This past Valentine's Day weekend, Kanye West finally released his long awaited album, "The Life of Pablo." He blessed us with this magic just in time to sing the hymn like "Ultralight Beam" to that special someone or extremely loud alone in your room. This album title has been changed at least three times; from "Swish," to "So Help me God," to "Wavy." The final title that stuck was "The Life of Pablo," and I am glad it did. According to Mr. West, the title is a reference to the biblical figure, St. Paul. The original release date was February 11, 2016 but it was delayed because of one of the collaborating artists on the album, Chance the Rapper. He supposedly delayed to get the song waves back on the album after Kanye had decided to move on without it. The result is a very well put together album with extremely interesting sounds. It is not clear to me or really to anyone where this album will stand up to the best of his work like "College Dropout" and "Graduation."
Some of the best work on this album was done by fellow Chicagoan artist, Chance the Rapper. His verse on "Ultralight Beam" has many saying it is the best song on the album. This is an album with the likes of Chris Brown, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, and Rihanna. This speaks volumes for the independent rapper from Chicago and cements his place in current pop culture. Another up and coming artist that gained leverage from his spot on "The Life of Pablo" was Post Malone. His popular song "White Iverson" is played everywhere, and the 20 year old Texan is blowing up because of it. Most people don't know about his similar sounding lesser known song called "Too Young." It is another ballad with a synthetic beat and poignant lyrics. He was featured on "Fade" in "TLOP" and does an excellent job singing over the faster beat with Kanye.
The album overall is a mixed bag of all of your favorite Kanye West sounds. It has the new age synthetic tones that were popular in "Yeezus" and all fans of Hip-Hop. Regardless of what you think of Kanye West, he is a musical genius and he had the help of a countless number of excellent producers to make this album, so why not give it a listen? This album is only available through Tidal as of right now but it will become available to Spotify and Apple Music soon enough.
