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How Kanye makes music


 

Introduction


I have been meaning to start a blog for the longest, and have always put off starting one. I often jot down my thoughts in documents here and there, and I figured a blog would be a great place to collectively amalgamate my thoughts. And so, here it is, a brief fanboyish analysis of one of my favorite artists.


Kanye is one of the most celebrated artists of our generation and for the most part rightfully so. Amidst the various public controversies, it becomes a common practice to demean his artistic works too. His discography, despite his often insane public statements, remains one of the most consistent and versatile amongst almost any major artist of this era.


That feeling like you're the main character while you listen to a song on the bus? Kanye's production and creative design is the epitome of this. Kanye has previously mentioned that he "produces music as if it's a soundtrack to a movie". This quality of Kanye's music gives his music an unrivaled level of cinematic and ethereal feel.


Kanye also loves experimenting with older music to generate new unique derivative experiences. In fact, his incredible sampling abilities lend him a lot of the musical prowess he has.




Whether it's Yeezus' dirty, synth-heavy, distorted sounds to soulful, chipmunk, chords-heavy sounds of The College Dropout; Kanye is undoubtedly an amazing artist with an amazing ear for good music. Now, let's look at one album's track-by-track short analysis I did a few years back.





MBDTF

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an album that will be looked back at by our future generations the same way we look at Led Zeppelin/The Beatles.


Following a self-imposed exile after the infamous VMA incident (where Kanye snatched the mic from Taylor Swift while she was accepting an award), no one heard anything about Kanye or his career for the longest. A guy who had already changed the hip-hop landscape multiple times, who was very vocal in his appearances, disappeared until he finally came back with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. A 13 track masterpiece that runs well over an hour, an album that is a reflection of his personal struggles with fame, ego, power. An album that is a sorry-not-sorry message to everyone who wrote him off. An album with an introspective reflection about himself, and also the listener in general. An album that has some of the most intricate music design choices.


An album which had some unconventional rules behind its production, like how the whole studio was mandated by Kanye to wear suits and follow a rule list which went as follow:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DsnIxbgXcAAz0da?format=jpg&name=large


Before we delve into any of the tracks, it's worth taking a look into the album cover: 


A blurred (because of censorship issues with music labels) painting of an angelic entity making love to a hideous monster, all on a red background. This cover art is surreal/aesthetic enough without having experienced the album and provides significant metaphorical meaning in hindsight when you finish listening to the album.

1.

The album begins with a track labeled Dark Fantasy, a grandly orchestrated return of Kanye which begins with a recital of a famous children’s poem but instead altered to fit the entire topic of fame and its fantasy, you could say a dark fantasy. With memorable lines like:

“The plan was to drink until the pain was over, but what’s worse, the pain or the hangover?”

“At the mall, there was a seance, just kids no parents, the sky filled with herons, I saw the devil in a Chrysler LeBaron, and the hell, it wouldn’t spare us”

A track that readies us for the journey to follow, with serene vocals flowing left-to-right in our ears.


2.

The next track is Gorgeous, where Kanye addresses racial inequality, broken education systems, materialism, young people being incarcerated, and ironically, he calls the country Gorgeous because of it. A track that features a guitar sample in the background, while his own vocals are distorted to sound like a vocoder (and resembling guitars a little bit). Kid Cudi sings the chorus beautifully, Hip-Hop Legend Raekwon finishes the track with an amazing feature. Again, memorable quotes like:


“Penitentiary chances, the devil dances, and eventually answers to the call of autumn”

“Is Hip-Hop just a euphemism for a new religion? The soul music for the slaves that the youth is missing”


3.

The next track aptly titled Power is something that I am sure everyone has heard, it is incredibly popular. A track where Kanye finds himself being non-apologetic for the life he leads, basking his fame even more, acknowledging the power he has, a backhanded apology to everyone. With a very notable sample from King Crimson, and amazing orchestration (According to Kanye, he spent more than 100 hours producing this track alone). A track that is boastful and maximal on the face, but also ends with a subtle, introspective note. The ending has Kanye saying quote:
“I got the power, make your life so exciting” and eventually so exciting starts repeating and fading which ends up sounding like “suicide”. And hence signifying, a metaphorical suicide that will eventually come upon him from his over-indulgence in fame/power and hence tying back to the central theme. 


4-5.

The next 2 tracks, named All of The Lights, is a song featuring artists ranging from Rihanna, Drake to Elton John singing all together in harmony coming together to form a grand culmination of stardom. Lights serve as a metaphor for the lights of paparazzi (and other lights being cop lights, strobe lights, street lights) that face stars like Kanye. 


6-7.

The next 2 tracks, named Monster, and So Appalled are again heavy-weight hip-hop tracks that serve to further the brandishing that Kanye has been indulging in, so far in the album. A packed feature list ranging from Jay-Z to Pusha T and has some very memorable quotes:

“I, I crossed the limelight

And I'll, I'll let God decide

And I, I wouldn't last these shows

So I, I am headed home (Headed home)”

“I went from the favorite to the most hated

But would you rather be underpaid or overrated?” 

“I wear my pride on my sleeve like a bracelet

If God had an iPod, I'd be on his playlist”


8.

If I had to choose one song that I would be forced to listen to on repeat on gunpoint, Devil in a New Dress would be the choice. A track that is so close to musical perfection, and which also is a pivotal track for the album’s narrative. A track filled with magical guitar riffs to its brim. Witty and flirtatious lyrics by Kanye suit the mood of the song really well. The song reaches its climax with a heavenly riff by Mike Dean which leads to Rick Ross giving quite possibly the best verse of his career.

9.

All of a sudden, the theme of the album changes drastically, we are presented with a very memorable piano melody directly contrasting the sounds we had heard till now. Runaway is a track filled with introspective lyrics with Kanye acknowledging the effect his emotionally detached being brings. He acknowledges his debauchery, his over-indulgence and for the first time, the negative effect it brings upon him and his relationships with people. Pusha T comes and speaks from the perspective of a disoriented Kanye who instead of choosing to acknowledge the damage his behavior has done, decides to indulge even more in materialism knowing well that it would cause harm, and hence his bragging looks very hollow and repulsive. A track in which after the 5:47 mark, which would be the end of any normal song (and a grand end considering how the track was extremely captivating till now), Kanye decides to push himself even further, he introduces a counter-melody which is laid with his vocals, except this time it’s passed through a vocoder which makes it barely intelligible. Yet, it keeps going on for 3 minutes without breaking the magic. The ending could signify and mean a lot of things but my perspective of it is it signifies his voice not being heard by people, and people not trying hard enough to understand what he has to say.


The album ends with him finding peace being lost in a world with lights surrounding him, as long as he has his partner with him. A truly poetic experience.


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