This Is a God Dream: The Return of Kanye West and Still Grimey

LaGreezy just shot an amateur video he think he should go pro.

Well, it's here. Kanye West has dropped a new album, that after much debate, ended up being titled The Life of Pablo. But you already knew that,which is why you're here. Apparently in doing so, he got me in the mood to put fingers to keyboards to do something other than get off these fire tweets. But before I begin my ramblings, I'd like to qualify this very rare outburst of written word that extends beyond the confines of 140 characters or less: As a practice for any "event" piece of artwork, I typically try to give myself some time to sit with it prior to jumping into the hot take onslaught of our mass-musical consumption. I've also had a decent amount of people hit me up for my opinion on this record in the last, like, 48 hours, or whatever, so I thought this would be an appropriate discursive avenue to pursue. What you about to witness is my thoughts. Just my thoughts, man. Right or wrong, just what I was feeling at the time.

Anyway, please find your way to the jump(!!! blogspot back!!) for my current reading of Kanye West's very dope, if oft-confused, The Life of Pablo:



Off the rip, I think TLOP is remarkable on myriad levels. It is certainly his most sonically interesting, and at times most sonically beautiful album. Many of the samples are something that have never been heard in "urban contemporary" music before, yet they sound distinctly Kanye. It is also his most challenging album. Far more so than Yeezus ever was. Take for example the 'Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1' and 'Pt.2' tracks. They seemingly operate as a microcosm of the whole album: chalk full of emotionally charged, moving samples that sound almost dystopian, and book end some of the worst rapping of his career (pervasive throughout the album), which is laden with fairly deplorable scumbaggery on the bars. But then here he is, getting the best out of whoever tf this bootleg Future dude named Desiigner is, and then all of a sudden you're immersed in the most beautiful 30 seconds of the whole album at the end of 'Pt. 2'. It's actually quite reminiscent of the last 90 seconds or so of "New Slaves", in which the beat flips from abrasive to beautiful, and Kanye vodocoder-croons his way to and through your heart. That was my favorite musical moment of 2013.

I mean fuck, this is likely the first time since Drag-on dropped The Opposite of H20 that I legitimately enjoying hearing Swizz Beatz yell all his normal Swizz Beatz stuff on the track for "Famous", which also has it's own moment of own unbridled beauty when Swizzy freaks the Sister Nancy "Bam Bam" joint at the tail end of this song. I mean dog, come the fuck on, can you believe this man got me to write something positive about a Swizz Beatz ad-lib in 2016?!

The album, as a whole, stands on it's own as a man apart. We find Kanye torn. Half of the album sounds like it's a gospel song, and the other half is decidedly reveling in his post-Yeezus sound. While I don't want to analyze this album like it's a Salinger text, it's hard to not read this as him being conflicted man/husband/father, and knowing that he wants to be a man of God, but also cannot for the life of him give up his own self-deification. I know everybody (ya mans included) thought that Yeezus was sort of his fond farewell to his night time dalliances, and "Bound 2" was him riding off into the sunset of a happy family. "Only one" definitely compounded this line of thought. However, this album shows more of Kanye being mostly a despicable person, which isn't to say that I don't still stan for him whenever I get the chance (I know I know, the Bill Cosby thing, fuck- that was so terrible.)

For all of his grandstanding, gesturing, and bullshitting, this could certainly be his most vulnerable, interesting, and confused career point. I mean, yo, look at the titles of the songs, and listen to their sequencing. They look like names of playlists you made when you were completely wrecked in your freshman dorm room, and were organized by somebody equally tossed who was just trying to get songs into the playlist before the party, sequencing be damned. And shit, for all we know, he might could have been that turnt. Lest we all forget that he once had too much Henny and "made that bitch famous".

All of this included, and I still cannot stop listening to this record. I'm not yet sure if it will live in the same stratosphere as all of the other's leading up to this, but god damn it I love it. I mean if for nothing else, you gotta adore something that gave us "Ultralight Beam", which I haven't really been able to fit in anywhere but here, and let me tell you, it is fucking perfect. Honestly, in some perverse way, the whole album and it's scattered greatness, occasional turd (which is still interesting), and seemingly hurried creation, is pretty perfect for how Kanye is received by the media, the internets, me, and probably you. I know this is fairly scattered, but evidently that's how things go when you make them for yourself these days.

Anyway, thank you for sticking this out with me. I know it wasn't pretty. I'm not going to say I'm going to ever do this again, but it was a great exercise. Special shout out to Christine Dong for telling me I should start writing again like a year ago. As a form of appreciation I will offer you my definitive power rankings of my top 5 tracks of TLOP - which are subject to change by the time you read this:

1.  Ultralight Beem - song is perfect
2. Waves - this song sounds like you off a pill in the club doing the cabbage patch and running man a the same damn time. I love this song so much. It is also pretty damn near perfect. Prolly closer to a 1a than 2.
3. 30 Hours - That sleepy sample just do something to me. Also just super humanizing 'ye song.
4. Real Friends - Those drums. Like god damn. Did they distort the "Grindin'" drums? They are so fantastic. And Ty $ on the track is always good money
5. Wolves - a fascinating song that is even more interesting when you contrast it with the SNL 40 premier and speculate as to what happened to have landed on this version.

honorable mention (no particular order):

• I Love Kanye - dog, this song hilarious
• Highlights - Thugger!
• No More Parties in LA - the back and forth with King Kendrick Duckworth Lamar over a Madlib produced beat is certainly nothing to fuck with god damn god damn.
• Father Stretch My Hands Pt.1/Pt. 2 - the samples, fam, the fucking samples sound like something idek how to qualify.