Famed eccentric Producer/Rapper Kanye West needs no introduction. Everyone has an opinion on the man, positive or negative, but I think a lot of people ignore the work he’s put into arranging and composing his albums. For an individual so immersed in the mainstream, Kanye is incredibly conceptual. With My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, he came into his own and made music that told his story in a way that could only be told by him. The Life of Pablo is like MBDTF on steroids. The feature list on here is enough to turn heads, including contributions from Kid Cudi, Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, Rick Rubin, Young Thug, Madlib, and many others. Musically, the songs are mostly erratic, featuring a strong mix of different styles of rap and R&B. The beats range from ethereal and dreamy, like on “Real Friends and Wolves,” to aggressive and jarring, like on “Feedback and Facts.” I would be doing Kanye a disservice if I didn’t mention the hype behind this thing. His twitter exploded with bizarre, cryptic messages, the release date changed daily, and the track list changed countless times. The marketing for this reflects the music perfectly: erratic, unpredictable and polarizing. Love him or hate him, I’d say this is probably the most ambitious mainstream release since before the birth of New Wave.
Knut Gliddi is an Apollos editor, read his bio here!