Kanye kept a blog at the time that I loved (remember those? A person’s own internet space before Twitter). Most songs focus on cutting self-analysis – good, bad or otherwise – while conveying Ye’s ambivalent attitude towards his growing celebrity and expanding bank balance. These are hooks to raise hell – a hip-hop hooray of Zeppelin breadth and Moroder reverberation.īut despite West broadening his horizons, Graduation retains an intimacy, like a space-age record echoing through Sam Rockwell’s cramped starship in claustophobic sci-fi Moon. Cop the slowed, halting delivery on ‘I Wonder’ (“ I’ve been waiting on this my whole life!”), or the T-Pain-assisted anthem ‘Good Life’. His choruses, more punchy and electrifying. Inspired by the stadium-shaking U2 live shows he had once opened, Ye’s flow throughout is simplified and rhythmic. Can you listen to ‘Stronger’ and not hear the thump and shuffle of alien technology? The glitzy keyboard riff of ‘Flashing Lights’ hits like a hyperdrive shift towards pop’s outer cosmos. These are synthetic songs with an organic pulse – a neon-lit glimpse into a high-tech future of Daft Punk cybernetics and skyscrapers built on synthesizers. It’s a sweeping polyphonic tapestry that drains the quaintness (and the skits) from West’s sound, pushing its creator way into widescreen CinemaScope.ĭo androids dream of electric beats? If Blade Runner’s cyborg seductress Rachael had a heart that beat for hip-hop then Graduation would have been programmed right into her hardwiring. Largely gone is the chipmunk soul of The College Dropoutand baroque pop of Late Registration, replaced by a moonage daydream of synthpop, europop, arena rock, electro-R&B, electronica and the Chicago house music young Ye once swayed to in his hometown clubs. If Kanye’s first two albums are headphones classics then Graduation is all about throwing hands in the air. 50 might once have ruled the streets, but West wanted to rule the world – and he was going to take it over from a synth-powered starship, behind a pair of plastic shutter shades. It was the natural final ascent in an arc that began with an infamous appearance on a Hurricane Katrina benefit and ended on an MTV Music Video Awards stage next to a bemused Taylor Swift. The third volume in his education-themed series (the fourth, A Good Ass Job, will almost certainly never come to be), Graduation was fuel in Ye’s private jumbo jet – the record that took him from the preppy MC who channeled the spirit of his golden age heroes of ’93 to an arena-filling futurist. Graduation solidified that celebrity, and with it came a seismic shift in the hip-hop landscape. West craved the mainstream spotlight his early singles afforded him. He didn’t sprout up from the earth’s crust fully-formed and begin walking the earth in Yeezy Boost 350s. But even the god hasn’t been an ever-present. He’s the international super-villain who declared himself the greatest living rock star on the planet at a festival he was told he’d no business being part of. You know Kanye as the superstar – that tabloid-friendly dignitary who caused social media to eat its own head when he suddenly put Wiz Khalifa between his iPhone crosshairs. But Curtis would never fully recover from the loss – his empire brought down by a bohemian beatmaker-with-a-backpack perfectly primed to make that final step from behind the boards to the stadium stage. The truth is he was battered, beaten and left for dead – nothing to comfort him but a bottomless Hennessey fifth and eternal ounce of dro.ĥ0 was a hip-hop superpower in 2007, his four-year ascent to the summit of pop culture infamy fueled by well-worn gangsta rap tropes and spotless Dr Dre beats. But there would be little reprieve for Jackson. A dozen years after the Blur and Oasis throwdown and America finally had its own heavyweight clash: Ye’s Graduation versus 50 Cent’s Curtis. How the burly-voiced Queens behemoth found himself in a chart battle with Kanye West is something he’ll question long after hanging up his orange headband and bulletproof vest. Don those shutter shades and dive in…Ĭurtis Jackson wept. YEEZY SEASON continues as hip hop knowledge machine Dean Van Nguyen reappraises the oft-maligned but really very good Graduation.
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