Kanye West - Graduation - Music (original) (raw)
Advertisement
CD Review
The Ego Sessions: Will Success Spoil Kanye West?
- Sept. 5, 2007
Here’s a concept: starcissism, a pop star’s mixture of self-love, self-promotion, self-absorption and self-awareness. It’s the core of Kanye West’s third album, “Graduation” (Roc-A-Fella), due for release on Tuesday, and yes, he has earned it. But it’s also a letdown.
By any measure, Mr. West is a success: a multimillion-selling rapper, a Grammy winner, a surefire producer of hits and enough of a public figure to get national attention when he declared, on a televised Hurricane Katrina relief benefit, that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” As his songs announce, he was an underdog who had to overcome the hip-hop assumption that producers can’t rap. His delivery — crisp and conversational with a pugnacious undertone — turned out to be not merely adequate but instantly recognizable.
Mr. West is smart, forthright, thoroughly musical and nobody’s fool. On his previous albums, songs like “Jesus Walks” and “Crack Music” connected his own story to wider perspectives: community pride, thoughts of family, questions of purpose and accountability. But now that he’s “major” (as he exulted on his 2005 album “Late Registration”), with a worldwide audience awaiting his album, Mr. West’s horizons are shrinking. This time it’s all about him. He knows it; as the album begins, he calls himself “Mr. Fresh, Mr. ... by his self he’s so impressed.”
On “Graduation,” Mr. West admits that his ego has reached giant proportions. In “Barry Bonds,” in which he compares himself to a different kind of hitmaker, he rhymes, “I’m high up on the line you can get behind me/But my head so big you can’t sit behind me.”
Of course, boasting is the core of hip-hop. No pop style has been so openly fixated on material success. Older genres courted popularity (and wealth) with songs about common experiences and fantasies: love, anger, sorrow, fun. Hip-hop, born in the ghetto, started with competitive boasts and fantasies of dominance and success, back in the days when nothing more than a pair of Adidas could be a status symbol for Run-DMC.
Then came boasts about lives of crime, as thrillers, survival stories and parables of entrepreneurship. As rap grew more popular and more self-referential, rampant individualism became the rule for entire schools of hip-hop. Rappers separated themselves from one another and from their audiences, flaunting their V.I.P. privileges and jewelry collections. They offered their audiences fantasies of stardom and pleasure, to be viewed from the other side of a velvet rope.
Mr. West does his own share of conspicuous consumption. He long ago named himself “the Louis Vuitton don,” and in “Good Morning,” the first song on “Graduation,” he dares to parody a hallowed phrase in African-American culture when he raps, “I’m like the fly Malcolm X, buy any jeans necessary.” In Mr. West’s older songs, like “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix),” he questioned his need for bling. Now he’s more likely just to flaunt it.
At times, he’s still self-conscious. In “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” Mr. West watches his behavior as a celebrity:
Image
The rapper Kanye West, who has a new album, “Graduation,” on which he narrows his focus to himself.Credit...Leon Neal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
I feel the pressure, under more scrutiny
And what I do? Act more stupidly.
Bought more jewelry, more Louis V
My momma couldn’t get through to me.
But eventually, he decides there’s no need to hold back. “Let that Champagne splash, let that man get cash.”
As his own producer, Mr. West maintains quality control to rival any of the luxury brands he name-drops. Somehow his productions build momentum even when they revolve around a handful of repeated samples. Nearly every song on “Graduation” is memorable for both its hooks and its overall sound.
Mr. West can get Chris Martin of Coldplay to sing the hook on “Homecoming.” He can afford a Steely Dan sample on “Champion.” He has guest appearances from T-Pain, providing a filtered-voice hook on “Good Life,” and from Lil Wayne, free-associating on “Barry Bonds.”
While Mr. West is inordinately fond of soft rock — which helps him reach an audience that shies away from the brittle, freeze-dried productions of hard-core hip-hop — he is also savvy enough to latch on to a hard-nosed electronic hook from Daft Punk in “Stronger,” where he tells a girl, “I’ve been on ya/Since Prince was on Apollonia /Since O. J. had Isotoners.”
“Graduation” has some clever rhymes and some honesty. There are plenty of Mr. West’s latest career reflections, from a half-apology for his tacky outfit on the Grammys to an entire song, “Big Brother,” about his respect for and rivalry with Jay-Z.
But two things are missing from “Graduation.” One is the sense of humor that crackled through songs like Mr. West’s 2005 hit “Gold Digger.” (This album’s tale of a pickup, “Drunk and Hot Girls,” has a pulsating sample from the German rock minimalists Can, but little flair in its lyrics.)
The bigger problem is that on “Graduation,” for the first time, Mr. West can’t see beyond his own fame. “Homecoming” takes lyrics from “Home,” a song Mr. West released on a mixtape. In “Home,” John Legend sang about soldiers who weren’t coming home, while “Homecoming” chides Chicago, his hometown, for not being quite proud enough of his Mr. West’s success.
Every rapper needs a strong ego, and Mr. West deserves his. But where he used to identify with everyday dreamers and strivers, now he seems happy to stay in his V.I.P. zone: all dressed up and behind that velvet rope.
Advertisement