Kanye West
808s & Heartbreak (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam)
Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreaks (Roc-A-Fella) should not receive any praise because it’s different. Rappers-turned-singers have been here before. Lauryn Hill's Unplugged and Andre 3000's The Love Below come to mind. But unlike some MCs who turn to crooning after growing bored with hip hop, Kanye is not engaged in a narcissistic exercise of different for difference’s sake. What makes 808s & Heartbreak worthy of adulation and applause is that it’s made by an artist who carries with him no other agenda but to make him and those who listen to him feel something.
808s & Heartbreak is Kanye using music as a cathartic exercise – the work of a man not just trying to get something off his chest, but also trying to push something through it.
Not many artists start an album off with a ballad, but Kanye does with the melancholy “Say You Will”. And when Kanye isn’t sad, he’s really pissed off as demonstrated by “See You In My Nightmares”, featuring Lil Wayne. Over rich synthesizers that are locked into pounds of bass drums Kanye and Weezy screech and howl through their Auto-Tune machines about women who’ve done them wrong. It’s what Doomsday might sound like.
Subject wise, Kanye abandons the themes he has rapped about on previous albums. 808s has no songs about chasing stardom's flashing lights while remaining socially conscious. This album is largely about the loss of his mother (the most important woman in his life), and another lost love (or is it loves?), who remains nameless throughout. “Street Lights” is beautiful, balls-to-the-wall emo pop about the journey to peace of mind, and “Welcome To Heartbreak” is a dark and heavy realization that material things are now meaningless. And while most of the album sounds like a fight for the middle ground between these two songs, there are moments when Kanye attempts to conjure the old Yeezy.
The clunky piano punches and throbbing bass line of second single, “Heartless” are the sound bed to the best rap break up song since Big Brother’s 2001 “Song Cry.” But the album’s true triumph is “Amazing” featuring Young Jeezy. With drums reminiscent of HBCU marching bands and haunting chants, Kanye bridges the gap between his love for pop and hip hop, while keeping his musical integrity intact. A moment so good, even Jeezy has to give his boy props when he rhymes on a brief, but memorable verse, “They like, ‘Oh God, why he go so hard’/look what he’s been through/he deserves an applause”.
What’s both sad and incredible about 808s & Heartbreak is that Kanye’s fourth album veers from his previous three album not only in sound, but in conception, too. Kanye has said his fourth album would be titled Good Ass Job, adhering to the school and career theme of The College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation. But in 2008 Kanye struggled through tragedy so great that it forced him to go left. And ironically, at his darkest hour, Kanye has created his greatest album to date. Good ass job, indeed.
808s & Heartbreak hit stores 11.24.08
Track Listing for 808s & Heartbreak1. Say You Will
2. Welcome To Heartbreak (feat. Kid Cudi)
3. Heartless
4. Amazing (feat. Young Jeezy)
5. Love Lockdown
6. Paranoid (feat. Mr. Hudson)
7. RoboCop
8. Street Lights
9. Bad News
10. See You In My Nightmares (feat. Lil Wayne)
11. Coldest Winter
12. Pinocchio Story (Freestyle Live from Singapore)
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