Ye. Yeezy. Yeezus. The Louis Vuitton Don. Konman. Whatever you want to call him, Kanye West has built a massive empire from the ground up. He began as a ghost writer, producing hits for some smaller recording artists, but didn't get a big break until 2000, when we began producing for Roc-A-Fella Records. Even through his success producing, Kanye still had dreams of entering the hip hop world as a rapper. He lacked street credibility, but finally broke into the scene when he literally broke his jaw during a serious car crash. That's when he got inspired, and dropped his mixtape "Get Well Soon," which contained the infamous track "Through the Wire," where he rapped an entire song with his jaw wired shut. That's right; Kanye West rapped one of my favorite songs of all time without even opening his mouth. Dude is a genius.
I've been bumping Kanye West since back in '09, when a party favor bag for my friends' ninth birthday included a mix CD with the track "The New Workout Plan." Since then, Kanye has evolved and seriously proven his lyrical excellency. We haven't heard from Yeezy in a while, I assume it's because he has settled down and married one of the most famous women in the world, Kim Kardashian, and had two kids. While he's been doing the daddy thing, we've all been waiting around for new music to drop. It seems the time has finally come though, since he's announced the name and release date of his new album "Swish" with this tweet.
So, what can we expect from this album? Well, I'm not really sure, and it looks like Kanye wasn't for a while either. West expressed that he had so many songs, and was having difficulty setting the track list for the album. Despite his inability to make a quick decision and the album being pushed back months and months, Kanye has released one track from the album, "Real Friends." as well as a snippet from a song called "No More Parties in LA."
These songs are good, but I'm hoping it's just a taste of what's to come. So far, I see this album falling in between the "808s and Heartbreak" and "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" albums in terms of sound. I'm hoping it strays far away from "Yeezus," because that album didn't really do much for me. I think we can definitely expect to see some really great features from Pusha T, Lupe Fiasco, and Paul McCartney. I see him spitting really lyrically-rich verses, then transitioning to a more mellow, singing track based on what he's done in the past. We're probably going to hear a lot about his new family and his wife; let's just hope Kim didn't lay a finger on this album. Here's to hoping "Swish" lives up to the hype and re-amps the hip-hop game for 2016.
