Label: Rock-A-Fella/Def JamRating: 4 Guns
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Written By: White Chicks On Rap
Kanye knows heartbreak…in the past year he lost his mother and broke up with his fiancé. Kanye’s forth album is his deepest yet…gone are days of the swagger, boasting about Louis Vuittons and his legendary status...now Kanye talks about loss and how material wealth does not equate to happiness.
The songs are sung in a cold robotic voice set against dark synth beats. Not typical for Kanye or any rap album.
The grief and loneness are so present in each song it is like a window into Kanye’s soul. In listening to the album it is like a therapy session…a man so broken, trying to rebuild his life.
Key tracks and lyrics are “Love Lockdown” (“I can't keep myself and still keep you too”), Pinocchio Story- a six minute freestyle track recorded live in Singapore (“There is no Gucci I could buy/There is no Louis Vuitton I could put on to get my heart out of this hell"), “Heartless” ("The coldest story ever told/Somewhere far along this road he lost his soul/How could you be so heartless"), “Welcome To Heartbreak” ( “My friend showed me pictures of his kids/And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs").
Personally, I believe this is Kanye’s best album because I can see him as a human instead of the image, instead of the swagger.
Like Kanye? You might like: Jay-Z, Q-Tip, Lupe Fiasco
