album that’s this dense it’s better to uncover the nuanced and hidden aspect on your own accord. The thing that really separates great albums from good ones is the way great albums force you to consider them in multiple ways. They’re confrontational, refusing to be background music or easily categorized. MBDTF is such an album, that much like the man who created it thrives off of re contextualization and manipulating expectations.

- Behold the Destroyer