Since last week was the 5 year anniversary of Kanye’s 5th studio album, I want to share a personal story.
2009 was a controversial year. One of the biggest and most-talked about event was the Kanye West and Taylor Swift incident: Kanye ran up on stage and millions around the world watched him act like a fool on the MTV VMAs stage, as he interrupted Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech.
The Internet went crazy.
The media went crazy.
But most importantly, Kanye West went crazy.
He single-handedly ruined his image. All the parents who loved Taylor Swift hated him. All the fanboys and fangirls hated him. It was Kanye West versus the world. He had to get away.
That’s exactly what Kanye did.
Kanye West went on hiatus. But not on a vacation hiatus; Mr. West flew to Honolulu, Hawaii and booked all 3 studio session rooms at Avex Honolulu Studios. The studio was located on Oahu, Hawaii, where Kanye West escaped to record his last album, 808’s and Heartbreak. That was about a year ago. Now, he was on a mission to create another album. But this time, it was a whole new sound and a whole new vision. With new people. His G.O.O.D Music people, with names ranging from Pusha T to Kid Cudi to Nicki Minaj to John Legend to RZA to Bon Iver. Kanye and his peers worked around the clock, as one would find Mr. West power napping in the studio chair and waking up and going right back into the booth. He needed this. The world needed this.
The output of his exile from society was Kanye West’s best album of all time (I’m going to get heat for this, shoot me a message if you want to argue), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I was a naïve 8th grader during that time period, going through an identity crisis and a social crisis. I had no idea of what my future held. But I loved music. I loved Kanye West’s music. I remember waking up every single Friday of those weeks before the official release, waiting patiently on kanyewest.com for Kanye to release a G.O.O.D Friday track. That was his way of promoting the release of his 5th album. I was psyched. The whole world was psyched. People still hated Kanye West, but they were curious to see what he had in store for us.
The album changed my life. It changed my outlook towards music. The album began with Dark Fantasy, track #1. Nicki Minaj’s voice ran through my headphones as she spoke on the intro, and the chorus of “Can we get much higher” began. Then the beat hit and I felt like an urban kid rolling through the streets of southside Chicago. Then Kanye started spitting. “How you say broke in Spanish? Me no hablo” to “You ain’t got no fucking Yeezy nigga?!” was my motto for the whole week. Then Gorgeous came on with Kid Cudi singing the chorus. Kanye rhymes consciously and we get an in-depth look on his mindset towards the industry. “Is hip hop just a euphemism for a new religion? The soul music of the slaves that the youth is missing” to “I need more drinks and less lights. And that American Apparel girl in just tights”. It gave his audience and myself a deeper look into what hip-hop really was. The influence hip-hop has on the American culture is evident; it can almost be considered a religion. Then Kanye gave Raekwon, a Wu-Tang Clan member, the green light to spit an outro verse.
As an 8th grader who had minimal background knowledge of hip-hop and rap culture, this album impacted my experience. As I listened to Power, All of the Lights, Monster, So Appalled, Devil in a New Dress (Rick Ross’s best verse of all time) and Runaway, I was able to see the true talent of so many artists. Kanye put together the verses so perfectly, as he utilized the strong points of each rapper and singer. I look at music differently now. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy gave me a stronger outlook towards the production side of hip-hop and rap music. I’m more conscious of production and editing and the overall background of making music. It’s amazing.
But the most important part of Kanye’s album, to me, was Blame Game. As John Legend sings “Let’s play the game blame for sure. Let’s call her names, names, I hate you, more”, I felt like I could relate so much. I spent so much time of my youth blaming girls for faulty relationships. Things would not work out and my anger and pride would cause a nasty breakup. As Kanye raps “On the bathroom wall I wrote I’d rather argue with you than be with someone else” and rhymes it with “I took a piss and dismiss it like fuck it. And I went and found somebody else”, I was able to see what was going through his head after his breakup. The whole ‘I want you back’ mindset clashes with the ‘I don’t need you there’s plenty of fish in the sea’ mindset. I couldn’t help but say “I feel you bro.” I was always so tied between fixing relationships and moving on from them. I felt strong relation with Blame Game because I knew exactly how Kanye felt. I knew how it those midnight thoughts felt. I knew how the overthinking felt. I knew how the blame game worked. It was one of the first times that I could relate to music on a personal level and that’s what Kanye tried to do. He tried to be conscious and it worked. “Now who to blame, you to blame, me to blame. For the pain and it poured every time when it rained. Let’s play the game.”
Kanye West ended this album with two songs: Lost in the World and Who Will Survive in America? With a Bon Iver sample and a speech from Gil Scott-Heron’s Comment #1, Kanye was able to end his dark and twisted album with two mellow songs that allowed for reflection. “I’m up in the woods. I’m down on my mind”. At the end of his rollercoaster year, Kanye was still lost.
And I felt his confusion. I was lost too. That’s why this album changed my life.
I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know who my real friends were. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I was this confused Asian kid hanging around a bunch of African-American and Dominican kids, trying to save his lunch money and allowance for sneakers. Not much in my life made sense and I felt alone. I thought I was the only one facing this self-identity problem. I wasn’t. Kanye’s album really showed me that all those feelings were common.
As the words ‘Who Will Survive of America?’ began to repeat in the outro of track 13, the final track, it all made sense to me.
I will survive in America.
