For Those Who Haven’t Heard Kanye West’s New Album

Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy sold over 2 million in its first week, and in the US it topped the charts of Billboard’s 200 list, Rap list, and R&B/Hip-hop list. It goes to show no Matt Lauer interview will run him down, he is a pure musician.

After I bought the album I listened to it for a week straight. I cried watching Runaway, his extensive music video featuring several of the songs on the album.

Kanye West is unique. He’s not one of the typical mainstream artists who whip up a catchy phrase and repeat it 30 times as an excuse for a song. According to musicifi.com, it took West a year to record the new album, and we can see that the work was well worth it. You know it’s a good song when it repeatedly brings out emotions inside you. And the emotions come from two sources: first, his raps can really speak to anyone who has been in his situation, anyone who has spoken his or her mind and been punished for it. Second, the musical properties are amazing. Either way, if you could only listen to the music or the rap, you would still be just as moved.

Even for his least respected songs, he has dedicated more time and effort than many artists have put into their work. Kanye took some embarrassment for his song Stronger, which wasn’t so much a rap as a pop song, but he still backed it up in his interviews proudly because he worked over three months to give it the effect he wanted for his audience.

He isn’t going to make a generic song just because it fits into the category of rap or hip-hop. He’s going to be true to his own tastes, and that is why his new album is so successful. As a student of classical music, I feel that Kanye West is similar to Brahms or J.S. Bach. People like him are truly keeping music alive.